How to record a whiteboard without screen recording
You can record a whiteboard to video without any screen-recording software by capturing the operation stream instead of screen pixels — this is how Excalicast produces clean, re-framable whiteboard videos in the browser.
The problem with screen recording
Screen recorders capture whatever pixels are painted on the display. If another window overlaps the browser, a notification pops up, or you minimize the tab, those pixels go straight into your video. The output is also locked to the capture resolution, so you cannot later reframe it for a different platform.
Operation-stream capture
Instead of reading the screen, Excalicast records the whiteboard operation stream — the sequence of drawing actions — together with microphone audio. At export time it replays those actions onto an offscreen canvas and renders frames there, so the video shows only the whiteboard, never an overlapping window.
Because frames are re-rendered from the operation stream, the same recording can be exported at 16:9, 9:16, 1:1, or 4:5 without recording again.
Privacy as a side effect
The operation stream and audio stay in your browser (IndexedDB), and the MP4 renders locally via ffmpeg.wasm. Raw recordings never leave your computer.
FAQ
Does minimizing the browser stop the recording?
Audio keeps recording when minimized, and because frames come from the operation stream rather than the screen, there is no black-screen problem on export.