PC Screen Capture to Video - What Works?

Will Fastie · January 23rd, 2004, 11:01 AM

I just finished some tests with HyperCam. Many thanks to Greg Kochaniak at Hyperionics for helping me clear this up.

The problem with the gradient was video compression. By setting HyperCam to full frame (no compression), I got a perfect image in the screen capture. On Greg's advice, I also tried the other codecs that happen to be installed on my system and found some other good results.

One of those codecs is the TechSmith codec supplied with Camtasia. Out of curiousity, I captured 5 seconds of the problem area in Studio 8 with no action -- no mouse movement, no motion on the screen -- using HyperCam, first with the full frame setting and then using the TechSmith codec. The full frame option yielded a 31MB AVI file. The TechSmith codec yielded a 110KB (that's KB) AVI file. The playback of those two files is indistinguishable.

At least now we know what we're paying for if we buy Camtasia.

Will

January 23rd, 2004, 11:01 AM	#16
Will Fastie Major Player Join Date: Feb 2003 Location: Jarrettsville, MD Posts: 353	HyperCam Works! I just finished some tests with HyperCam. Many thanks to Greg Kochaniak at Hyperionics for helping me clear this up. The problem with the gradient was video compression. By setting HyperCam to full frame (no compression), I got a perfect image in the screen capture. On Greg's advice, I also tried the other codecs that happen to be installed on my system and found some other good results. One of those codecs is the TechSmith codec supplied with Camtasia. Out of curiousity, I captured 5 seconds of the problem area in Studio 8 with no action -- no mouse movement, no motion on the screen -- using HyperCam, first with the full frame setting and then using the TechSmith codec. The full frame option yielded a 31MB AVI file. The TechSmith codec yielded a 110KB (that's KB) AVI file. The playback of those two files is indistinguishable. At least now we know what we're paying for if we buy Camtasia. Will