PlayClaw 5 - Game Recording and Streaming on Steam - User reviews, Price & Information

The amazing PlayClaw video capture tool gives customers incredible power!PlayClaw has been designed to make full use of multi-core processors and hardware accelerated H.264 codecs, which ensures the outstanding quality of the output with a minimal impact on system performance.

PlayClaw 5 - Game Recording and Streaming is a utilities, video production and audio production game developed and published by .
Released on September 10th 2013 is available only on Windows in 9 languages: English, Russian, French, Hungarian, Polish, Portuguese - Brazil, Korean, Simplified Chinese and Traditional Chinese.

It has received 397 reviews of which 282 were positive and 115 were negative resulting in a rating of 6.8 out of 10. 😐

The game is currently priced at 36.99€ on Steam.

The Steam community has classified PlayClaw 5 - Game Recording and Streaming into these genres:

Media & Screenshots

Get an in-depth look at PlayClaw 5 - Game Recording and Streaming through various videos and screenshots.

PlayClaw 5 - Game Recording and Streaming screenshot

System requirements

These are the minimum specifications needed to play the game. For the best experience, we recommend that you verify them.

Windows

OS *: Windows 7
Processor: 2-cores CPU with SSE support
Memory: 1 GB RAM
Graphics: Intel/AMD/NVidia graphics card
DirectX: Version 8.0
Additional Notes: Administrator rights to run software are mandatory.

User reviews & Ratings

Explore reviews from Steam users sharing their experiences and what they love about the game.

July 2022

Oh, well. PlayClaw 5 isn't a really popular thing among content makers. So you won't find quick setups and tweaks for it anywhere, like for OBS or Fraps, or something of that much hype. And yeah, like most other software for recording/streaming video, PlayClaw does have its limits. The user interface is quite simple, the variety of possible options is maybe not the dream-come-true, but more or less covering all the needs of the video capturing process. The thing I like the most, though, is about its very modest appetite for PC resources. You don't need to worry about your FPS even if you use some low-grade video card, like 1050, 1060, or something of that range. However, I've witnessed enough inconveniences as well. First of all, in some action games with procedurally generating landscape, I saw the stuttering in the video, if I was trying to record it in something higher than 30 FPS. Something with the process of processing information in games with a very dynamically changing environment - maybe I need more codecs, who knows? Second notable issue - the size of files. You can't record hours after hours, without having terabytes of free space on your hard drive. One hour of some dynamic action can take more than 20 Gb space... Also, PlawClaw has some troubles with EasyAntiCheat - a popular resolution for many multiplayer games. It's not a general problem - usually, I record EAC-protected games just fine. But sometimes, primarily short after some EAC update, I simply can't run the game while PlawClaw is open. I think the problem is not on the PlawClaw side, but it is a notable side effect you should know about. There might be some other issues, of course, but nothing you couldn't handle if you have at least some experience and a basic level of understanding of how such software is working. Overall, it's a decent program for video recording and streaming, for a decent price. 7/10 grade for me. Not the greatest, but quite universal, agile, and easy-to-use software piece.

Oct. 2020

I have been using this program for many years! And I am 100% satisfied with it even now! When you play your favorite video games and want to capture a good moment, then you need a simple program to capture video and then post it to YouTube! This program will give you high quality with minimal load on your CPU and RAM! Of course, if you want to get more, something like... for example, streaming and recording at the same time, then you need to look at a different version of this program! Or other programs;) https://store.steampowered.com/app/746390/PlayClaw__Overlays_Game_Recording__Streaming/ But if you need a small handy program for high-quality video capture - then this is my choice! You can also watch my videos on my https://www.youtube.com/FoxLeks Where almost all videos are made thanks to this program! Also don't forget to follow me everywhere =)

July 2015

The marketplace for screen capture tools is starting to get quite crowded, but PlayClaw stands out as it strikes a great balance between ease of use and quality. The main competitors are Bandicam, Fraps, and Dxtory. PlayClaw beats Fraps as it is much less resources intensive, and produces higher quality ouput than Bandicam in most cases. Using PlayClaw usually results in nothing more than a 1 to 5 frame rate decrease and very few dropped frames during recording. Dxtory, coupled with the Lagarith codec produces slightly better results, and is even less resource intensive, but takes a bit more effort to set it up; in contrast the PlayClaw UI is very easy to navigate. The main features are: Record in-game footage. Record the desktop. Buffer a period of footage (from 5 to 600seconds). Take screenshots. Configure input from multiple audio sources including mic. You can also stream to Twitch, YouTube and Customer Server (not tested yet) Recording desktop / in-game and activating recording to capture the buffered footage never show any interuption or performance hit. I have tried streaming to a 10,000prm HDD, and also 5400. As with all capture tools the faster the hard drive the better, but footage was still OK on the slower drive. Being able to define the number of CPU threads the software utilises really helps performance. Other essential options are the ability to define frame rate for capture and set the resolution (although I would recommend recording native and then scaling during editing). One thing I really like is the ability have PlayClaw write audio tracks in seperate files. This makes it a lot more convenient if editing audio as each each source (in-game or mic) gets it's own file. So no bother with extracting audio from the video file, or having all audio streams mixed. Taking screenshots produces a nice overlay effect - it really lets you know a shot has been taken without being intrusive. Other overlays can be configured to show frame rate, recording duration, buffer, a clock and many other features. One of the most useful overlapys shows how large your recording is. The main area where PlayClaw could improve is around the MJPEG codec. It appears they use their own custom codec and many have found it can be a pain finding editing software to support it. (Protip - If you have problems opening the files in your editor, try installing the free version of Bandicam - this will install / update the codecs - it certainly worked for Sony Movie Studio 12 and 13). It spoils what is otherwise a very easy to use application. It would be nice if they supported advanced options that allowed the user to install their own codecs. Edit: The developer has kindly clarified the MJPEG issue. But out of all the capture software I have tested over the years, PlayClaw is the only one that caused problems like this. So I am not changing my comment, as many people have found my 'pro tip' useful. Overall PlayClaw is a great piece of software. I am using it exclusively to capture footage. It does a great job. Edit: May 2015 - Slight changes to incorporate questions received below

Jan. 2015

I have to say, that all things considered: Playclaw is an amazing product and was definitely worth every penny. When I bought it originally, it was simpy a game recorded. It has evovled and it can do everything I need it to do without dropping frames. I'm even able to recorded Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare at 60FPS. The product is great and, bar any unusual mishaps or changes, I won't be looking elsewhere for screen capture programs.

Nov. 2013

as a noob youtube playthrough person i enjoy using this software. Its so CPU and RAM light even though its packed with so much. 10/10 I dare anyone not to like this. Files are saved as AVI but compressed in MJPEG (Moving Jpeg) so for my Half-Life 2 sries. 30 mins at 1080p is 10-15gb. Compress it to 720p in Sony Vegas and bang >1gb For Assassins Creed 4 its more like 20GB but its Jpeg formatted so obviously the mpre colours used the bigger the file. Still... Its an EPIC peice of software. GET IT IF YOU PLAN ON RECORDING YOUTUBE VIDS!

Data sources

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Additionally, we incorporate data from the SteamSpy API, which offers insights into game sales and player statistics. This helps us present a comprehensive view of each game's popularity and performance within the gaming community.

Last Updates

Steam data	30 March 2025 09:18
SteamSpy data	02 April 2025 11:39
Steam price	03 April 2025 20:43
Steam reviews	01 April 2025 15:46

If you'd like to dive deeper into the details about PlayClaw 5 - Game Recording and Streaming, we invite you to check out a few dedicated websites that offer extensive information and insights. These platforms provide valuable data, analysis, and user-generated reports to enhance your understanding of the game and its performance.

SteamDB - A comprehensive database of everything on Steam about PlayClaw 5 - Game Recording and Streaming
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ProtonDB - Crowdsourced reports on Linux and Steam Deck PlayClaw 5 - Game Recording and Streaming compatibility

36.99€

6.8

282

115

Online players

Release 10 Sep 2013

Platforms