Making Your First Recording

Recordable can be fickle at times, but I found that if you start the recording in landscape mode it removes any problem of the app potentially not recognizing the phone’s screen when it snaps into the Gear VR itself. It’s happened a million times, and I can’t quite figure out why, but there’s nothing more infuriating than going through a 20 minute gaming session and finding out the app switched off right as you inserted the phone into the headset.

So your cable is attached, you have your phone in landscape, you’ve hit the record button on both Audacity and Recordable, and you clip the phone into your Gear VR headset.

Recording the screen will add additional demand on the phone, which may cause some stuttering while you play. Performance may vary for different phone models. Your first recording should look something like this:

If you aren’t happy with the stutter you can try reducing the Recording settings in Recordable. Try changing the Scale and Quality settings until you’re happy.

Again, a big thanks to Dee of eVRday VR for being a VR pioneer and exploring this process.

Post Processing

After recording you’ll need to transfer the mp4 file, preferably via USB, directly from the ‘Recordable’ folder on your phone to your computer for post processing.

Windows Movie Maker is the obvious choice for first-time movie editing because it’s free and easy, and allows you to drop your processed audio directly on top of the video without hassle.

windows movie maker

You’ll of course need to trim the audio to fit the video once you’ve determined the length, because if you’re like me you’ll want to cut out the beginning and end of the raw video recording to make it a cleaner experience. Once you’ve imported the audio clip into the timeline, you can trim it the same way your trim video clips: Position the cursor over the beginning or end of the audio clip until you see a double arrow. Drag in to adjust the duration of the audio clip. To adjust the audio level, click on the Set Audio Levels button above the timeline.

SEE ALSO
Twisted Claymation VR Adventure 'The Midnight Walk' Coming to PSVR 2 & PC VR in Spring 2025, Trailer Here

Microsoft has a simple guide for Movie Maker first-timers should you need a helping hand.

As a quick sidenote, video will always come out showing the same stereoscopic view with barrel distortion. It’s a fact of life with current VR headsets, and we haven’t come across an easy way of removing distortion.

We’re personally integrating all of these methods into our Gear VR recordings from now on. We’ve mucked around with lesser quality screen/audio recording methods in the past, and can say from experience that they aren’t worth the dropped frames, judder, or questionable audio. It’s safe to say that this method is the easiest, most reliable for getting the best quality audio and video possible.

And there you have it—HD video and audio of your experience in virtual reality with Samsung Gear VR. Now go forth and share your experiences with the world!

1
2
Newsletter graphic

This article may contain affiliate links. If you click an affiliate link and buy a product we may receive a small commission which helps support the publication. More information.


Well before the first modern XR products hit the market, Scott recognized the potential of the technology and set out to understand and document its growth. He has been professionally reporting on the space for nearly a decade as Editor at Road to VR, authoring more than 4,000 articles on the topic. Scott brings that seasoned insight to his reporting from major industry events across the globe.
  • Mat

    Thanks, but doesn’t work with the S6.

    • benz145

      Which part of this doesn’t work with the S6?

      • Mat

        Right now, S6 with Android 5 is not able to record video at all. Even mirroring via Chromecast and the likes isn’t working. It probably has something to do with Samsung reserving all CPU power for Gear VR. I tried basically all recording apps available, they all stop as soon as Gear VRs Interface boots.

        • Gosu

          Same issue on the S6 edge. It stops streaming/recording on both the innovator and consumer gear vr. I tried chromecast, mirrorop, recordable, and even the wireless display preview app on the xbox one

          • Hans Vaessen

            Same problem here. I read somewhere that ‘recordable’ should work but that needs some installation from PC. However: the S6 is not found when I try that. Anyone tried recordable on S6?

          • Jay Wallace

            yes. and it doe the same thing… I have noticed if I take the headset off and put it back on the recording picks up 2 seconds of motion and freezes.

    • Natoone

      It does work with the S6, you just have to have different settings than the ones described above. here’s what I use.
      Start: Immediately
      Countdown:None
      Stop: On return to Recordable app
      Stealth: hide notifications, box checked
      pause: dont pause
      Frame rate limit< no limit
      Resolution: 480 ( you can go higher, but frame rate suffers.)
      Quality: high
      Use Hardware: unchecked
      Limit resolution: leave unchecked
      leave the rest unchecked.. unless you want to record sound. click the record audio box.. but its not that great.. only records half of the speakers, and quality is low no matter the setting. so, do what they say in the article for recording sound.

      • Jeremiah

        I’ve tried it on these settings, but I keep on receiving an error message saying “unsupported video codec”. It didn’t work for me very well on the default settings, but I did manage to get a little bit of video – interspersed with a black screen. On the settings that you recommend though, I’m afraid that “Recordable” simply doesn’t work at all on my phone – it doesn’t even matter if I’m using VR. I’ve tried recording my phone’s home screen for a few seconds on those settings, and I’ve received the same error message: “Unsupported video codec”.

        Admittedly though, I don’t see any option for setting the frame rate to “no limit”. So maybe I’m doing something wrong.

        • Natoone

          And your using an Galaxy s6!?

          • Jeremiah

            Yes, I’m using the S6, and I downloaded the app through my computer. Thanks for all of the suggestions, but it turns out that the problem was simply due to a dumb mistake on my part. It turns out that I never set the resolution to 480. Since you said that we could try higher, I decided to leave that one alone. But when the app failed to work with that resolution, I guess I forgot to lower it. It would certainly be nice to record videos of the Gear VR on higher resolution, but other than that, the app is actually working perfectly now!

            So thank you! Sorry for the trouble!

          • Natoone

            No problem! Happy to help.

        • Natoone

          There are other factors as well.. low memory, or apps that kill running programs in the background. Or even anti-virus programs.. or.. you missed a very important step with setting up the app.. did you go to the website and download the program that properly sets up your phone to use the app.. you can’t just start the app, and push the start screen recording. It’s deceiving cause that pops up first thing. Start up the app, then push not now. Goto the website, download the program to your computer. Run it, then connect phone to the computer. It will set everything up. Then when you start the app, you will go to the main screen.. use the settings above. Should work my good fellow.

      • Golagha11

        Even with this settings I didn’t manage to record from Oculus. I have a black screen in my recordings from the moment I dock the phone. I also have tried several casting app as well, without any luck. Any suggestion to cast/broadcast from Gear VR(Oculus) to any other device?

        • Natoone

          Try this.. I Read This Post The Other day, And It Works For me. And many others.. best of luck to
          you.https://www.reddit.com/r/GearVR/comments/452vqo/does_this_fix_your_chromecast_issues/

          • Golagha11

            Don’t know how to thank you(and the person behind the original post). I have spent several hours, tested most of the screenrecorders in Android Marked, searched the internet and too many forums, but the trick in Simulate secondary displays, from your link, did just the trick. I even tried With a higher resolution. I had a Blanck screen in the Gear VR, but as fas as I had live VR video on my PC(Samsung SideSync), which I could record, I was damn sattisfied. Thanks M8

          • Natoone

            No problem! Glad I could help. :)

          • Derek Brinkman

            Natoone, you rule. I spent hours of frustration with tons of screen capture apps until seeing this. It worked perfectly on 1st try with secondary display simulated. Sincere thanks!

          • Natoone

            No problem! But.. I’m about to blow your mind again… if you hold down the back button and go to the gear vr submenu.. look to your far right. There’s a new option, utilities. Click on that, and you will see screen capture. It’s the smoothest most wonderful footage you have ever seen. It dosent work with all apps though.. still can’t get it to record drift game play.. and no audio. So you will have to get creative for that. (I use a separate digital recorder, and plug earbuds to it to hear the gameplay while I’m recording. ) happy recording!

  • PF

    The best way to record audio for VR is using ambisonics. I think that these guys are working on a very practical solution for adding 3D audio to VR: http://www.fi-sonic.com.

  • Recordable doesn´t work for me, installed the pro version, but it always records 1MB only regardless of how long I record. Tried the workaround for the gear vr, doesn´t help either, but I think the first mentioned issue is the cause of it.Any suggestions ? UPDATE: Ok restarted now it´s at least recording longer than 1MB, BUT it still ends recording when I launch Oculus with my Gear VR on my S7