GuideUpdated · by Kunj Shah
How to make a product demo video. From your live app, in about five minutes.
Short answer: install Walkcast, paste the URL of your app, add the sign-in details if your product needs one, confirm you may test it, and press Record. A real browser signs in, walks up to 30 pages the way a new user would, and hands back the whole visit as an MP4 with a spoken voice-over, WebVTT captions and a transcript. You never open a camera, never record your screen and never edit anything.
What a product demo video needs to be
Most product demo videos fail for the same reason: they show a mockup. A viewer can tell, and a viewer who spots the seam stops trusting the rest of the video. The other common failure is that the demo is a recording, which means it is out of date the moment the interface changes and somebody has to book a slot to re-record it.
A demo built from the running product avoids both. It is the actual interface, and it can be regenerated on demand. That is the whole idea behind Walkcast: the video is a by-product of the browser doing its job, not a performance.
What you need
- Windows 10 or 11 (64-bit), macOS 12 or later on Apple Silicon, or a 64-bit Linux machine.
- The address of your app, and permission to record it. Walkcast asks you to confirm you own it or are authorised to test it.
- If your app needs a login: a username and password for a test account. Two-step email-then-password forms work.
- A test account with realistic data. Empty states and placeholder rows make a dull demo.
Steps
1. Install and open Walkcast
Download the installer for your platform and start the app. It downloads the recording browser (Chromium) once, on first launch, and then works offline apart from the site being recorded.
2. Paste the URL of the page you want to start from
Give it the address of the page a new visitor would land on. Walkcast follows links on the same site from there, so you do not have to list the pages you want. Sign-out, delete, cancel and unsubscribe links are skipped automatically.
3. Add the sign-in, if there is one
Fill in the username and password of your test account. Walkcast finds the sign-in form, signs in, and then continues through the site as an authenticated visitor. The password is held in memory for the run only: traces, captions and files on disk show a placeholder, and the narration never reads it out.
4. Press Record
A real Chromium browser opens the page, signs in like a first-time user, and visits up to 30 pages, scrolling each one. It never submits a form. If the site presents a CAPTCHA or a second-factor prompt, the recorder stops and tells you rather than trying to get past it.
5. Review, re-record, share
Play the result in the app. Rewrite any line of the narration and re-narrate it, or replace the voice with your own recording. Then share recording.mp4, or embed it with its captions on your site.
What you get
| File | What it is |
|---|---|
recording.mp4 | H.264 video, AAC narration, embedded caption track. Plays everywhere. |
narrated.webm | The same narration over the original WebM video. |
captions.vtt | WebVTT captions, timed to the voice. |
narration.wav | The voice-over on its own. |
transcript.txt | The narration as plain text. |
| Page list | Every page visited, with its title and HTTP status. |
How long should a product demo video be?
Long enough to show the value and short enough to be finished. For most products, four to eight pages is the sweet spot: long enough to prove the thing works, short enough that a prospect on a sales call will watch it through. The maximum is 30 pages. If your product needs more than that, record the flow twice rather than making one long video — two focused videos are easier to share and easier to re-record than one.
Make it look like your product, not a template
- Start from the landing page. The first page a viewer sees sets the expectation for the rest.
- Use a test account with real-looking data. The narration reads page titles and what the browser did, so clear page titles produce clear narration.
- Use your own voice if the brand needs it. Record it in the browser, or add a voice key and pick from natural voices with a spoken sample.
- Do not script the narration by hand. It is written from the browser's own trace: the page it opened, the field it typed into, what it clicked and what the site answered. That is why it cannot describe a feature that is not on screen.
Where to put the video
A product demo earns its keep in three places: your pricing page, your onboarding email, and a sales deck. All three take the same MP4. Embed it with its captions so people who cannot play audio can still follow it:
<video controls playsinline preload="metadata">
<source src="recording.mp4" type="video/mp4">
<track kind="captions" src="captions.vtt" srclang="en" label="English" default>
</video>Compare the alternatives
- Loom alternative — if you have been recording your screen instead of your site.
- Screen Studio alternative — if you want the polished screencast look, and you are on a Mac.
- Scribe alternative — if you want screenshots and steps rather than a video.