What Is Picture-in-Picture Video? Webcam PiP Explained

Picture-in-picture (PiP) video shows two videos at once. A main video fills the frame, and a smaller video sits in a window on top of it, usually in a corner. In screen recordings, the main video is your screen and the small window is your webcam, so viewers can follow the screen and still see your face.

On Macs, iPhones and in web browsers, "picture in picture" also refers to a playback feature. That feature pops a video out into a small floating player so you can keep watching while you use other apps. This page covers the first meaning: PiP as a layout inside the video itself.

What is picture-in-picture video

A PiP video has two layers:

• The main layer fills the frame. In a tutorial or demo, this is the screen recording.
• The inset is a smaller video placed over part of the main layer. It can be a webcam, a second camera or another clip.

The inset can be a rectangle, a rounded card or a circle. When the inset is a webcam, people also call it a facecam, a webcam bubble or a webcam overlay.

The inset always covers part of the main video. When you choose its size and position, you are deciding how much of the content you're willing to hide in order to show the person.

Where you see PiP video

• Screen tutorials and courses: the screen is the lesson, and a small webcam keeps a person in view.
• Product demos and sales videos: the presenter stays visible while the product is shown.
• Game streams and reaction videos: a facecam sits over the gameplay or over the clip being reacted to.
• TV news and sports: a reporter or a replay appears as an inset over the main feed, or a sign-language interpreter appears in a corner.
• Video calls: your own camera shows small over the call, or a speaker's camera shows over a shared screen.

If the person is the main shot and the screen comes second, the layout is reversed. That format is closer to a talking head video.

Webcam PiP in screen recordings

People who record software use the webcam-over-screen layout more than any other PiP format. A face makes a sales demo or an onboarding video feel like it came from a person rather than a product page. In a long tutorial, it also gives viewers something to watch while the screen isn't changing.

Sometimes a webcam is the wrong choice. For short GIFs, bug reports and help-center clips, viewers need to see every part of the interface, so leave the camera out. A webcam that covers the button you're explaining does more harm than good.

You can get a webcam into a screen recording in two ways:

1. Burn it in while recording. A camera window sits on your screen and gets captured along with everything else. This is simple, but you can't move, resize or remove the webcam afterward.
2. Record the camera as a separate track and place it in an editor. You can change its size, shape and corner after recording, or leave it out entirely.

Choosing size, shape and position for a webcam PiP

No single layout is correct, but these starting points suit most screen recordings.

Size

Start small, and make the webcam bigger only if your face looks lost. In a 1080p video (1920×1080), a sixth of the width is about 320 pixels. People watching on phones or in small embeds see everything scaled down, so check your export at the size your viewers will actually see.

Shape

• Circle: the classic webcam bubble. It's compact and familiar, and it frames a head and shoulders well.
• Rounded rectangle or 4:5 card: shows a bit more of you, such as your hands and posture.
• 16:9 rectangle: matches the camera's own frame, but it looks like a second video and takes up the most space.

Position

Let the recording decide the corner. On a Mac, the menu bar runs along the top, and the Dock usually sits at the bottom. Many apps put their toolbars at the top, and dialogs put their buttons at the bottom right. Before you pick a corner, scrub through the recording and see which corner stays empty the longest. If the action moves around the screen, it helps more to have a layout you can change after recording.

Details that make a PiP look finished

• Decide whether to mirror. A mirrored image matches what you see in a mirror. The downside is that any text behind you, such as a poster, a book spine or a shirt logo, reads backwards.
• Look at the lens when you speak to the viewer, not at your own preview.
• Light your face from the front. If a bright window is behind you, the webcam inset turns into a silhouette.
• Use full screen for the intro and outro. Fill the frame with the camera for your opening line, then shrink it back to the corner. This gives the video a clear structure. Our guide on switching between webcam and screen in a video shows how.

How to make a PiP video on a Mac

With QuickTime Player and the Screenshot toolbar (free, burned in)

This method uses only built-in apps. The screen recording captures the camera window along with everything else.

1. Open QuickTime Player and choose File > New Movie Recording. Your camera appears in a window.
2. Choose View > Float on Top so the camera window stays above your other windows.
3. Resize the camera window and drag it into a corner.
4. Press ⇧⌘5 (Command-Shift-5) to open the Screenshot toolbar. Choose Record Entire Screen or Record Selected Portion, then click Record.
5. To stop, click the stop button in the menu bar.

This method has limits. The webcam becomes part of the screen image, so you can't move it, resize it, reshape it or hide it later. The camera window is a plain rectangle that covers whatever is underneath it, and its controls can appear in the recording if your pointer passes over it. For more on the built-in tools, see how to screen record on Mac.

macOS Sonoma and later also include Presenter Overlay, a camera effect that places you over a screen you're sharing. Our guide on using Presenter Overlay on Mac explains where it works.

With Screen Bolt (separate camera track, styled after recording)

We make Screen Bolt, a Mac screen recorder that saves your webcam to its own file. You style the PiP in the editor after you record. The live camera preview on your screen isn't captured, so it never appears in the video.

1. In the Screen Bolt recording bar, click Camera and choose your camera. A round live preview appears on screen. You can drag it out of the way, or choose Hide camera preview in the same menu. The camera keeps recording either way.
2. Optional: in the Camera menu, set Max camera resolution to 720p, 1080p or 4K. The default is 1080p.
3. Click Display, Window or Area to choose what to record, then click the red record button.
4. Click Stop. With the default After recording setting (Open editor), the editor opens with your screen and camera lined up.
5. Open the Webcam panel in the sidebar with ⌘3 (Command-3), then style the camera.
6. Click Export, choose a format and quality, and click Export in the sheet.

The Camera section of the Webcam panel has these controls:

In a new project, the webcam starts as a softly rounded 4:5 card in the bottom-left corner at 17% size, with Border Beam on. To make the camera fill the frame for part of the video, use Fullscreen Moments. Mark an In point (I) and an Out point (O) on the timeline, then click Add from Marked Range.

Screen Bolt can also record a second camera, such as an iPhone over Continuity Camera, and show it as a second inset. In the editor, it has its own Camera 2 section in the same panel. Turn on Enable Camera 2 to show it. It starts in the bottom-right corner. For more, see how to record your screen with two cameras and how to use your iPhone as a webcam on Mac.

Screen Bolt has these limits:

• The webcam snaps to one of the four corners. You can't drag it anywhere else in the preview.
• The panel has a Remove Background toggle, but it has no effect in the current version (1.11.5). Your real background stays in the video.
• Video clips you drop on the overlay tracks play as picture-in-picture in the preview, but exports leave them out. If you need PiP in the exported file, use the webcam or the second camera.
• If you choose Export to file to skip the editor, the export includes only the first camera.
• The free version adds a watermark and limits exports to 3 minutes at 720p.

For a full walkthrough of the webcam setup, see how to add a webcam overlay to your screen recordings on Mac. Screen Bolt is free to download. As of November 2026, a Pro license costs $79 as a one-time purchase and removes those export limits.