Need Screen Recorder

  • Thread starter Thread starter Frederick
  • Start date Start date
F

Frederick

I have an immediate need for a free app to record a short 2 minute
video clip playing through a web site found on IExplorer and/or
Firefox as an avi file on my machine. Can't get anything to work so
far.

Some recommend an app?

Thanks


Big Fred
 
Frederick said:
I have an immediate need for a free app to record a short 2 minute
video clip playing through a web site found on IExplorer and/or
Firefox as an avi file on my machine. Can't get anything to work so
far.

Some recommend an app?
Click to expand...

One app that can do it, is VirtualDub. It is not for naive users, though, you
must know what you're doing. It has AVI capture, and one of the available
sources is screen capture (in addition to any cameras you might have).
 
One app that can do it, is VirtualDub. It is not for naive users, though, you
must know what you're doing. It has AVI capture, and one of the available
sources is screen capture (in addition to any cameras you might have).
Click to expand...


I tried it to no avail. I couldn't create a VH Screen Capture Driver
from any of several downloads available. VirtualDub insists on saying
'No Capture Driver Available'.

VH Screen Capture Driver from SplitMediaLabs for one.

Thanks anyway.

Big Fred
 
Have you tried the Firefox extension Downloadhelper? It works with
most, but not all, videos. You can configure it to produce AVIs.
 
Frederick said:
I tried it to no avail. I couldn't create a VH Screen Capture Driver
from any of several downloads available. VirtualDub insists on saying
'No Capture Driver Available'.

VH Screen Capture Driver from SplitMediaLabs for one.

Thanks anyway.
Click to expand...

There's something funny going on with your system, in that case. I have never
installed a "VH Screen Capture Driver", whatever that is. On my system, in VDub,
in "capture" mode, the "Device" drop-down lists at least 3 devices that you
should be seeing too - Microsoft WDM Image Capture, Screen Capture, and Video
file (emulation). And of course on my system I have some other hardware and
virtual cameras, and even some Google Camera adapter (direct show) which I don't
remember installing, and need to figure out where it came from.

Maybe the VDub versions matter? - I have 1.8.6 (build 30009/release by Avery
Lee). And I have the K-lite codec pack, which is a must, if you want to do any
AVI video editing.
 
Frederick said:
I tried it to no avail. I couldn't create a VH Screen Capture Driver
from any of several downloads available. VirtualDub insists on saying
'No Capture Driver Available'.

VH Screen Capture Driver from SplitMediaLabs for one.

Thanks anyway.

Big Fred
Click to expand...

Custom method. For this, you start by identifying the movie type. Is it
Flash ? Is it a QuickTime MOV ? Is is streamed ? Is it protected with
something like BrightCove ? Basically, the idea is, you use your search
engine, to find the perfect "custom" capture method. At least a few
of the weaker streaming methods, have workarounds.

*******

Using CamStudio. The capture rate might not be synchronous with the movie
frame rate. (Doing things, like reducing the video acceleration slider,
are intended to move video playback to a non hardware-overlay-plane. Things
rendered on an overlay plane, have the distinct disadvantage of not being
captured by some software capture solutions. If the program leaves the
video window blank, play with the video acceleration slider for the display
subsystem.)

http://camstudio.org/forum/discussion/273/camstudio-not-recording-video-on-desktop/p1

A similar tool, which is used for recording 3D game play, is FRAPs.
But I don't know whether it would be able to record a video playing
in a browser. The free version only runs long enough, for you to
verify the quality of capture that would result. For any decent
capture period, you'd need to buy it.

*******

Using a BlackMagic card.
http://www.simhq.com/_technology2/technology_152a.html

As a hardware guy, I like that idea, because it requires the least
compromising of other software settings on the computer. Basically,
the computer doesn't know it's being recorded, if the recorder
is connected to the monitor cable used by the monitor.

Such cards don't support HDCP (content protection) and are not
designed to capture 1080p60 for example. Usually there are limits
as to the resolution you can capture at, as determine by DMCA laws.
The BlackMagic designers could easily have made a better, more
capable card, but then would run afoul of the law.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dmca

There is another example here. Read the Feedback section here, to
see how easy it is to use the product for screen recording purposes.
One reviewer implies this uses software compression, before recording
to disk. I thought one of the reasons designs like this (using
the Analog Devices capture chip) could work through a PCI Express x1
interface, is because the hardware provides some level of
compression. Software compression means there is one more
obstacle to getting good results (dropped frames etc).

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16815100049

The reviews here on the BlackMagic card, mention capture
options are "Uncompressed 8-bit YUV" or "Compressed Motion JPEG".
Still lots of rough edges.

http://www.amazon.com/Blackmagic-De...dp_top_cm_cr_acr_txt?ie=UTF8&showViewpoints=1

Paul
 
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