A common question: “I recorded my camera in one video and my screen in another (or uploaded a file) — can I play them at the same time, picture-in-picture or side-by-side?”
Short answer: layouts can only overlay tracks that were captured in the same recording. Separate clips always play one after another, not on top of each other. But there are good ways to get the result you want.
How Tella combines camera and screen
When you record screen + camera together in Tella, each clip contains two tracks — your camera and your screen — and layouts let you arrange them freely: picture-in-picture, side-by-side, TV presenter, and more.
A video you upload (or a screen-only / camera-only recording) contains a single track. Adding it to a video creates a new clip, and clips play sequentially on the timeline. There’s no multi-track timeline for stacking one clip on top of another.
Ways to get picture-in-picture or side-by-side
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Record screen and camera together (recommended). Use the web app, Mac app, Windows app, or Chrome extension and turn both sources on. You can re-record any clip later — see Re-record clips.
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Show the other video as Media (B-roll). If your clip was recorded in Tella with a camera track, you can add a separately recorded video file as Media in a layout. Your camera stays on screen while the media plays — including side-by-side and camera-bubble styles.
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Composite externally, then upload. If both videos come from outside Tella, combine them in a tool that supports multi-track editing (or capture them together with software like OBS), then upload the finished file to trim, caption, and share it with Tella.
What about recording a voiceover separately?
Tella doesn’t support importing a standalone audio file or recording a voiceover track over an existing clip. To narrate a screen recording, record your mic at the same time as your screen — or re-record individual clips until the take is right.
Want to react to or narrate an existing video? Play it on your screen while recording screen + camera in Tella — you’ll capture the video, your voice, and your camera in one go.
