2.7 worked great, for a couple hours. Then stopped.

feeshta

I was so happy to see version 2.7 is finally here, and installed it earlier today. I could finally use a 264 codec, and get reasonable files sizes with good video quality. Most importantly, I didn't have to patch 6 2Gig files together and wait 45 minutes for my PC to output a 250 MB file anymore. I was ecstatic. Then I rebooted my PC, and it all went to hell. Now I get a message that says "Camstudio could not record the video using the current compressor. Use default compressor?" every time I try to use the 264 codec. I have uninstalled and re-installed, but something is hanging on. It remembers all of my settings even though I completely deleted it and re-installed it from scratch. What gives? It is a 64 bit machine, just FYI.

feeshta

I should also mention that the process of creating a rectangular area for recording is now extremely laggy. There is about a full second delay between moving the mouse and the cursor on screen moving, which makes it somewhat time consuming to get things lined up.

TerryBritton

I'm entirely certain that you are not getting even-numbered regions with your selector.

Instead, use the "Fixed Region" choice, make sure the top-left checkbox is unchecked, and click the "Select" button in there. It will let you select your region for a rough selection, and will record the top-left setting. Then re-check the top-left checkbox, and adjust the width and height both to be even numbers for width and height. If using Divx, the height must be multiple of 2 but the width must be a multiple of 4. Now, when you start the recording, your selection will be there automatically and all the settings will be like you want them.

Terry

feeshta

I use this to record spontaneous moments in video conversations with family and friends, basically to make a quick "home movie" for posterity. Going through that whole process would interrupt the conversation to a degree that isn't acceptable to me, much like the interruptions when using the loss-less encoder due to it rapidly eating all of the 2GB limit were a major problem. This is particularly true because most of the time I don't want them to know they are being recorded, to avoid the "hamming for the camera" effect. My plan is to edit the best moments into a video tribute of sorts. Also, the video window is not always the same size or location depending on which video chat program I am using and what else I am doing on the PC, such as surfing the web etc.

After playing with it for a while, I can get it to record with the H.264 encoder, but I have to change the settings each time I reboot the PC. If you go to Video options, select configure, and then go to the VFW menu on the bottom right, there are options there. If I am in H.264 mode one time, it will work if I change the selection to h.264, and vice versa. For now the change-up option is a better option.

TerryBritton

We are planning on making the "Region" selector automatically round up to be an even number height and width for MPEG-4 codecs or a multiple of four width for Divx. Meanwhile, you can use Microsoft Video 1 which is a codec that is already installed and that is not as sensitive to height and width requirements. We didn't invent the requirements of the even-numbered height and times-two or times-four width - those are in the MPEG-4 and Divx specs respectively. But it is a pain to educate everyone about their requirements, so we're aiming to add the automation so that those who want it to "just work" can have their way.

If it is not saving your settings, try starting the program running as an Administrator. (right-click on the CamStudio program icon and select "Run as an administrator" frm the menu near the top). That often fixes things.

Terry

TerryBritton

BTW - Microsoft Video 1 works well with Windows Movie Maker - I just keep the quality slider way up (like 90) to avoid strange artifacts that codec can produce sometimes.

Terry

TerryBritton

Also, you'll notice that I refrained from mentioning that U.S. Federal wire-tapping laws (which seem to only apply to citizens here...) prohibit recording a conversation without somebody's knowledge, and family or not, they could sue you if they felt pissed off in any way. In the country you are in, this may not be an issue (which is why I usually don't bring it up), but I feel I should warn you to think this part through. People often feel betrayed and their trust compromised when they find out they've been recorded without being asked. Touchy subject. Tread carefully there. (I'm no lawyer... ask any of them for the full story.)

Terry

bmoreken

Terry;

“”We are planning on making the "Region" selector automatically round up to be an even number height and width for MPEG-4 codecs or.....”“

I’ve been strongly in favor of making the program record in even numbers only, but I don’t think it can be done at the “selector” level. Remember, even with the area set to even numbers, some processors seem to be sending erroneous numbers to Cam (resulting in the 639 x 479 correction, for example), so disallowing odd numbers at the selector level would actually lock out the possibility of making the correction necessary with some processors. You’d need an override feature, which would confuse people even more than the current condition does.

Obviously, making a change at the processing level would be more complicated, but 2.0 does seem to be changing the capture area to even numbers when using Lagarith, so it must be possible.

Ken

TerryBritton

I'm not certain whether that was the case or not, as we had the "one-pixel-extra" error switch between "Fixed Region" and "Window" in the region settings between versions until 2.7 seems to finally have consolidated the settings to have both work. It is not so much that we would disallow odd numbers as we would round-up an odd number once the recording began. I think I recall hearing that Lagarith rounds the numbers upward itself somehow (codecs are all math algorithms anyway, so I can see this being possible on the codec level). Anyway, that project has not been started yet, so the problems with that implementation will likely come out during testing.

Terry

feeshta

This thing is still horrifically bad to use. It works well once it finally starts recording, but today I attempted to start a recording at least 30 times and it failed every single time when it was set for a standard region recording. The only way I got it to work was by switching to a fixed region setting and then narrowing in on the proper settings one step at a time. It absolutely refused to work on the other setting.

Normally it will start after 6 or 7 attempts. Today I completely ran out of patience before it would start. Very frustrated.

bmoreken

Seems to me like the graphics info being sent to the x264 encoder is causing it to fail, resulting in the default option being the only one usable. I’d try going through the available choices in the region dropdown starting with fullscreen. If that works, you need to devise a working correction to use with the other choices. Start with a really standard selection like 640 x 480. If that does NOT work, try 639 x 479, assuming that the encoder is being sent incorrect information.

If no set of corrections works consistently, I’d begin to be suspicious of your x264 encoder. It may not be processing correctly, which might cause Cam to automatically default to something else, presumably MSV-1. At that point it might be advisable to delete the x264 and try another download and install. This codec works fine for me.

http://sourceforge.net/projects/x264vfw/files/x264vfw/37_2200bm_33968/x264vfw_37_2200bm_33968.exe/download


Ken

TerryBritton

feeshta,

One of the things we're hoping to include in an upcoming version is a "snap" feature forcing even-numbered widths and heights. But perhaps you've fallen upon a bug in how the screen information is being received from some cards or motherboards.

What "standard regions" are you using? You've confused me in saying you had switched to a fixed region setting - that is where you should enter the standard regions you want to use.

640x480
856x480 for 480p widescreen (YouTube standard)
1280x720 for 720p HD
1920x1080 for 1080p HD

I hope you have not been repeating the same thing over and over again expecting different results... (trying to use the dragging method to get a region that will work with an MPEG-4 codec). Only use the Fixed Region method if you are recording with such codecs.

Terry

feeshta

Sorry to resurrect an old thread, but this seemed like the best place to put this.

I had not been using the software much for a long while, but I am back to trying to use it again a little bit. A family member is deployed and we want to use it to capture conversations and messages for posterity. The idea is to record everything, then distill out the funny or important bits. Then his kids will be able to see them when they are older and better able to understand.

I downloaded the program again, but it still has the same limitations. I had a couple thoughts on improving it, if anyone is open to suggestions. Generally speaking I capture from Skype, and their video streams have several slightly different native dimensions and spacings from the margins of the the screen depending on whether you are using IM or not, and whether the other person is using a normal camera or occasionally something like an iPhone which can sometimes be in portrait mode. I can get all of the different options to to work by changing the settings for the fixed region to match, but generally I have to do this after the fact because it is far to slow to do during the conversation. I have the differing sets of settings written down, but wouldn't it make sense to allow presets here? That way you could just click region, fixed region, preset 2, or something like that and it would be pretty quick. Ideally you could label these presets, so it would be something more like "Landscape-No IM" or the like.

Also, what ever happened to the "snap" feature? That alone would make this a manageable affair if you could get rid of the cursor lag that makes things nearly impossible to line up in anything under about 30 seconds. It's not important that the borders be perfectly matched up, I just want to avoid recording the whole screen all the time as file sizes get pretty outrageously large in a hurry.

bmoreken

Just a thought here, but your preset idea, while being a good one, probably isn’t going to happen. It sounds to me like the material you’re recording is very important, and your first job is to make sure it gets saved. You can deal with editing later, but if you don’t successfully capture the subject material, you’re not going to be able to go back and get it, so you need to be sure you don’t “outsmart” the process at the risk of causing problems. If I were doing it. I’d go full screen and get an archived version. I’d then use a video editor to crop, resize, set FPS and edit sequences to save and delete what you want. I use x264/AVI and do the editing in Avidemux, which does a fine job.

Ken

feeshta

I am basically doing what you just described now bmoreken, except instead of recording the whole screen I record a set area that is big enough to capture all of the video formats. I also don't have video editing software that can do the cropping part, so I end up using camstudio to re-record and crop the video, then movie maker to clip the parts I want and create a final product. It ends up being quite a process, and taking up a ton of space on my hard drive. It works, but it is not exactly what you'd call ideal.

bmoreken

Well, using Cam to re-capture a known area of the screen is certainly creative. I never would have thought of that. I’m not familiar with the features of Movie Maker, but if it can’t crop, it’s limited to say the least. Nothing wrong with anticipating the largest video area which needs to be captured - probably saves a bit of resource, but adding generations of re-encoding to get to a finished product will seriously degrade the image. The first (and worst) such instance is using Cam to record anything but an AVI. You really need to control any container conversion before the editing is done and you create a finished product. If you capture using x264/AVI or MPEG-4/AVI, then edit and convert, there’ll be hardly any loss in image quality. Others have gotten a good result using x264 with Cam set at 40/25 or 25/40, but that doesn’t work well for me, and I’m still using my original 5/90 setting, doing a 200/30 output conversion in Avidemux, where I do my cropping, and other corrections, while creating a DVD video compliant end product. BUT the point is that, even if you don’t have the software to do that (Avidemux is free BTW) you need to archive the best quality video possible, so you can come back and work with it later, if you choose to. You can do temporary work to create a “watchable” video, but do save your archived original. Oh, converting AVIs to MP2 or MP4 can reduce file size by about 80%, if you’re careful about it.

Ken