Answers.Body: <p>Alternatively, pipe your screen output to a second computer to record, using a device like a Blackmagic Intensity. It supports capturing to a totally uncompressed format (make sure you have an SSD or a RAID setup to record as the bitrate is very high). </p>
  
  <p>So the computer you're doing the work on should have dual monitor output - mirror the display so one output goes to your monitor, the other to a PC with a BlackMagic PCIe (or USB 3.0) card in it, that records the output. Use DVI/HDMI, not VGA.</p>
  
  <p>Note, the Intensity only supports video-type resolutions, so a res like 1024x768 or 1024x1024, etc. is no good - 480p, 720p, 1080p, etc. are what you'll need to mirror your display at (21" 1080p LCDs are $99 now anyways). </p>
  
  <p>Then you can edit &amp; compress the raw video any way you like.</p>
  
Answers.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 3.0
Answers.CreationDate: 2013-07-10T00:21:10.247Z
Answers.Text: Hehe, I thinkt this is way overkill but +1 for the answer. I need something quick which I can use when I have developed feature the make a screen cast.
Answers.UserDisplayName: halirutan
Answers.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 3.0
Answers.CreationDate: 2013-07-09T23:14:00.280Z
Answers.LastActivityDate: 2013-07-09T23:14:00.280Z
Answers.UserDisplayName: Anthony Agius
Answers.Body: <p>On OS X, seems like <a href="http://www.telestream.net/screenflow/overview.htm" rel="nofollow noreferrer">ScreenFlow</a> can record in lossless (not by default, but this can be enabled in settings). Unfortunately, this application is not free. Still looking for free alternatives…</p>
  <h2>Important update!</h2>
  <p>This applies only to Screenflow 4.5.3 (and maybe some earlier versions). <strong>In Screenflow 5 this feature is gone.</strong> They advertise like they can do lossless recording, but this is a blatant lie: the &quot;lossless&quot; mode is using Apple ProRes, which is not lossless (and I tested the output, it indeed has artifacts), and there's no way to select some other codec (in Screenflow 4.5.3 the lossless mode is achieved by using &quot;Animation&quot; codec, which is <code>qtrle</code>, in Screenflow 5 there's no way to do this)</p>
  <p>So… good bye, sweet prince.</p>
  <h2>Update 2</h2>
  <p><a href="https://trac.ffmpeg.org/wiki/Capture/Desktop" rel="nofollow noreferrer">ffmpeg</a> also can record the screen, if you learn how to use it properly.</p>
  
Answers.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 3.0
Answers.CreationDate: 2015-08-23T11:51:10.720Z
Answers.Text: Btw, I bought ScreenFlow back when you posted you answer. Even if I'm not using it for creating the small animated gifs this question targeted, it is still a very nice screen-caster that has a lot of nice features.
Answers.UserDisplayName: halirutan
Answers.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 3.0
Answers.CreationDate: 2017-06-17T08:44:48.660Z
Answers.Text: ^ btw, one can choose only one from "gif" and "small". gif is a very inefficient compression.
Answers.UserDisplayName: Display Name
Answers.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 4.0
Answers.CreationDate: 2019-12-06T15:52:19.113Z
Answers.Text: I would use Screenflow for this.  I've got version 8, and it exports ProRes 4444 at 100% size, which is effectively lossless for most purposes.
Answers.UserDisplayName: tomh
Answers.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 4.0
Answers.CreationDate: 2019-12-07T12:37:03.183Z
Answers.Text: well, it's not really lossless, and the question is about lossless only
Answers.UserDisplayName: Display Name
Answers.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 3.0
Answers.CreationDate: 2014-11-11T05:35:56.063Z
Answers.LastActivityDate: 2018-04-29T07:52:56.677Z
Answers.LastEditDate: 2020-06-17T09:53:03.607Z
Answers.UserDisplayName: Display Name
Answers.Body: <p>I had very similar requirements and eventually found on <a href="https://www.peakstep.com/claquette/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">Claquette</a>.<br>
  It's an OS X app that uses a lossless codec. While it doesn't allow you to define a screen area <em>before</em> recording, it has a crop feature that allows you to select a region after the recording is finished. Audio can also be turned off. Movies can be exported in various formats (including h.264, ProRes and Animated GIF).</p>
  
Answers.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 3.0
Answers.CreationDate: 2017-05-16T01:25:17.317Z
Answers.Text: Seems like a good little program. Currently, I'm doing my small gifs with Kazam which comes with Ubuntu. Then I'm using a small script built from the accepted answer to create small and high-quality gifs. +1
Answers.UserDisplayName: halirutan
Answers.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 3.0
Answers.CreationDate: 2017-05-15T21:36:14.657Z
Answers.LastActivityDate: 2017-05-15T21:36:14.657Z
Answers.UserDisplayName: Jermiajab
Answers.Body: <p>Here's a non-command-line option.</p>
  
  <p>Try Collaaj (<a href="http://collaaj.com" rel="nofollow">http://collaaj.com</a>). Works on PC &amp; Mac. It doesn't work on Ubuntu, but since you mentioned you have OSX, this should work just fine. I think it should do what you asked for and more. Such as region selection, selecting inputs etc.., and it also lets you upload and maintain your recordings on collaaj.com for anytime access. They have a nice set of videos here - <a href="http://collaaj.com/videos" rel="nofollow">http://collaaj.com/videos</a></p>
  
Answers.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 3.0
Answers.CreationDate: 2013-07-10T00:17:31.513Z
Answers.Text: Can you really record the windows of your screen with this tool? I only saw that they scroll through powerpoint or pdf files. Furthermore, I need to extract the frames of the video, which means I need to be able to store the videos locally. It seems this tools uploads it directly to share it, right?
Answers.UserDisplayName: halirutan
Answers.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 3.0
Answers.CreationDate: 2013-07-18T23:49:31.467Z
Answers.Text: Halirutan, 1. yes, on PC & Mac, you can record entire screen. You can even change settings between 720P and 1080P, you can also do screen+camera at the same time.
Answers.UserDisplayName: Video Junkie
Answers.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 3.0
Answers.CreationDate: 2013-07-18T23:50:39.223Z
Answers.Text: Halirutan, regarding your second question, Collaaj stores videos locally in mp4 format, in addition to giving you an option to upload to the cloud and share as a URL. Its very comprehensive.
Answers.UserDisplayName: Video Junkie
Answers.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 3.0
Answers.CreationDate: 2013-07-18T23:57:18.457Z
Answers.Text: This video explains clearly - https://collaaj.com/9rE17cT
Answers.UserDisplayName: Video Junkie
Answers.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 3.0
Answers.CreationDate: 2013-07-08T17:47:38.650Z
Answers.LastActivityDate: 2013-07-08T17:47:38.650Z
Answers.UserDisplayName: Video Junkie
Answers.Body: <p>Please excuse my tardiness to the party, this is something that I've been working with as of late <em>lossless screen recording</em></p>
  
  <p>Originally I was using OBS to record my screen throughout the year <em>2019</em> primarily for uploading screen recordings / cast to youtube, however I've recently began experimenting using ffmpeg to record my screen and mic <em>have not tested recording desktop audio</em> yet.</p>
  
  <p>I started with vanilla ffmpeg settings for recording my screen, but the stock GOP setting of the recording makes it utterly painful when editing the recording in a NLE / NLA editor such as <a href="https://github.com/mltframework/shotcut" rel="nofollow noreferrer">shotcut</a> so I went back and reread the screen <a href="https://trac.ffmpeg.org/wiki/Capture/Desktop#lossless-recording" rel="nofollow noreferrer">capture doc</a> on the ffmpeg wiki, and noticed that screen recordings can be captured lossless using the x264 codec as long as <code>-crf 0</code> the <strong>crf</strong> is set to <strong>0</strong> which I believe means ffmpeg will use the x264 codec will not apply any lossy compression to the recording.  Also the wiki suggests using <code>-preset ultrafast</code> in conjunction with the <code>-crf 0</code> setting of the ffmpeg command.  I experimented with these settings last night and the picture quality / file size is great.</p>
  
  <p>I recorded my screen <em>4K</em> 3840 x 2160 monitor at 30 fps and the bitrate was totally manageable, ie. I don't think it ever went above 10MB/sec, and a one minute recording was ~ 48MB, which is totally acceptable file size for archiving recordings.</p>
  
  <h3>Caveats</h3>
  
  <ul>
  <li>obviously if you do not prefer using a command line then this will probably not be for you, as I've found relying a GUI to interface with ffmpeg is not a viable thing as most GUIs I experimented with are outdated.</li>
  <li>also, presently I have issues with recording audio <em>mic</em> and screen at the same time under a single ffmpeg process / command, so I have to split the command into two separate commands / processed and start them simultaneously to keep the audio / video in sync. 
  
  <ul>
  <li><em>I run macOS 10.13.6</em> and I'm using the <em>Nvidia web driver</em> so that may be the issue why I the single ffmpeg process / command of recording screen and mic at same time is failing.  Not entirely sure what the issue is. ‍♂️</li>
  </ul></li>
  <li>I have not come up with a solution for recording the audio in a lossless codec yet, but that will definitely be my next task to research</li>
  <li>also, I'd like to <em>convert</em> all prior recordings <em>ffmpeg</em> &amp; <em>OBS</em> using this new technique to preserve them for archival purposes.</li>
  </ul>
  
  <p>You mention your converting your recordings to animated GIFs, I've used the <a href="https://github.com/asciinema/asciicast2gif" rel="nofollow noreferrer">following project</a> to convert little screen recordings to GIFs <em>will only work with terminal based recordings</em>, and have had pleasant results using it.  It even has a docker container that makes using it rather simple for various OSes.</p>
  
  <p>I did <a href="https://github.com/ipatch/dotfiles/wiki/video-production-Notes#ffmpeg-going-from-idiot-iphone-recording-to-animated-gif" rel="nofollow noreferrer">experiment</a> with using ffmpeg to convert and iPhone recording to animated GIF a while back which was useful for uploading the GIF to github because I believe github does not support uploading video files such as <strong>mov</strong> <strong>mkv</strong> or <strong>mp4</strong>.</p>
  
  <p>Also, I did a <a href="https://stackoverflow.com/a/36838100/708807">quick search</a> on the <strong>QTRLE</strong> codec and it seems it is not compatible with the <strong>MP4</strong> container format, so if using something other than <strong>MOV</strong> is required you might look at using a different codec.</p>
  
  <p>⚠️ the below command will require <a href="https://github.com/kimmobrunfeldt/concurrently" rel="nofollow noreferrer">concurrently</a> be installed.</p>
  
  <pre><code>concurrently --kill-others \ 
  "ffmpeg -f avfoundation -capture_cursor 1 \
  -capture_mouse_clicks 1 \
  -framerate 30 
  -i "1:" -c:v libx264 -crf 0 -preset ultrafast \
  lossless-screen-rec.mkv 2&gt;/dev/null" \
  "ffmpeg -f avfoundation -i ":3" \
  -acodec alac \
  lossless-mic-.m4a 2&gt;/dev/null"
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>the above command will capture the computer screen losslessly using x264 and using alac to capture microphone input losslessly as well.  both formats work well for editing in a NLA/NLE editor such as shotcut.</p>
  
  <p>⚠️ <code>":3"</code> and <code>1:</code> will vary per system running macOS</p>
  
  <p>To get a list of capture devices on macOS</p>
  
  <pre><code>ffmpeg -f avfoundation -list_devices true -i ""
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>Anyways I know this is a lot of information, but I thought I'd share this info for the fact that I have been using ffmpeg almost daily for the past couple of weeks now so I thought I'd share what I've learned, and leave this info <em>for future me</em> </p>
  
Answers.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 4.0
Answers.CreationDate: 2019-12-07T01:39:36.633Z
Answers.Text: Welcome! Can you share a complete ffmpeg command? That would make it a lot easier for future readers to be able to use your answer.
Answers.UserDisplayName: Michael Liebman
Answers.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 4.0
Answers.CreationDate: 2022-01-25T07:44:22.030Z
Answers.Text: Wonderful! Thank you for working that out and sharing.  Also, since I don't need audio, I can just run the first ffmpeg command without concurrently.
Answers.UserDisplayName: pdwalker
Answers.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 4.0
Answers.CreationDate: 2019-12-05T17:52:31.353Z
Answers.LastActivityDate: 2019-12-07T15:55:49.280Z
Answers.LastEditDate: 2019-12-07T15:55:49.280Z
Answers.UserDisplayName: ipatch
Answers.Body: <p>If you need something less complicated try rec, which is mine :) <a href="https://sites.google.com/site/joopeter/" rel="nofollow">https://sites.google.com/site/joopeter/</a></p>
  
  <p>It is also free, lossless but more efficient and accurate!</p>
  
Answers.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 3.0
Answers.CreationDate: 2013-10-29T12:02:44.880Z
Answers.Text: As I wrote, I have OSX and Ubuntu at my disposal. Your program is for *Windoze XP and above*.
Answers.UserDisplayName: halirutan
Answers.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 4.0
Answers.CreationDate: 2022-01-25T07:47:19.713Z
Answers.Text: besides, the link is no longer active.
Answers.UserDisplayName: pdwalker
Answers.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 3.0
Answers.CreationDate: 2013-10-29T11:59:02.260Z
Answers.LastActivityDate: 2013-10-29T11:59:02.260Z
Answers.UserDisplayName: Peter
Answers.Body: <p>FFmpeg with a lossless codec is one solution. I recall <a href="http://boredzo.org/codec-comparison/">a comparison of different codecs</a> which concluded that Apple Animation (known to ffmpeg as <code>qtrle</code>) gave the best quality for screen-recording.</p>
  
  <pre><code>ffmpeg -f x11grab -r 25 -s 1024x768 -i :0.0 -c:v qtrle output.mov
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>Stop it by opening its terminal while it is running and pressing <code>q</code>. Obviously change the resolution (1024x768 here) to match your own. For selecting a section of your screen, see <a href="https://ffmpeg.org/trac/ffmpeg/wiki/How%20to%20grab%20the%20desktop%20%28screen%29%20with%20FFmpeg">how to grab the screen</a> on the ffmpeg wiki.</p>
  
  <p>It is possible that the <code>ffmpeg</code> which comes with your Linux distribution does not have the <code>qtrle</code> codec included. In this case you have to <a href="http://www.ffmpeg.org/index.html">download and compile</a> your own version. </p>
  
Answers.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 3.0
Answers.CreationDate: 2013-07-04T21:43:53.113Z
Answers.Text: I heard about *Apple Animation* as well. Let me try this.
Answers.UserDisplayName: halirutan
Answers.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 3.0
Answers.CreationDate: 2013-07-04T23:21:46.377Z
Answers.Text: +1 Works perfectly. Let's wait whether someone comes up with a non-commandline program. Otherwise, this will be my accepted answer.
Answers.UserDisplayName: halirutan
Answers.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 3.0
Answers.CreationDate: 2013-07-06T16:31:29.850Z
Answers.Text: If no-one suggests anything and you *really* want a GUI frontend, it seems to me that this would be a simple task for someone with GUI-making knowledge (i.e. not me :v), so you could probably find someone who would be willing to whip a simple frontend together in half an hour for a reasonable price, maybe even on chat.SE
Answers.UserDisplayName: evilsoup
Answers.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 3.0
Answers.CreationDate: 2015-08-23T11:55:05.100Z
Answers.Text: Well, just want to thank you again for this answer. I'm using [OBS](https://obsproject.com/) with the `qtrle` encoding to create a perfect .mov file. Then I extract the frames and use image magick to build a very small and incredibly nice animated gif. The advantage of OBS is, that you easily set output resolution and which window or part of the screen you want to record. It lets you combine several recorded regions and audio easily. Rarely seen something like that on Linux!
Answers.UserDisplayName: halirutan
Answers.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 3.0
Answers.CreationDate: 2014-11-11T04:57:23.453Z
Answers.Text: This won't work on OS X, this is sad.
Answers.UserDisplayName: Display Name
Answers.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 3.0
Answers.CreationDate: 2018-04-29T07:54:05.837Z
Answers.Text: this will work on OS X as well, but it will need changes — they are described here https://trac.ffmpeg.org/wiki/Capture/Desktop. Also there's no need to use `qtrle` only, there are other lossless codecs, some of which are even better (faster and more compact).
Answers.UserDisplayName: Display Name
Answers.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 3.0
Answers.CreationDate: 2013-07-04T21:33:13.770Z
Answers.LastActivityDate: 2013-07-05T03:35:46.697Z
Answers.LastEditDate: 2013-07-05T03:35:46.697Z
Answers.UserDisplayName: evilsoup
Body: <p>For a small project of mine I want to record short screen-casts which show features of my program. Currently, I'm using a small app on my Ubuntu box which creates directly animated gif output. The drawback is, that gif has some limitations in the number of colors. If <a href="http://halirutan.de/start" rel="nofollow noreferrer">you inspect some of the gifs</a> you may note that although it looks great, it's not perfect, especially when you look at the aliased fonts</p>
  
  <p><img src="https://i.sstatic.net/y391d.gif" alt="animated gif"></p>
  
  <p>There are some handmade solutions, for instance the demonstration on the <a href="http://www.sublimetext.com/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">sublime-text site</a>. To have something that nice, you first need to record your screen completely lossless. Most screen-casting programs I know unfortunately do compress the video.</p>
  
  <p><strong>Question:</strong> I have Ubuntu and OSX at my disposal, what (if possible free) screen-casting solutions exists which let me create lossless videos?</p>
  
  <p>Extra credit for programs where I can select the region or window to record and turn off audio.</p>
  
  <h2>Update</h2>
  
  <p>To make it clear what I mean with lossless: Usually, videos are compressed with a method which is perfect for <a href="http://www.hdwallpaperstop.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/forest-landscape_pictures_hd_wallpapers_nature_backgrounds_autumn_forest_and_landscape_color.jpg" rel="nofollow noreferrer">natural images/videos</a> but horrible for images/videos having <a href="http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3b/Ringing_artifact_example.png" rel="nofollow noreferrer">sharp edges and one-colored structures</a>. I made two screen-casts and zoomed a small part so that those effects are visible. The first one is done with <a href="http://wiki.ubuntuusers.de/recordMyDesktop" rel="nofollow noreferrer">gtk-recordmydesktop</a> with highest quality and the artifacts in the gray area are clearly visible</p>
  
  <p><img src="https://i.sstatic.net/Q5oNm.png" alt="enter image description here"></p>
  
  <p>The second one is done with the small <em>Record your Desktop</em> tool which saves gif files directly and takes the exact pixels of the screen without compression.</p>
  
  <p><img src="https://i.sstatic.net/vK5GH.png" alt="enter image description here"></p>
  
  <p>What I want is a screen-caster which saves its videos in this raw format without the limitations of gif.</p>
  
  <p>Possibly related questions:</p>
  
  <ul>
  <li><a href="https://video.stackexchange.com/q/4477/4310">How does Salman Khan make his screencasts?</a></li>
  <li><a href="https://video.stackexchange.com/q/3324/4310">creating a lossless mp4 screencast</a></li>
  </ul>
  
Comments.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 3.0
Comments.CreationDate: 2013-07-04T16:51:11.590Z
Comments.Text: I deleted my answer suggesting gtk-recordMyDesktop since it's full quality is not lossless.  I just wasn't sure if it did or not.  I don't have a Linux machine to test on unfortunately.  Now I know, thanks for letting me know it didn't fit your needs.
Comments.UserDisplayName: AJ Henderson
Comments.ContentLicense: CC BY-SA 3.0
Comments.CreationDate: 2013-07-04T17:12:39.627Z
Comments.Text: @AJHenderson I would be glad about *any* program either Linux or MacOSX. Especially for Mac there seem to exist a lot of small tools but I have to time to try them all and they kind of never advertise *can record lossless*.
Comments.UserDisplayName: halirutan
Tags: <screen-casting><lossless>
Title: Lossless screen-recording software
UserDisplayName: halirutan
ThreadText: # Lossless screen-recording software
  
  (Asked by: username_0 on 2013-07-03)
  
  For a small project of mine I want to record short screen-casts which show features of my program. Currently, I'm using a small app on my Ubuntu box which creates directly animated gif output. The drawback is, that gif has some limitations in the number of colors. If [you inspect some of the gifs](http://username_0.de/start) you may note that although it looks great, it's not perfect, especially when you look at the aliased fonts
  
  ![animated gif](https://i.sstatic.net/y391d.gif)
  
  There are some handmade solutions, for instance the demonstration on the [sublime-text site](http://www.sublimetext.com/). To have something that nice, you first need to record your screen completely lossless. Most screen-casting programs I know unfortunately do compress the username_6.
  
  **Question:** I have Ubuntu and OSX at my disposal, what (if possible free) screen-casting solutions exists which let me create lossless videos?
  
  Extra credit for programs where I can select the region or window to record and turn off audio.
  
  ## Update
  
  To make it clear what I mean with lossless: Usually, videos are compressed with a method which is perfect for [natural images/videos](http://www.hdwallpaperstop.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/forest-landscape_pictures_hd_wallpapers_nature_backgrounds_autumn_forest_and_landscape_color.jpg) but horrible for images/videos having [sharp edges and one-colored structures](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3b/Ringing_artifact_example.png). I made two screen-casts and zoomed a small part so that those effects are visible. The first one is done with [gtk-recordmydesktop](http://wiki.ubuntuusers.de/recordMyDesktop) with highest quality and the artifacts in the gray area are clearly visible
  
  ![enter image description here](https://i.sstatic.net/Q5oNm.png)
  
  The second one is done with the small *Record your Desktop* tool which saves gif files directly and takes the exact pixels of the screen without compression.
  
  ![enter image description here](https://i.sstatic.net/vK5GH.png)
  
  What I want is a screen-caster which saves its videos in this raw format without the limitations of gif.
  
  Possibly related questions:
  
  * [How does Salman Khan make his screencasts?](https://username_6.stackexchange.com/q/4477/4310)
  * [creating a lossless mp4 screencast](https://username_6.stackexchange.com/q/3324/4310)
  
  **Tags:** screen-casting, lossless
  
  > **Comments:**
  > **username_1**: I deleted my answer suggesting gtk-recordMyDesktop since it's full quality is not lossless.  I just wasn't sure if it did or not.  I don't have a Linux machine to test on unfortunately.  Now I know, thanks for letting me know it didn't fit your needs.  
  > **username_0**: @username_1 I would be glad about *any* program either Linux or MacOSX. Especially for Mac there seem to exist a lot of small tools but I have to time to try them all and they kind of never advertise *can record lossless*.  
  
  ---
  
  ## 7 answers
  
  ### Answer by username_11 on 2013-07-04. Score: 7 | Accepted answer
  
  FFmpeg with a lossless codec is one solution. I recall [a comparison of different codecs](http://boredzo.org/codec-comparison/) which concluded that Apple Animation (known to ffmpeg as `qtrle`) gave the best quality for screen-recording.
  
  ```
  ffmpeg -f x11grab -r 25 -s 1024x768 -i :0.0 -c:v qtrle output.mov
  
  ```
  
  Stop it by opening its terminal while it is running and pressing `q`. Obviously change the resolution (1024x768 here) to match your own. For selecting a section of your screen, see [how to grab the screen](https://ffmpeg.org/trac/ffmpeg/wiki/How%20to%20grab%20the%20desktop%20%28screen%29%20with%20FFmpeg) on the ffmpeg wiki.
  
  It is possible that the `ffmpeg` which comes with your Linux distribution does not have the `qtrle` codec included. In this case you have to [download and compile](http://www.ffmpeg.org/index.html) your own version.
  
  > **Comments:**
  > **username_0**: I heard about *Apple Animation* as well. Let me try this.  
  > **username_0**: +1 Works perfectly. Let's wait whether someone comes up with a non-commandline program. Otherwise, this will be my accepted answer.  
  > **username_11**: If no-one suggests anything and you *really* want a GUI frontend, it seems to me that this would be a simple task for someone with GUI-making knowledge (i.e. not me :v), so you could probably find someone who would be willing to whip a simple frontend together in half an hour for a reasonable price, maybe even on chat.SE  
  > **username_3**: This won't work on OS X, this is sad.  
  > **username_0**: Well, just want to thank you again for this answer. I'm using [OBS](https://obsproject.com/) with the `qtrle` encoding to create a perfect .mov file. Then I extract the frames and use image magick to build a very small and incredibly nice animated gif. The advantage of OBS is, that you easily set output resolution and which window or part of the screen you want to record. It lets you combine several recorded regions and audio easily. Rarely seen something like that on Linux!  
  > **username_3**: this will work on OS X as well, but it will need changes — they are described here https://trac.ffmpeg.org/wiki/Capture/Desktop. Also there's no need to use `qtrle` only, there are other lossless codecs, some of which are even better (faster and more compact).  
  
  ---
  
  ### Answer by username_2 on 2013-07-09. Score: 3
  
  Alternatively, pipe your screen output to a second computer to record, using a device like a Blackmagic Intensity. It supports capturing to a totally uncompressed format (make sure you have an SSD or a RAID setup to record as the bitrate is very high).
  
  So the computer you're doing the work on should have dual monitor output - mirror the username_3 so one output goes to your monitor, the other to a PC with a BlackMagic PCIe (or USB 3.0) card in it, that records the output. Use DVI/HDMI, not VGA.
  
  Note, the Intensity only supports username_6-type resolutions, so a res like 1024x768 or 1024x1024, etc. is no good - 480p, 720p, 1080p, etc. are what you'll need to mirror your username_3 at (21" 1080p LCDs are $99 now anyways).
  
  Then you can edit & compress the raw username_6 any way you like.
  
  > **Comments:**
  > **username_0**: Hehe, I thinkt this is way overkill but +1 for the answer. I need something quick which I can use when I have developed feature the make a screen cast.  
  
  ---
  
  ### Answer by username_3 on 2014-11-11. Score: 2
  
  On OS X, seems like [ScreenFlow](http://www.telestream.net/screenflow/overview.htm) can record in lossless (not by default, but this can be enabled in settings). Unfortunately, this application is not free. Still looking for free alternatives…
  
  ## Important update!
  
  This applies only to Screenflow 4.5.3 (and maybe some earlier versions). **In Screenflow 5 this feature is gone.** They advertise like they can do lossless recording, but this is a blatant lie: the "lossless" mode is using Apple ProRes, which is not lossless (and I tested the output, it indeed has artifacts), and there's no way to select some other codec (in Screenflow 4.5.3 the lossless mode is achieved by using "Animation" codec, which is `qtrle`, in Screenflow 5 there's no way to do this)
  
  So… good bye, sweet prince.
  
  ## Update 2
  
  [ffmpeg](https://trac.ffmpeg.org/wiki/Capture/Desktop) also can record the screen, if you learn how to use it properly.
  
  > **Comments:**
  > **username_0**: Btw, I bought ScreenFlow back when you posted you answer. Even if I'm not using it for creating the small animated gifs this question targeted, it is still a very nice screen-caster that has a lot of nice features.  
  > **username_3**: ^ btw, one can choose only one from "gif" and "small". gif is a very inefficient compression.  
  > **username_4**: I would use Screenflow for this.  I've got version 8, and it exports ProRes 4444 at 100% size, which is effectively lossless for most purposes.  
  > **username_3**: well, it's not really lossless, and the question is about lossless only  
  
  ---
  
  ### Answer by username_5 on 2017-05-15. Score: 2
  
  I had very similar requirements and eventually found on [Claquette](https://www.peakstep.com/claquette/).  
  It's an OS X app that uses a lossless codec. While it doesn't allow you to define a screen area *before* recording, it has a crop feature that allows you to select a region after the recording is finished. Audio can also be turned off. Movies can be exported in various formats (including h.264, ProRes and Animated GIF).
  
  > **Comments:**
  > **username_0**: Seems like a good little program. Currently, I'm doing my small gifs with Kazam which comes with Ubuntu. Then I'm using a small script built from the accepted answer to create small and high-quality gifs. +1  
  
  ---
  
  ### Answer by username_6 on 2013-07-08. Score: 1
  
  Here's a non-command-line option.
  
  Try Collaaj (<http://collaaj.com>). Works on PC & Mac. It doesn't work on Ubuntu, but since you mentioned you have OSX, this should work just fine. I think it should do what you asked for and more. Such as region selection, selecting inputs etc.., and it also lets you upload and maintain your recordings on collaaj.com for anytime access. They have a nice set of videos here - <http://collaaj.com/videos>
  
  > **Comments:**
  > **username_0**: Can you really record the windows of your screen with this tool? I only saw that they scroll through powerpoint or pdf files. Furthermore, I need to extract the frames of the username_6, which means I need to be able to store the videos locally. It seems this tools uploads it directly to share it, right?  
  > **username_6**: username_0, 1. yes, on PC & Mac, you can record entire screen. You can even change settings between 720P and 1080P, you can also do screen+camera at the same time.  
  > **username_6**: username_0, regarding your second question, Collaaj stores videos locally in mp4 format, in addition to giving you an option to upload to the cloud and share as a URL. Its very comprehensive.  
  > **username_6**: This username_6 explains clearly - https://collaaj.com/9rE17cT  
  
  ---
  
  ### Answer by username_7 on 2019-12-05. Score: 1
  
  Please excuse my tardiness to the party, this is something that I've been working with as of late *lossless screen recording*
  
  Originally I was using OBS to record my screen throughout the year *2019* primarily for uploading screen recordings / cast to youtube, however I've recently began experimenting using ffmpeg to record my screen and mic *have not tested recording desktop audio* yet.
  
  I started with vanilla ffmpeg settings for recording my screen, but the stock GOP setting of the recording makes it utterly painful when editing the recording in a NLE / NLA editor such as [shotcut](https://github.com/mltframework/shotcut) so I went back and reread the screen [capture doc](https://trac.ffmpeg.org/wiki/Capture/Desktop#lossless-recording) on the ffmpeg wiki, and noticed that screen recordings can be captured lossless using the x264 codec as long as `-crf 0` the **crf** is set to **0** which I believe means ffmpeg will use the x264 codec will not apply any lossy compression to the recording. Also the wiki suggests using `-preset ultrafast` in conjunction with the `-crf 0` setting of the ffmpeg command. I experimented with these settings last night and the picture quality / file size is great.
  
  I recorded my screen *4K* 3840 x 2160 monitor at 30 fps and the bitrate was totally manageable, ie. I don't think it ever went above 10MB/sec, and a one minute recording was ~ 48MB, which is totally acceptable file size for archiving recordings.
  
  ### Caveats
  
  * obviously if you do not prefer using a command line then this will probably not be for you, as I've found relying a GUI to interface with ffmpeg is not a viable thing as most GUIs I experimented with are outdated.
  * also, presently I have issues with recording audio *mic* and screen at the same time under a single ffmpeg process / command, so I have to split the command into two separate commands / processed and start them simultaneously to keep the audio / username_6 in sync.
    + *I run macOS 10.13.6* and I'm using the *Nvidia web driver* so that may be the issue why I the single ffmpeg process / command of recording screen and mic at same time is failing. Not entirely sure what the issue is. ‍♂️
  * I have not come up with a solution for recording the audio in a lossless codec yet, but that will definitely be my next task to research
  * also, I'd like to *convert* all prior recordings *ffmpeg* & *OBS* using this new technique to preserve them for archival purposes.
  
  You mention your converting your recordings to animated GIFs, I've used the [following project](https://github.com/asciinema/asciicast2gif) to convert little screen recordings to GIFs *will only work with terminal based recordings*, and have had pleasant results using it. It even has a docker container that makes using it rather simple for various OSes.
  
  I did [experiment](https://github.com/username_7/dotfiles/wiki/username_6-production-Notes#ffmpeg-going-from-idiot-iphone-recording-to-animated-gif) with using ffmpeg to convert and iPhone recording to animated GIF a while back which was useful for uploading the GIF to github because I believe github does not support uploading username_6 files such as **mov** **mkv** or **mp4**.
  
  Also, I did a [quick search](https://stackoverflow.com/a/36838100/708807) on the **QTRLE** codec and it seems it is not compatible with the **MP4** container format, so if using something other than **MOV** is required you might look at using a different codec.
  
  ⚠️ the below command will require [concurrently](https://github.com/kimmobrunfeldt/concurrently) be installed.
  
  ```
  concurrently --kill-others \ 
  "ffmpeg -f avfoundation -capture_cursor 1 \
  -capture_mouse_clicks 1 \
  -framerate 30 
  -i "1:" -c:v libx264 -crf 0 -preset ultrafast \
  lossless-screen-rec.mkv 2>/dev/null" \
  "ffmpeg -f avfoundation -i ":3" \
  -acodec alac \
  lossless-mic-.m4a 2>/dev/null"
  
  ```
  
  the above command will capture the computer screen losslessly using x264 and using alac to capture microphone input losslessly as well. both formats work well for editing in a NLA/NLE editor such as shotcut.
  
  ⚠️ `":3"` and `1:` will vary per system running macOS
  
  To get a list of capture devices on macOS
  
  ```
  ffmpeg -f avfoundation -list_devices true -i ""
  
  ```
  
  Anyways I know this is a lot of information, but I thought I'd share this info for the fact that I have been using ffmpeg almost daily for the past couple of weeks now so I thought I'd share what I've learned, and leave this info *for future me*
  
  > **Comments:**
  > **username_8**: Welcome! Can you share a complete ffmpeg command? That would make it a lot easier for future readers to be able to use your answer.  
  > **username_9**: Wonderful! Thank you for working that out and sharing.  Also, since I don't need audio, I can just run the first ffmpeg command without concurrently.  
  
  ---
  
  ### Answer by username_10 on 2013-10-29. Score: 0
  
  If you need something less complicated try rec, which is mine :) <https://sites.google.com/site/joopeter/>
  
  It is also free, lossless but more efficient and accurate!
  
  > **Comments:**
  > **username_0**: As I wrote, I have OSX and Ubuntu at my disposal. Your program is for *Windoze XP and above*.  
  > **username_9**: besides, the link is no longer active.  
  
  ---
  
  