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Capture
Normally, when you record KSP, your external recording software will record duplicate frames when KSP is unable to keep up with the recording frame-rate. Anybody who's worked on cinematics will know the pain of manually removing duplicate frames and adjusting the video speed to try to keep the flow of time steady.
The advantage of recording from inside KSP is that the recording of each new frame can be synchronised with whenever KSP actually has a new frame to display. Capture Tools combines this with control over the exact amount of time simulated in each new frame in order to create a video file where every frame is unique and spans exactly the same amount of in-game time.
This doesn't mean that the game will appear smooth as you are filming; the video is gradually built up as new frames are rendered, much like an offline renderer.
To start a recording, open the UI, make sure you're on the Capture section, click either 'Main Camera' or 'Multicam', and click record. The key bind to start a main camera recording without opening the UI is Right Alt + F8.
If the recording button says 'PREVIEW' after you start a recording, you should double-check that 'Preview Only' is off.
Constant Rate Factor (CRF) is a way of specifying the bitrate for video encoding where you allow the bitrate to change to match a perceived quality, depending on how much the image is moving and how busy it is, as opposed to saying exactly how many bits you want to use per second.
It's a scale where 0 is lossless and, as the number increases, the quality and file size drops.
Note
0 = Lossless >15 = Lossy >20 = More lossy
The default for Capture Tools is 15, which I think is a good balance of quality and filesize for a general recording. If you're recording cinematics, you might want to move it ever so slightly more towards lossless. I would definitely avoid going below 11.
'Capture Frame Rate' determines how much in-game time is simulated between each new frame, and is the target frame-rate that KSP will try to run at. 'Playback Frame Rate' determines the frame rate of the video file, i.e. how fast the video file will play back. A capture frame rate of 60 FPS means that exactly 1/60th of a second will appear to pass between each frame, no matter how badly the game is running.
If, for example, you'd like to record a 60 FPS video to be played back in real-time, both capture and playback frame rate should be set to 60 FPS.
In most use cases you will want these to be exactly the same, but the playback option is provided in case you'd like to record high-speed footage with Capture Tools, to be played back at a normal frame-rate for a slow-motion effect.
The sync setting controls how often the camera's position will be updated. In Unity, KSP's game engine, there are two (sort of) independent frame-rates. The rate that new frames are rendered, which is whatever your final framerate is, and the rate of the physics engine, which is always 50 FPS, and is how frequently the positions of vessels and parts are updated.
For the most stable camera movement, you should select 'Physics', this way the camera will update in-step with the movement of vessels and parts.
If you need to record camera movement while the game is paused, or while running in slow motion, you should select 'Rendering', and the camera position will be updated as each new frame is rendered. You can't use this all the time because if 'Capture Frame Rate' isn't a factor of the physics frame rate (50 FPS, 25 FPS, etc.), the positions of vessels will appear to stutter.
'Show Preview' presents a picture-in-picture preview in the corner of the screen showing the video output in the case of the main camera, and a grid of outputs in the case of multicam. These previews don't show up in the final video, and they aren't really meant to be filmed. They're intended for making sure camera settings are good and for timing camera movements.
'Preview Only' is useful for testing out camera movements and multicam setups without filling up your hard drive with video files.