How to remove flickering or banding when recording a digital screen or monitor?

The other day, I was making a tutorial video and I had to record the activities performed on a laptop screen. When recording screen activities, I usually use an open source software called "Cam Studio" but this time, the activity involved shutting down the computer. Therefore, I chose to record it with my smartphone in HD mode instead. And I noticed the video had flickers. It is very distracting to look at. I had to remove the flickers otherwise, the video will be unwatchable.

So, what causes the flickering on the screen when recording a display screen or monitor?

The flickering is cause due to the difference in the scanning frequency of the display and the recording device. The flickering is usually more prominent if you are recording a TV or a computer monitor that is CRT based. LCD display screen are not much. But still you may see some flickers like in this case. For technical reasons and causes of the flickering screen, you may "Google it" or see this link. But in brief, it is due to the difference in the scan frequencies of the display and the recording device. Monitor have something called "refresh rate" of the screen which is usually 50Hz or 60Hz. Most digital displays including computer monitors operates at 50Hz - 60 Hz. Even electrical appliances such as UPS works at 50Hz.

On Windows computer, you may confirm the refresh rate of the display from Control Panel > Display > Display/Monitor properties.

How to remove the flicker when recording a screen?

So, since the basic reason for the flicker is because of the refresh rate of the display monitor vs the scan rate of the recording device, we have to bring them closer. The easiest way is to adjust from the recording device. Most digital cameras are equipped with features such as - synchro scan, clear scan, variable scan or anti-banding feature to remove or minimize the flickering.

How to remove flickers when recording laptop screen using smartphone camera?

In this particular scenario, the reason why I am posting this article, we can remove the flicker in the video from the smartphone settings if there is an anti-banding feature on the smartphone's camera settings. If you see flickers when recording, go to the smartphone's camera settings and find the "anti-banding" settings and try different options available. Usually the 50Hz or 60 Hz should work fine when recording computer display screen. In my case, setting the anti-banding setting to 50Hz resolved the flickering issue.

Here is a short video (check it out).