Videorc is an open-source, AI-native desktop studio for creators: record your screen and camera, stream to multiple platforms at once, and walk away with a transcript, titles, chapters, and a ready-to-paste publish pack — all from one window.
Current release tracks
- macOS Beta → — macOS 13+, Apple Silicon. Signed and notarized beta builds are the current public desktop release.
- Windows Alpha guide → — Windows 11 x64 only. A Windows installer is published only after the signed candidate, clean-machine, malware-scan, update, uninstall, and real-device acceptance gates pass. A CI artifact or unsigned local package is not a public alpha.
Both tracks are pre-release software. Expect fast-moving releases, rough edges, and occasional recording or streaming bugs while the app is being hardened.
Most capture tools make you choose between "simple but shallow" and "powerful but a cockpit". Videorc aims for the third option: a studio that is genuinely simple to run — pick a scene, hit record — while the heavy lifting (a native capture engine, multi-platform streaming, live captions, post-recording AI) happens underneath.
- Scenes, not knobs. Screen + camera, screen only, camera only, or side-by-side splits — with draggable camera placement, corner snapping, shapes, and framing controls.
- Backgrounds with taste. Bring your own wallpaper (PNG/WebP/JPEG), tune its visibility with one slider, or remove it for a full-bleed recording.
- Record and stream in one pipeline. Local MKV recording (with automatic MP4 remux), RTMP streaming, or both from a single encode — including simulcast fan-out to multiple destinations with per-target health status.
- Live captions. Streaming speech-to-text (~1s latency) with optional caption burn-in on the stream, the recording, both, or neither.
- Post-recording AI. Transcript, title/description suggestions, summaries, chapters, highlights, and an exportable publish pack — explicit-consent, post-recording only.
- Platform-aware preview. macOS uses a detached native CAMetalLayer preview. Windows Alpha currently uses the documented uncompressed, latest-wins Electron proof surface; it must not be described as CAMetalLayer or as final native parity.
- Gated auto-updates. Signed, notarized macOS Beta builds update in place. Windows updating is a release-candidate gate and is enabled only for an accepted, signed Alpha feed.
- Electron + React desktop shell (TypeScript, shadcn/ui) for the studio UI.
- Rust backend owns capture, composition, recording, and streaming; the shell talks to it over an authenticated localhost WebSocket protocol.
- FFmpeg (an LGPL-compliant build, bundled) drives encoding and output.
- SQLite local session library — your recordings and AI artifacts stay on your machine.
The desktop app — capture, scenes, recording, streaming, captions UI — is free software under AGPL-3.0. You can build it, run it, and audit every line that touches your camera, microphone, and screen.
Cloud AI features (transcription, titles, chapters, highlights) run through a signed-in Videorc account: the desktop app never holds AI provider keys, and nothing is uploaded without explicit per-session consent. Local audio extraction works without any account. Hosted AI is what funds the project.
Prerequisites: Node.js 24.x and Rust stable (rustup). macOS source development
uses FFmpeg on PATH; Windows development fetches the pinned LGPL bundle with
pnpm ffmpeg:fetch:windows. The checked-in .node-version, engines, and
packageManager fields keep local tools aligned with CI; Corepack installs the
pinned pnpm 11.
corepack enable
corepack install
pnpm install
pnpm devThe app launches the Rust backend automatically. On macOS, recordings default
to ~/Movies/Videorc/Recordings and session metadata lives in
~/Library/Application Support/Videorc/videorc.sqlite3; Windows uses its native
user data and Videos locations.
Developing on Windows? See docs/windows-dev-loop.md for setup, the version-floor escape hatch, and the fast verify loop.
To produce a local unsigned macOS app bundle:
pnpm ffmpeg:build:macos # build or reuse the bundled LGPL FFmpeg
pnpm package:desktopSee docs/distribution.md for signing, notarization, and FFmpeg distribution details.
AGENTS.md is the contributor guide: verification gates, recording and native-preview rules, and repo conventions. The short loop:
pnpm typecheck
pnpm build
pnpm smoke:dev # records a test-pattern MKV per layout preset — no permissions needed
cargo fmt --check
cargo test
cargo clippy -- -D warningsThe full non-packaged acceptance gate (what CI runs) is:
pnpm smoke:local-gatesNotable smokes: pnpm smoke:multistream proves simulcast fan-out end to end
against local RTMP listeners (including the offline-destination failure
guarantee), and pnpm smoke:packaged exercises a packaged build. None of the
default cross-platform smokes require camera, microphone, or screen permissions.
The Windows installer lane additionally runs pnpm smoke:windows-native-screen
against DXGI (gdigrab fallback) and keeps the packaged proof preview live during
a real ScreenOnly recording.
Videorc's macOS track is in Beta and its gated Windows track is in Alpha. Bug reports with reproduction steps are very welcome; Windows testers should use the privacy-safe Windows Alpha issue form and never attach credentials, recordings, or an unverified support bundle to a public issue. For larger changes, please open an issue first so we can agree on the shape before you invest in a PR. Read AGENTS.md before touching recording or native-preview code — those areas have non-negotiable verification gates.
Code: AGPL-3.0. Brand: the Videorc name, logo, and app icon are not part of the code license — see TRADEMARK.md before distributing a modified build. The bundled FFmpeg is built LGPL-compliant; see docs/distribution.md for third-party licensing notes.