Doesn't Lawena have a recording action somewhere?

Personally I just run Lawena and Fraps it, cause I never figured the recording portion of it. Then I run it through Movie Maker to reduce the file size/add transitions.

I'd recommend using DXtory to record the gameplay, and then rendering them out in Vegas (Unless you have stupidly high upload speed).

so.. the programs I would need is Lawena and Fraps?

if maximum quality isn't necessary, stream it through twitch, highlight it, and do a direct-to-youtube upload

Whereas this is the easiest and fastest way... It can be highly restricted by your connection

I normally just stream as a local recording and upload that. No need to use twitch.

just use OBS to record the game and change the mode to file output only
it's better than fraps and it's free

I like Dxtory as well. Lots of things you can customize, and you can even record different audio into different channels so you can adjust volumes separately later. Useful if you're recording voice/comms as well.

oh, lord I forgot about the voice comms, tagg did save them I wonder if he brought them home and how hard THAT would be to sync up..

Demo buddy has a recording tool I think, not sure how it works/how good it is though as I've never used it

I did it once.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pcZvFKynm50

Just played a demo, ran fraps for however long the demo ran, then watched some TV. Chucked into vegas and just rendered without anything special, really. As you can see, the quality isn't the best. I'd recommend bandicam (premium if possible) as I was able to get better quality & filesizes on later recordings.

My syncing of the audio is a little bit off (maybe a few hundred ms) but not noticeable enough to make a difference.

If you were to do a bunch of demos it'd probably be a fair amount of effort. But if they're separate files it's no doubt a lot easier.

EDIT: dxtory probably works fine too I suppose.

don't bother with lawena if its a pov, just open up the demo how you normally have the game and just use dxtory

If you want to continue to do this in the future you should:

It's a negligible FPS loss and since you're just recording instead of streaming it's super easy. Just set OBS to only pick up sounds from Mumble and TF2 so if you listen to music or whatever that's not in there too. At that point you can just upload whatever format OBS spits out (.avi I think?) to YT.

As for past demos, you could actually do the same thing by loading the POV into TF2, syncing the mumble comms ahead of time and then recording the demo and the audio from mumble (playing from your media player of choice) and just recording those two programs with OBS. In that case the only program you'd need is OBS, which is free and super easy to use. Saves you the trouble of dealing with Lawena/Vegas/Fraps/etc.

Lawena is still great for POVs if you don't have a 16:9 monitor, since it's very easy to set to 720p.

if anyone is interested in my lan povs, would they want to see my settings or really high quality settings?
edit: or should I ask this in a separate thread.

I would just do what enigma said. Recording and rendering everything will be a lot of work and will take a long time.

By high quality do you mean what quad does?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LZHOyHoP2Ho

If you can, you should try to have mumble comms in the background. That would be an amazing series of videos.

The easiest way I've found to do this is just get the demo and the mumble playing in sync, then stream it, assuming your upload rates are solid. People won't be too picky about the video quality, most will be watching for the quality of your play.

You have quite a few options, most of the best ways have already been listed.

Best way to record quickly with minimal editing would be to record your game and mumble while playing live. This reduces the amount of time it will take to re-record, sync and render. Methods that have been suggested include using OBS, Dxtory and any other way to capture your screen/computer.
Pros:
-fast
-easy
-people can see exactly what you see (hud,mumble overlay, graphics, configs, etc)
Cons:
-if you use an fps config then you won't get the high quality people might want to see
-overall quality may suffer
-if file size matters at all, this will record whatever resolution you play in (1080p very common afaik). 720p is generally sufficient for youtube though

For best quality I suggest using lawena to replay your demos (you probably have prec) with the maxquality configs (assuming you don't play with them). You can record your povs with whatever software you want at whatever fps you want. You can also record mumble comms in any format you like at any quality you like.
Pros:
-higher video quality (subjective?)
-if you lose frames when recording live due to hardware then recording a demo is a better option
-change skybox using lawena (doesn't really matter)
Cons:
-takes a lot more time
-way more steps involved
-you need to sync the audio file for mumble comms to your gameplay, cut out pauses/halftime
-you've gotta render a 45 minute pov which takes a long time depending on your computer, resolution of the video, bitrate, etc.

Since you're looking for an easy way I'm assuming the first option is better

edit: Demobuddy is also very similar to lawena. a lot of people prefer it over lawena but I just use lawena.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a4x3o5m8o-4

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Not really easy, but still very simple once you get used to it.

i would be fine with your settings, and having comms would be awesome too.

For videos, I use a separate launch option via a shortcut on the desktop.

"C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\Steam.exe" -applaunch 440 -sw -w 1280 -h 720 -novid +exec maxQ

When I play it's in fullscreen launching a different resolution and quality config file.

For live recording, I recommend OBS or MSI afterburner. You might want to record to a separate physical disk. Afterburner offers more encoders, including VFW encoders such as Lagarith and x264. It also can record two audio sources.

If what you want is a pov, and you have the .wav output from mumble, all you need to do is start the demo, and type this in the console

host_framerate 30; startmovie a_movie_

You'll get a lot of frames in your /tf/ folder. Then Vdub it together, which will take some time. I don't see why people only use this method for HQ videos, it's nice if you just want a framerate that does not stutter.

Lawena is good for frag videos and highlights, but if you're uploading full POVs then bandicam, fraps, or twitch highlights are the way to go.