Screen capture for seminar recording

[Henning Schulzrinne]

We'd like to record a technical conference, where presenters give talks using (mostly) PowerPoint slides but also assorted other programs. Since taping off the projection screen is unlikely to yield good results, I'm considering various options:

1) Convert presenter laptop output with scan converter to analog video and then with a video capture card to digital video. This probably works, but seems rather circuitous.

2) Find some kind of direct screen-to-live video software. Camtasia claims to do this, but I haven't tried this. (This would only work for the conference-provided PC.)

3) Find a VGA-to-Firewire converter.

Any recommendations or other suggestions.

Thank you.

Henning Schulzrinne

[Rob Lohman]

Well, I've seen recording directly of a screen work perfectly.
Depending on screen, brightness, ambient light etc. etc.

I would do a test run first if possible before discarding this
option. If they can send you the powerpoint presentation
file beforehand you might even try to load it in various
program. Perhaps powerpoint itself has an export as well,
it's been a while since I looked into this.

[Henning Schulzrinne]

I since found the Canopus TwinPact 100 bi-directional video converter that claims to convert VGA output to firewire. I have not tried it, but if anybody has experiences with the unit, I'd appreciate insights.

[Jack Kelly]

Hi there,

I'm also looking for a way to record powerpoint presentations as video without having to point a video camera at the projection screen.

My preferred option would be to use some sort of screen capture software. Has anyone tried running screen capture software to record a powerpoint presentation? I certainly don't want the capture software to disrupt the powerpoint presentation!

Thanks,
Jack

[Jack Kelly]

Hmm, this free screen capture software looks like it might be worth testing:

http://camstudio.org/

[Bill Mecca]

I recently used Cam Studio to do just that. You can pull the jpgs out of Powerpoint but they are extremely jaggy, so I played the presentation (it smooths the jaggies) and recorded it wtih Cam studio.

One major PITA is the powerpoint graphics were horrible, tons of tiny text, and more importantly had no regard for safe text areas.

I got my version of Camstudio from sourceforge.

[Jack Kelly]

great, thanks for the reply. I'll give it a go.

What codec and resolution does Camstudio record? I'd want it to be at least PAL resolution.

(On the topic of manually extracting still images from Powerpoint presentations... I have done that in the past but it is very, very time consuming, especially when you have to add any animation. I've also tried using a camera to record the projection screen and whilst it can be made to work, it never looks particularly attractive).

[Bill Mecca]

I used Camstudio's lossless codec (avail on sourceforge) and saved as avi. (NTSC land here) You should be able to use any codec on your system, but I haven't had much luck with anything but the camstudio codec or the microsoft avi.

[Jack Kelly]

Many thanks for the reply.

So, I've been testing CamStudio 2.0 with the CamStudioCodec1.4 and I'm impressed. Even on a relatively slow machine it's possible to get a respectable full-screen capture.

But I've found that Premiere Pro CS3 doesn't natively support the CamStudioCodec1.4. The only way I've found to get the screen capture into Premiere Pro is to convert the CamStudioCodec1.4 video into an MPEG2 video using MediaCoder. I've tried quite a few other codecs but MPEG2 seems to be the only one which satisfies all these criteria:

1) Saves the full resolution of the CamStudio video
2) Doesn't produce MASSIVE file sizes
3) Works in Premiere Pro

The workflow works fine for me, even if it is a tiny bit inelegant.