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Windows Desktop Recorder



 
 
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  #1  
Old November 10th 15, 01:42 AM posted to alt.windows7.general
OldGuy
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Posts: 102
Default Windows Desktop Recorder

I want a way to record what I do on my Windows PC desktop and be able
to send the movie with sound to a friend. This so I can show how to
operate an application. He has no internet so I am sending a DVD.

What is available free?

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  #2  
Old November 10th 15, 02:12 AM posted to alt.windows7.general
JT[_6_]
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Posts: 77
Default Windows Desktop Recorder

OldGuy wrote:

I want a way to record what I do on my Windows PC desktop and be able
to send the movie with sound to a friend. This so I can show how to
operate an application. He has no internet so I am sending a DVD.

What is available free?


OldGuy,

I used "Captivate" software a while back. It created a video of your

Windows desktop allowing you to narrate installation instructions via a

microphone. I used it to create tutorials of common tasks that users

could do themselves. Unfortunately it looks like it was swallowed up by

Adobe. It's now available by subscription for US$29.99/mo

I'll ask around the office and see what we use now (I am no longer

responsible for making the tutorials) I would think there would be a

freeware equivalent somewhere out there.

JT
  #3  
Old November 10th 15, 03:49 AM posted to alt.windows7.general
Big Al[_5_]
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Posts: 1,588
Default Windows Desktop Recorder

OldGuy wrote on 11/9/2015 7:42 PM:
I want a way to record what I do on my Windows PC desktop and be able to send the movie with sound to a friend. This so
I can show how to operate an application. He has no internet so I am sending a DVD.

What is available free?

I've done documentation but I've done it by screen captures. Then put the screen captures in work and document each
picture. You can draw arrows to point to different items.

My screen capture allows capturing a rectangle of the screen so I can focus on a smaller part of the program rather than
showing a whole complex screen.

It's an option.

  #4  
Old November 10th 15, 06:45 AM posted to alt.windows7.general
Paul
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Posts: 18,275
Default Windows Desktop Recorder

OldGuy wrote:
I want a way to record what I do on my Windows PC desktop and be able to
send the movie with sound to a friend. This so I can show how to
operate an application. He has no internet so I am sending a DVD.

What is available free?


There is a list here.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compar...sting_software

And the nice thing about Wikipedia, is it has a malware/adware
section in the descriptions of some of the software. So if you
spot a free program, you can check Wikipedia for evidence of
tampering or wrappers.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CamStudio

The last time I used CamStudio, it had a 4GB limitation. That
means selecting an efficient encoder/compressor for the
capture. Once it runs past 4GB of output, the file is
corrupted.

When capturing the screen, each encoder/compressor has
different quality and computing load tradeoffs. So while I
like the "movie" formats that compress by a factor of 100, I
don't like the color fringing on sharp edges in the video.
It can take a lot of experiments, to get good results.
Most programs use really poor choices for the codec
(in my opinion, as a quality-seeking perfectionist).

I have used FFMPEG for this too. You can spend hours and hours
dreaming up commands for it. With CamStudio for comparison,
you just draw a capture rectangle around where you want to
work, or just click one window to be captured.

ffmpeg -offset_x 0 -offset_y 480 -video_size 720x480 -framerate 60
-f gdigrab -i desktop -f dshow -sample_rate 44100 -i audio="SoundMAX HD Audio"
-vcodec mjpeg -acodec pcm_s16le out.avi

I've done screen capture at 90FPS (async). I've captured
the whole screen at 1440x900. But it takes a lot of CPU,
or a high-speed storage device, to cope with it. And then
you want enough performance left, so you can use the
computer for the screencasting topic.

Camstudio is a bit deceiving. The default claims to support
capture at 200FPS. What the tool does, is it duplicates
frames if it detects that it is going to lose a frame.
When tested on this computer, it is actually capturing
at around 7FPS, and using a video editor, if you look
at the frames one at a time, it repeats the same frame
like 30 times in a row. And that's how it makes the claim
it is capturing at 200 FPS. You generally know if the tool
you used is a stinker, as the mouse cursor will be jerky
during playback.

One of the reasons for experimenting with high speed
capture (90FPS async), is to check for sampling jitter.
And the jitter in these software methods, is higher than
expected. For example, if you expect the captured
frames to repeat for 3 frames in a row, if you examine
the movie, the frame repeat can vary from 1 frame to 5 frames.
Instead of staying in the 2,3,4 range of repeated frames. So
the jitter is high. And that's important if you were thinking
of down-sampling somehow.

It would be nice if the methods captured with VSYNC (synchronous
to screen retrace), but I'm not aware of software methods that do that.
It might take a hardware screen capture card to do that. And
those are available ($100 to $500 or so for consumer versions).

Also note, for the latest OSes, Microsoft put a limiter in
the GDI capture path. Windows 7 can capture at high speed.
Later OSes cap the rate at 30FPS (when the screen refresh is
60 frames per second progressive). So if you see some
strange behaviors while capturing, that's a possible factor.
This is one of the reasons I bought a copy of Win7 for the
Test Machine, so if I ever needed to run capture the
way *I* wanted to run it, I'd have an OS suited to the job.

Paul
  #5  
Old November 10th 15, 04:12 PM posted to alt.windows7.general
Jim Thompson
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Posts: 20
Default Windows Desktop Recorder

On Tue, 10 Nov 2015 00:45:30 -0500, Paul wrote:

OldGuy wrote:
I want a way to record what I do on my Windows PC desktop and be able to
send the movie with sound to a friend. This so I can show how to
operate an application. He has no internet so I am sending a DVD.

What is available free?


There is a list here.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compar...sting_software


Strange. The list doesn't include Open Broadcaster.


And the nice thing about Wikipedia, is it has a malware/adware
section in the descriptions of some of the software. So if you
spot a free program, you can check Wikipedia for evidence of
tampering or wrappers.

[snip]

Paul


...Jim Thompson
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| Voice480)460-2350 Fax: Available upon request | Brass Rat |
| E-mail Icon at http://www.analog-innovations.com | 1962 |

I love to cook with wine. Sometimes I even put it in the food.
  #6  
Old November 10th 15, 06:01 PM posted to alt.windows7.general
OldGuy
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Posts: 75
Default Windows Desktop Recorder

VLC?
Has anybody used that for desktop movie capture?

It is very stable for other things.

I never saw anything in VLC to indicate it could capture the desktop.
Where do I look? What is the terminology?



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  #7  
Old November 10th 15, 10:43 PM posted to alt.windows7.general
Paul
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 18,275
Default Windows Desktop Recorder

Jim Thompson wrote:
On Tue, 10 Nov 2015 00:45:30 -0500, Paul wrote:

OldGuy wrote:
I want a way to record what I do on my Windows PC desktop and be able to
send the movie with sound to a friend. This so I can show how to
operate an application. He has no internet so I am sending a DVD.

What is available free?

There is a list here.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compar...sting_software


Strange. The list doesn't include Open Broadcaster.


That's why it's open to editing. So people
can add items if they want.

Now, the function of Open Broadcaster looks a bit different.
It would not be the same function as CamStudio.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_broadcaster

Paul
  #8  
Old November 10th 15, 10:58 PM posted to alt.windows7.general
Paul
external usenet poster
 
Posts: 18,275
Default Windows Desktop Recorder

OldGuy wrote:
VLC?
Has anybody used that for desktop movie capture?

It is very stable for other things.

I never saw anything in VLC to indicate it could capture the desktop.
Where do I look? What is the terminology?


The interface is like flying a 747. Don't forget to
flip the "fasten seatbelts" switch... The recipe
is only 11 steps or so.

http://www.wikihow.com/Screen-Capture-to-File-Using-VLC

If VLC were using FFMPEG or AVLIB, it's possible it is
using gdigrab for this.

One thing to remember about screen capture stuff.

1) Disable hardware acceleration on Flash Video
2) Disable hardware acceleration on anything else
you may be attempting to capture.

There are at least three rendering planes. Only FRAPS
knows how to capture all three, and in the latest OSes,
Microsoft has buggered the OS, so the FRAPS designers
cannot make a compatible implementation. So of the
rendering planes, something is un-fixable in later
OSes. Sorta like the frame limiter issue. So if you
absolutely must capture everything, you'd probably
want to stick with Windows 7, then start experimenting.
(Or, use a screen capture card, with HDMI or VGA input.)

When I tested FRAPS, or tried to, it was inserting
a DLL into every program files folder. Which of course,
makes your AV go crazy. My AV was so happy with the
FRAPS installer, the machine froze up :-) Using that
DLL is how they hook the information flow for capture.
Other methods are less intrusive, but also less
complete. Which is why you may need to adjust some
programs, so they render into a plane the capture
tool can reach.

If you need to capture 3D screen play, the NVidia
video driver now has ShadowPlay(?) for recording
3D plane video for later. So that would be an
example of a partial replacement for FRAPS, if
you're a 3D gamer. But that mechanism isn't intended
for the regular desktop rendering planes. It's
just intended for the harder-to-do one, the 3D plane.
Since part of the implementation is in the GPU, you'd
expect the result to be buttery smooth (video encoding
on capture, is done with a video encoder block in a
modern GPU).

When doing screen capture in Win7, you can get
slightly better results by disabling Aero, so
there is no transparency on the window frames.
Of course, then the results don't look "authentic".
Aero adds a little overhead to the capture
path or something.

Paul
 




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