CamStudio and UltraScreenRecorder

[FredThompson]

Does anyone have the ability and interest to look at the CamStudio and UltraScreenRecorder source code to add DirectShow capture to CamStudio?

UltraScreenRecorder does not include a lot of the user configurations of CamStudio which can be helpful and forces a screen "bug" in the lower left corner. You can't ignore the mouse pointer, disable playback when the video is captured and a lot of other things which CamStudio does support.

Heck, just adding a way to use VH Screen Capture Codec as the source for CamStudio would be great if it can also ignore the mouse pointer.

[Ajax_Undone]

Does anyone have the ability and interest to look at the CamStudio and UltraScreenRecorder source code to add DirectShow capture to CamStudio?

UltraScreenRecorder does not include a lot of the user configurations of CamStudio which can be helpful and forces a screen "bug" in the lower left corner. You can't ignore the mouse pointer, disable playback when the video is captured and a lot of other things which CamStudio does support.

Heck, just adding a way to use VH Screen Capture Codec as the source for CamStudio would be great if it can also ignore the mouse pointer.

You could take and post something to that effect in the camstudio forum...
http://camstudio.org/forum

P.S. Any vfw codec you install on your system should show up in the video config area of camstudio. The latest Trunk is in my signature.

[FredThompson]

Thanks. The web page and Sourceforge site for CamStudio look dead. They haven't been updated in about months.

I mis-typed in the OP. http://www.hmelyoff.com/index.php?section=8 is a DirectShow capture driver, not an encoder. It would allow capturing accelerated video such as embedded video files without turning screen acceleration off. That's the major benefit of UltraScreenCapture.

[Ajax_Undone]

The last SVN repo was October 2008 it doesn't mean its dead just means the one working on it hasn't had the time.

I understand that what you are looking for is a driver rather then a codec but sometimes in circumstances like this you can't have it all your way.

I just do my screen captures with x264vfw and PCM sound with camstudio then demux and remux into mkv.

I would love it if their was a way to have it record 5.1 ac3 or dts and make use of the binary executable of x264. I have asked for it but like you I am left waiting for a response of better value.:D

Suppose we are just going to have either to wait for someone else to do it or do it ourselves. :p

I just need time between my school and looking for a job.

~DarC

[FredThompson]

I think you missed my points.

Neither the web site nor the files in the SourceForge repository indicate any change in months. The last thing that is visible is a plea for compilation from 6 months ago. The site appears dead so why would anyone think there are more recent builds available? They wouldn't. Thanks for your updated build.

I have the original RenderSoft web site localized here. Their capture codec came about after I chatted with the author about it's importance for pixel-accurate capture. That codec has a file length limit of 4G, the old FAT limit. I didn't test 1.4 for length nor have I tested your build. Have you extended that limit? CamStudio would happily create a huge file but decoding was impossible, either with camcodec or ffdshow.

I'm not asking for a new codec, I'm asking for someone to add support for the existing codec which is a proper DirectShow capture method or restore the "removed" functions to UltraScreenRecorder (and remove the overlay "bug.") UltraScreenRecorder is the CamStudio base with UltraVNC's DirectShow screen access but some of the core functions of CamStudio were removed. The source for UltraScreenRecorder is posted with the UltraVNC files.

[FredThompson]

By any chance, have you tested the CamStudio codec build you provided with files larger than 4G? ffdshow will create them but neither it nor the original CamCodec will read them. I haven't tested version 1.4 so don't have any information about it. I've always prefered the CamCodec as a lossless screen capture codec because it is fast and provides smaller files than HuffYUV. Small files mean less drive activity mean better efficiency. If your build supports decoding files larger than 4G, it would make sense to roll that code into ffdshow.

[Ajax_Undone]

I don't believe it does. It still uses the avi container which has a binary fixation to be held to the standards of the fat32 File system. I am wanting to build an interface that uses the x264 executable to encode raw uncompressed h.264 video and place it into the MKV container. This would fix the 4G limit, but like I said I don't have a lot of time I can readily devote to such things.

If you wanted you could suggest the idea to clsid or xxl and see if they really care to. I believe they already support the decoding of camcodec video.

[GoldDragon]

Greetings FredThompson,

If you are open to the idea of using VirtualDub for capturing, you might find some helpful information in a guide I wrote on the subject. I wrote it as an all-freeware alternative for game recording (built around the VH Screen Capture Driver), but I've also used it many times to capture accelerated videos. Anyway, here is the link:

http://www.genadmission.com/vdubguide.html
(just about everywhere else on the net I'm known as GeneralAdmission)

Ignore the comment about the older version of the VH driver. The current 2.x line has been working great for me.

If you are looking for other specific capabilities I'll try to offer suggestions from my experience. Alas, I'm not a coder, so I can't offer any help regarding additions/mods to Camstudio or UltraScreenRecorder.

Regards.

[FredThompson]

Nice guide. I didn't realize the mouse pointer can be disabled with VH Screen Capture Driver. Maybe that wasn't available in the earlier builds. Thanks for the link. It's a great one-pager.