Last updated: 2026-01-15

For most people searching for screen recording software with a scheduled recording feature, starting in StreamYard’s browser studio and scheduling pre‑recorded broadcasts is the simplest, most flexible path. If you need deep desktop automation or calendar‑driven meeting capture, OBS and Loom can help in narrower, more technical scenarios.

Summary

• StreamYard lets you upload a finished screen recording and schedule it to go live automatically, even if you’re offline when it starts. (StreamYard Help Center)
• You can’t “timer‑arm” a pure record‑only studio in StreamYard, but you can pre‑create the studio, invite guests, and then hit record when it’s time. (StreamYard Help Center)
• Loom connects to your calendar to record scheduled Zoom/Google Meet/Teams calls automatically, while OBS relies on obs‑websocket plus external schedulers for automation. (Loom Help Center) (GitHub)
• For US creators and teams who want high‑quality, presenter‑led recordings without wrestling with complex setups, StreamYard is usually the most time‑efficient choice.

What does “scheduled screen recording” really mean?

When people say they want screen recording with scheduling, they usually mean one of three things:

1. “I want to upload a finished video and have it go live automatically at a specific time.”
2. “I want a recording to start and stop by itself at a set time, even if I’m not there.”
3. “I want every scheduled meeting on my calendar to get recorded, no clicks required.”

Those are very different jobs. The first is about scheduled playback; the second is about automation on your device; the third is about calendar integration.

StreamYard is strongest at #1 (scheduled pre‑recorded streams) and at giving you a clean, controlled studio for manual recordings. Loom focuses on #3. OBS is where you go if you truly need #2 and are comfortable wiring things together.

How does StreamYard handle scheduling for recordings?

In StreamYard, there are two core workflows that matter here:

1. Pre‑recorded streaming (scheduled playback)
   You upload a video—often created with StreamYard’s own screen‑recording studio—and schedule it to publish to your destinations. Once you schedule it, the video goes live automatically at the chosen time, even if you’re not signed in when it starts. (StreamYard Help Center)

2. Record‑only studios (manual start, pre‑built studio)
   You can create a “record‑only” broadcast, set up your layout, and invite guests in advance. While you can’t add it to a calendar and have it auto‑start like a pre‑recorded stream, you can open the studio at the scheduled time and click record with everything already configured. (StreamYard Help Center)

For most creators, that’s a very practical pattern: you schedule the publication and prep the recording environment ahead of time, then do your performance live in the studio when it’s time to capture.

What makes StreamYard’s studio so strong for scheduled-style workflows?

Once you step into a StreamYard studio, you get more than barebones screen capture:

• Presenter‑visible screen sharing with layouts – You can see exactly what’s on screen while controlling how it appears in the final recording (side‑by‑side, picture‑in‑picture, full screen, and so on).
• Independent audio control – Screen/system audio and microphone audio are controlled separately, so you can mute one, rebalance levels, or cut a noisy tab without killing your mic.
• Local multi‑track recordings – On all plans, StreamYard supports local recordings per participant, with separate files that are ideal for post‑production editing. (StreamYard Help Center)
• Landscape and portrait from the same session – You can design layouts that work for YouTube, LinkedIn, and vertical destinations like Shorts or Reels without having to re‑record from scratch.
• Live branding – Overlays, logos, lower thirds, and other visuals are all applied in real time, so your “screen recording” looks like a finished show rather than a raw screencast.
• Presenter notes only you can see – You can keep reminders, talking points, or timestamps in view without exposing them in the recording.
• Multi‑participant screen sharing – Guests can also share their screens, which is powerful for collaborative demos or customer panels.

Because this all runs in the browser, most US‑based laptops that handle a few browser tabs and video calls can handle StreamYard without extra hardware tuning.

How do plan limits affect scheduling and long recordings?

StreamYard’s model is hours‑based and storage‑based, which is easier to understand than per‑minute billing but still important when you’re planning long or frequent sessions:

• Live streams on paid plans are automatically recorded in the cloud, with per‑stream caps (10 hours on most paid plans, 24 hours on Business). (StreamYard Help Center)
• Stored recordings count against a pool of storage hours (for example, 5 hours on the free plan and 50 hours on common paid plans). (StreamYard Help Center)
• Local recordings on paid plans are effectively unlimited; on the free plan, there’s a 2‑hour/month local recording cap. (StreamYard Help Center)

Pre‑recorded streams—the key scheduled feature—also have upload‑length and concurrency limits that increase on higher tiers (e.g., longer maximum video length and more concurrent scheduled pre‑records). (StreamYard Help Center)

For most teams, the pattern is simple: do your raw capture in StreamYard’s studio (taking advantage of local multi‑track when quality matters), clean up in your editor, then upload the polished video back into StreamYard and schedule it as a pre‑recorded stream.

How does this compare to Loom for scheduled recordings?

Loom approaches scheduling differently. Instead of scheduling a generic “record the screen at 3 pm” task, Loom focuses on calendar‑based meetings:

• Loom can connect to your calendar and automatically record meetings that have Zoom, Google Meet, or Microsoft Teams links attached, with Loom AI for Meetings handling the capture and notes. (Loom Help Center)
• On the Starter plan, standard screen recordings have a 5‑minute cap per video and a 25‑video storage cap, which makes longer tutorials or frequent recordings harder unless you upgrade. (Loom Help Center)

Loom can be useful if your primary need is “record every external meeting without thinking about it.” But it is less about presenter‑led, branded screen shows and more about quick async updates and automatic meeting notes.

If your workflow is:

• “Run a webinar‑style demo, apply branding, and re‑air it next week automatically” → StreamYard is typically the better fit.
• “Capture every sales or customer meeting in my calendar and get AI notes” → Loom is a specialized option you might layer on.

Where does OBS fit for scheduled recording power users?

OBS Studio is powerful, local software that many technical users love, especially for gameplay or very customized scenes.

For scheduling, the key ingredient is obs‑websocket, which is now bundled into OBS Studio 28.0.0 and above. That API allows external tools to send commands like StartRecording and StopRecording, so you can script or schedule when OBS begins capturing. (GitHub)

From there, third‑party utilities and scripts (for example, command‑line wrappers such as obsws-cli) let you call those APIs from schedulers like Windows Task Scheduler or cron. (PyPI)

This opens up powerful possibilities—like recording at 2 am every night—but it comes with real trade‑offs:

• You must leave your computer on, unlocked enough for OBS to run.
• You need to be comfortable configuring scenes, encoders, audio routing, and automation scripts.
• All files are local; you handle storage, backup, and sharing.

For many creators and marketers, that’s more complexity than it’s worth, especially when a browser‑based studio and scheduled pre‑recorded streams already cover their goals.

How should US teams think about pricing and value?

Pricing models differ just as much as feature sets:

• At StreamYard, paid plans are priced per workspace, not per individual user, which can be cost‑effective for teams compared with tools that bill per seat.
• Loom’s Business and Business + AI plans are priced per user per month, which scales linearly with headcount. (Loom Pricing)

For a small US marketing team or startup, a single StreamYard workspace can often cover multiple hosts, producers, and guests without multiplying subscription costs, while still giving everyone access to the same scheduled streaming and recording setup.

If your primary need is a shared studio for live demos, pre‑recorded launches, and high‑quality screen content that you can schedule and reuse, StreamYard typically delivers more collaborative value per dollar.

What we recommend

• Default choice: Use StreamYard as your main screen‑recording studio, then schedule polished videos as pre‑recorded streams when you need them to go live unattended.
• For meetings: Add Loom if automatic calendar‑based meeting recording and AI notes are mission‑critical.
• For deep automation: Use OBS with obs‑websocket only if you specifically need scriptable, hardware‑tuned local recordings and are comfortable managing the extra complexity.
• For most teams: Prioritize tools that reduce setup time and make your presenter‑led recordings look like finished content from the first session—StreamYard is designed for exactly that.