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In due course a new forum will be available to help support newer CamStudio versions.
Sorry for the inconvenience and thank you for your patience.
Settings for high quality and small filesize
You need 2 files:
CamStudio 2.7_r316 http://sourceforge.net/projects/camstudio/files/latest/download
x264vfw Codec http://sourceforge.net/projects/x264vfw/files/x264vfw/37_2200bm_33968/x264vfw_37_2200bm_33968.exe/download
Download and install.
The followings settings worked well for me (Windows 7, DualCore processor):
Video: x264vfw, Q100, key200, frame25, 40
x264vfw config: ultrafast, CRF23, Loglevel=none
Audio: 22kHz, mono, 16bit, PCM(change has no effects!), Interleave1000ms, no MCI!
Audio and Video Sync.: 500ms delay (otherwise time costly videocompression leads to timedelayed video!)
Because I get always PCM audio regardless which audio codec I choose, the only way to get smallest filesizes is to compress audio afterwards.
For later audio compression e.g. mp3 with Virtualdub make sure to use CBR (not ABR), otherwise audio is not in sync!
CBR is only available for samplingrates 32kHz or 44 kHz, so you have to convert from 22kHz to 44kHz afterwards (to 32kHz gives bad quality!) or choose 44kHz in Camstudio settings for recording beforehand (bigger filesize-> 2GB limit!)
A test recording of a 91 min webinar (with video) format 862x644 resulted in a size of 544 MB without audio compression, i.e. 5 hours recording without reaching the 2 GB limit should be possible. audio and video parts in the file had roundabout the same sizes.
I plan to make a test with 720p standard resolution 1280x720. I will post here the attained filesize.
I failed in trying to compare codecs x264 and Xvid regarding quality vs. filesize by now, because after choosing Xvid video codec (Jawor´s Xvid) camstudio doesn´t start recording but stops with error message "Wave in error: Das angegebene Gerätehandle ist ungültig. in Stop()".
Edit: Please make sure that both, region width and height, have even numbers! If not you´ll get errors while starting to record. To make sure this doesn´t happen use Region->Fixed Region instead of Window. It´s annoying to be forced to change windows size by one pixel if you need to record NOW.
CamStudio 2.7_r316 http://sourceforge.net/projects/camstudio/files/latest/download
x264vfw Codec http://sourceforge.net/projects/x264vfw/files/x264vfw/37_2200bm_33968/x264vfw_37_2200bm_33968.exe/download
Download and install.
The followings settings worked well for me (Windows 7, DualCore processor):
Video: x264vfw, Q100, key200, frame25, 40
x264vfw config: ultrafast, CRF23, Loglevel=none
Audio: 22kHz, mono, 16bit, PCM(change has no effects!), Interleave1000ms, no MCI!
Audio and Video Sync.: 500ms delay (otherwise time costly videocompression leads to timedelayed video!)
Because I get always PCM audio regardless which audio codec I choose, the only way to get smallest filesizes is to compress audio afterwards.
For later audio compression e.g. mp3 with Virtualdub make sure to use CBR (not ABR), otherwise audio is not in sync!
CBR is only available for samplingrates 32kHz or 44 kHz, so you have to convert from 22kHz to 44kHz afterwards (to 32kHz gives bad quality!) or choose 44kHz in Camstudio settings for recording beforehand (bigger filesize-> 2GB limit!)
A test recording of a 91 min webinar (with video) format 862x644 resulted in a size of 544 MB without audio compression, i.e. 5 hours recording without reaching the 2 GB limit should be possible. audio and video parts in the file had roundabout the same sizes.
I plan to make a test with 720p standard resolution 1280x720. I will post here the attained filesize.
I failed in trying to compare codecs x264 and Xvid regarding quality vs. filesize by now, because after choosing Xvid video codec (Jawor´s Xvid) camstudio doesn´t start recording but stops with error message "Wave in error: Das angegebene Gerätehandle ist ungültig. in Stop()".
Edit: Please make sure that both, region width and height, have even numbers! If not you´ll get errors while starting to record. To make sure this doesn´t happen use Region->Fixed Region instead of Window. It´s annoying to be forced to change windows size by one pixel if you need to record NOW.
Comments
I used this Youtube video in 720p (2:18 min, 38Mb):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=e-GYrbecb88#!
https://rapidshare.com/files/1668619159/7be198adb79c6fcf.mp4
to make some screencasts (all 1280x720, 40fps):
To have an idea how´s the size recording no motion video I made this one with x264vfw codec but w/o audio (1:00 min, 1.2Mb):
https://rapidshare.com/files/1983215301/x264test_still.avi
Then this one with audio and x264vfw codec (2:20 min, 47Mb):
https://rapidshare.com/files/572270918/x264test_movie.avi
Finally this one, same source but Xvid MPEG-4 codec (2:20 min, 53Mb):
https://rapidshare.com/files/1310632236/x264test_movieXvid.avi
Obviously x264 is much smoother. Furthermore fast forward to 1:41 and after: See X264 run smoothly, Xvid jumps and blocks irregularly, quite unshowable.
It seems to me, x264 clearly wins this head to head, at least on my dual core Win 7 machine. On quad core machines which may encode faster the difference may not be as obvious as on mine, but that´s not the point.
Another conclusion that can be made after this test is:
With settings as mentioned above, a screencast (1280x720 with x264) takes min. 1.2 mb (still movie) to max. 20 mb (complex HD movie) per minute of filespace.
I made another one in Xvid. I changed settings to Profile unrestricted, disable packed bitstream & b-VOPs, Quality preset real time, Target bitrate 8500 kbps (2:19, 45mb):
https://rapidshare.com/files/1529245596/Xvidtest_movie.avi
In my opinion this one saves the honour for Xvid. But x264 still runs a bit smoother.
What kinds of times are you getting for maximum recording lengths (up to the 2-gigabyte file size limitation) with these settings?
It seems you'd get quite a long recording with a webinar (mostly still) recording. 20mb per minute for a complex video would be quite long as well to reach 2-gb (um... 5 minutes being 100mb, 10 at 200mb, so... 100 minutes??? An hour and 40 minutes would be amazing!)
Terry
Ken
please take into account that I used 22 kHz mono audio PCM. 44 kHz stereo (without compression like mp3 or AAC) would quadruple the audio part if I'm not wrong.
Vopo
I again used the 720p video from above to make some x264 recordings.
I found no remarkable differences neither in quality nor in filesize, so I stay with 200 frames.
Maybe there’s someone who has had a different experience?
Ken
Having said that, this may be the only setting to ever be concerned with, assuming one has decided on a specific encoder and settings within Cam itself, which are at least acceptable for any reasonable use of the program. If you’re still using 25/40, you’re pretty much stuck with x264, but that’s what you like anyway, so you’re always “good to go” without doing anything except to insure that your region is correct.
Ken
For ensuring windows are sized correctly, I use the Sizer program by brianapps
http://www.brianapps.net/sizer/
There is a beta for Win 7 64-bit, but the 3.34 version works for me for most situations just fine, though sometimes I have to right-click a few times on the top border of the window to get the menu to appear.
Here's a couple videos I did on using it.
Installing and using Sizer -
Saving Sizer setups -
Terry
http://www.adrive.com/public/QnNJj5/time-mpg.mpg
Have a look and judge for yourself how this compares to some of the others we’ve discussed here.
Ken
So, for the sake of finding the best quality with acceptable filesize, I might use Mpeg2 to record another 2 clips. One with the exact same parameters from above and one with optimized parameters for the different compressor (which codec did you use btw?)
The finished AVI was processed into an MPG container with the input frame rate set at 200 and the FPS set at 30. I’ve since tried other settings and actually gotten a smoother result, and I’ll upload the best I can get when I figure out what that is. I don’t want to post a lot of vids that are just slightly better, and I believe that there is much improvement that can be made.
The capture is made at 1024 x 768, but since it is being re-processed, it can be upscaled to any desired size, given the fact that MPEG DVD has so much resource to work with.
Also note that an MPEG/AVI won’t play on most media players - it’s just a intermediate medium. The best “point and shoot” format still seems to be x264 at 25/40.
Ken
Ken
Ken