How to Use Vidyard to Record and Send a Video

resources Sep 10, 2024

Vidyard records your screen, your camera, or both at once, uploads the video while you are still recording, and hands you a link you can paste straight into an email. There is no export step and no file to upload afterwards. Here is the whole process, start to finish, and the step almost everyone skips.

What do you need before you start?

Not much, which is the point of using it.

A Vidyard account, signed in
A camera and a microphone, and you should know which ones you want it to use. If you record in a studio setup, that is the studio camera and the studio mic, not the ones built into the laptop
Whatever you are presenting, already open on screen and ready to go
The email or message you are going to paste the link into

Open the slide deck, the proposal or the web page before you hit record. Hunting for a window on camera is the most common reason a first take gets binned.

Which recording mode should you pick?

Vidyard gives you three, and you choose before you record, not after.

Screen + Camera. Your slides or your document, with your face in a small overlay. This is the one for presentations, proposal walkthroughs and anything you are talking someone through.
Screen Only. No face. Use it for instructional videos where the screen is the whole story and your face would just be in the way.
Camera Only. Just you. This is the one for a short personal message, a reply, or a hello at the top of a sequence.

If you are not sure, pick Screen + Camera. A face on a business video is almost never the wrong call, and you can size the overlay down until it is out of the way.

How do you record a video in Vidyard?

Open Vidyard and choose your recording mode. Screen + Camera, Screen Only, or Camera Only, as above.
Set your inputs. Check that the microphone and the camera it has selected are the ones you actually want. This is the step people skip, and it is the one that costs a whole take.
Pick the screen you are sharing. If you run two monitors, make sure it is the one your content is on.
Hit record and present. Talk to the camera, not to your slides. Give it a second of silence at the top and the tail so you have something to trim into.
Move the camera widget if it is covering something. The overlay can be dragged and resized while you record, so if it lands on top of a number or a heading, shift it rather than starting again.
Stop and review. Watch it once, all the way through, before you decide anything about it.

One thing worth saying out loud: the video is already uploading as you record. There is nothing to save, nothing to export and nothing to drag into a folder afterwards.

How do you trim, label and share it?

Trim the start and the end. Cut the shuffle at the top and the reach-for-the-mouse at the bottom. That is usually the only edit a video like this needs.
Add a thumbnail. You can use a static frame or an animated preview. The animated one moves in the inbox, which is the whole reason it exists.
Label it. Give it a real title, not "Recording 4". You will be looking for it again in three months.
Copy the link. Paste it into the email or the message.
Or embed it. The video can sit directly in an email or on a web page rather than behind a link, if that is what the situation calls for.

What you put around that link matters as much as the video does. Ridge has a separate walkthrough on sending a personalised video in an email, including the thumbnail and the subject line.

What does the whole process look like?

The video at the top of this page runs through all of it on screen, start to finish, in just under eight minutes. If you would rather watch it done once than read the steps, start there.

Is Vidyard the right tool for what you are doing?

Not always, and it is worth being honest about that. Vidyard is built for video that lives in an email or a message. If you are recording a podcast interview, or bringing a guest in from somewhere else, a different tool does that job better. Ridge has written up which recording platform suits which job, including where Vidyard fits and where it does not.

Vidyard is somebody else's product and it changes. The steps above describe how it worked at the time of writing. If a screen looks different from what you see here, check the current setup inside your own Vidyard account, because your plan and your settings decide what you get.

What if it did not work?

Work down this list before you start again.

No camera in the preview. Go back to the inputs step and check the right camera is selected. If your studio camera is on but not showing, it is a power or cable problem, not a Vidyard one.
Sound is missing or thin. Same step, different dropdown. Check the microphone selected is the one you meant to use and not the one built into the laptop.
The overlay is covering your content. Drag it and resize it. You do not need to re-record for this.
The recipient says the link does not open. Open the link yourself in a private browser window before you assume it is broken, so you know whether the problem is the link or their end.

More on recording, framing and the settings behind all of it in the video recording knowledge hub.

Frequently asked questions

How does Vidyard work?

You choose a recording mode, set your camera and microphone, record, and the video uploads to your Vidyard library while you are still talking. When you stop, you trim the start and end, add a thumbnail and a title, then copy the link and paste it into an email or message. There is no export and no separate upload.

Is Vidyard a screen recorder?

Yes, and more than that. It records screen only, camera only, or screen and camera together, and it hosts and shares the result rather than leaving you with a file to send. Screen Only is the mode to pick for a straight screen recording.

Do you have to use Vidyard to send a video in an email?

No. Vidyard is one option and it suits video that lives inside an email or a message. Other tools handle interviews, podcasts and higher-quality recording better. Pick the one that matches the job rather than using one tool for everything.

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