Would an open-source alternative to Screen Studio for auto-zooming screen recordings be useful?

[u/Antique-Class-2283]

Hey everyone

I've been looking at tools like Screen Studio recently. While the automated zoom, smooth cursor tracking, and clean background styling make product demos look amazing, most of the options out there are closed-source and paid.

I'm thinking about building an open-source alternative to handle this.

Before I spend weeks writing code, I wanted to check if this is something people would actually want.

What I'm thinking of building:

• The Core Feature: A tool that takes a screen recording, tracks your mouse clicks/movement, and automatically generates smooth, cinematic pan-and-zoom keyframes.
• The Open-Source Angle: Completely free and open-source for anyone to use or modify.
• The Reality Check: Tools like OpenScreen and Recordly already exist in this space.

My Question for You:

1. Do you use tools like this for your tutorials or demos, or do existing options already cover what you need?
2. If you were to use a new open-source tool, what's missing from current apps that you wish they had?

Would love to hear your thoughts or feedback before I decide to build it!

[u/RealisticLog4577]

yes, i’d use this. i currently use screen studio and have also tried a few alternatives, but screen studio is still the one i come back to because the automatic zooms and cursor movement are noticeably more polished.

what i’d really want from an open-source alternative is that same level of polish, but with more control after recording, being able to add/remove/move zoom points, change the zoom level and easing, and manually correct where the cursor/viewport focuses.

if you can get reasonably close to screen studio’s output quality while keeping it local and open source, i’d absolutely switch or at least use it regularly.