Good Codec to Capture screen with?

[Mizzle]

In the list with all those codecs to chose from to record the screen (Camtasia, Snagit...), which one is good to use?

Thanks!

[Dark Shikari]

x264 lossless, on ultrafast mode. (http://verb3k.wordpress.com/)

[mariush]

Camtasia shows only Video For Windows codecs in the selection window, if I remember correctly. So you'll either have to use x264 video for windows codec (which is unsupported and maybe old) or use an intermediate codec to save the video in lossless quality and then recompress it to final result.

For an intermediate codec you can use Huffyuv, Lagarith, the ffdshow video for windows codec (and choose there FFV1 I think). But beware that these codecs use a lot of space... think 1 GB / minute. You can then use x264 to encode at high quality, 2 pass if you want and so on.

If you want the results identical to what's on screen, x264 may not be suitable for you depending on how pretentious you are. If you need exactly the same video compressed and lossless, you'll need a codec that can compress using RGB or YUV 4:4:4. From memory, I think ffdshow for windows has an option to compress with FFV1 codec with YUV 4:4:4, the others are YUV 4:2:0 or 4:2:2 which means the encoded video will not be identical to what you recorded but it will not be far away.

[Dark Shikari]

Camtasia shows only Video For Windows codecs in the selection window, if I remember correctly. So you'll either have to use x264 video for windows codec (which is unsupported and maybe old) or use an intermediate codec to save the video in lossless quality and then recompress it to final result.

For an intermediate codec you can use Huffyuv, Lagarith, the ffdshow video for windows codec (and choose there FFV1 I think). But beware that these codecs use a lot of space... think 1 GB / minute. You can then use x264 to encode at high quality, 2 pass if you want and so on.

If you want the results identical to what's on screen, x264 may not be suitable for you depending on how pretentious you are. If you need exactly the same video compressed and lossless, you'll need a codec that can compress using RGB or YUV 4:4:4. From memory, I think ffdshow for windows has an option to compress with FFV1 codec with YUV 4:4:4, the others are YUV 4:2:0 or 4:2:2 which means the encoded video will not be identical to what you recorded but it will not be far away.FFV1 is generally too slow for realtime capture. I wouldn't use anything slower than HuffYUV for realtime intra-frame compression.

4:4:4 is usually not very useful if you intend to recompress to a lossy format later, since all the lossy formats use YV12 anyways.

x264VFW is not officially supported, but lossless mode is B-frameless, and so it really shouldn't have any compatibility issues. The primary reason I recommend x264 is that for HD screen capture, HuffYUV will generally saturate your disk bandwidth due to being intra-only. Since there's practically no motion in a screen capture, x264 on ultrafast lossless will generally be able to avoid maxing your CPU or your disk speed.

[MatLz]

I use (old) Camstudio and X264 r1376 vfw. It does work like a charm...

[Keiyakusha]

It is possible to get h264 lossless using x264 in ffdshow vfw. But it seems it's not possible to get exact the same sattings as --preset ultrafast. :confused:

[setarip_old]

@Mizzle

Hi!

The Techsmith products (Camtasia, SnagIt, etc.), with their own codec(s) do a perfectly acceptable job of recording screen activity, plus audio, if desired...

[mariush]

Yeah, but you'd have to tell the people to download the codec from somewhere, and they won't (afraid of viruses) or are not allowed to download stuff because they don't have enough priviledges or they're locked by administrators and so on.
I'd convert it anyway to h264 and aac audio, so that I could mux it into a mp4, so that it can be streamed with a Flash player.

[setarip_old]

@mariush Yeah, but you'd have to tell the people to download the codec from somewhere, and they won't (afraid of viruses) or are not allowed to download stuff because they don't have enough priviledges or they're locked by administrators and so on.
I'd suggest you consider the presumed (and, in most cases, proven) level of knowledge of the membership of this forum, rather than trying to make it sound like safely and intelligently downloading a codec (If need be) is a major undertaking...

[Brazil2]

X264 r1376 vfw
Where did you find it ?

[J_Darnley]

Where did you find it ?
http://lmgtfy.com/?q=x264+vfw

[Brazil2]

http://lmgtfy.com/?q=x264+vfw
You missed the r1376 part.
I challenge you to find x264 r1376 VfW with Google.

[mariush]

@mariush
I'd suggest you consider the presumed (and, in most cases, proven) level of knowledge of the membership of this forum, rather than trying to make it sound like safely and intelligently downloading a codec (If need be) is a major undertaking...

I assume he won't capture videos to show them on this forum, so his audience will be different, most likely not technical.

He should aim for the maximum compatibility, which would be xvid / h264 (in flash or as mp4). He could very well bundle the MPC-HC player as a single 2 MB file with the movie and have everything covered.

[setarip_old]

@mariush

Huh?

Re-read the first post - It ONLY contains a very simple question. There is nothing that even remotely refers to anyone other than the O.P. (certainly not an audience): Good Codec to Capture screen with?

In the list with all those codecs to chose from to record the screen (Camtasia, Snagit...), which one is good to use?
Thanks!

[mariush]

If we were to answer exactly to his question as you apparently think we should, the answer would be "WE DON'T KNOW", because
- we don't know what applications he's talking about
- we don't know what codecs appear in his drop down list, in whatever software he uses.
- we don't know what he's trying to capture

For all I know, he may see only Cinepak and Video 1 codec in the list which are both "good" if he plans to capture an excel document, for example. But, will fail if he'll capture a video game as quality would suck or the disk space would be huge.

So we all have to make assumptions, and take the most general case and base answers on it, then go in details and nitpicks and argue on and on.

For the most general case, where he would want to record whatever content and distribute it to whatever people through whatever means, the codec that comes with Camtasia is good strictly to capture, but is not good afterwards, because it's proprietary, it's something that end user has to install, it may not be available for other platforms (Solaris, Ubuntu, whatever) and so on... so why consider it good if other codecs can be used directly without intermediate steps?

Personally, I grade it as "NOT good".

[MatLz]

I'm on a crappy phone to surf and I am able to find things you can't!?...common guys!:rolleyes:

I let you the challenge to find the place where I got it.......that's obvious....but as you are kind, and me too, I uploaded it:

www.sendspace.com/file/nrr8d7

[Midzuki]

« +x264vfw +r1376 » @ Google ; the third result is a link to a VideoHelp thread, which contains the URL to the "undocumented" build of x264vfw. :p

[MatLz]

It's a site which have strange effects on my phone... Search in my recent posts.......

[Mizzle]

Thanks for all the replies, the codecs I got at the moment:

Camtasia:
http://img18.imageshack.us/img18/7695/camtasiacodecs.jpg

Snagit:
Cinepak Codec By Radius
Intel Indeo Video 4.5
Intel IYUV-Codec
Microsoft Video 1
Techsmith Screen Capture Codec
ffdshow Video Codec
Full Frames


About That X264 stuff, I can't seem to find and record with it,
I use MEGUI to encode with H264, but that's something different I guess.
I'm basically trying to Record online videos.

[Dark Shikari]

About That X264 stuff, I can't seem to find and record with itGoogle for "x264vfw".

[Mizzle]

Thanks for the quick reply, I'm checking it out right now.
Are there any recommended settings, or just start recording.

[Dark Shikari]

Thanks for the quick reply, I'm checking it out right now.
Are there any recommended settings, or just start recording.You'll need to use something similar to the "ultrafast" preset on the commandline (see x264 --fullhelp for details) to maximize speed. Make sure it's lossless, too.

[Mizzle]

Yea, I'll defenitely check it out, see what I can get.

I just tried it the first time though, on my Windows Media Player, but got a choppy image for the recording...:confused:
Weird.

[video1009]

How about try Cyberlink PowerDVD 10 (http://www.cyberlink.com/products/powerdvd/overview_en_US.html)? They recent launched their new product and I think you should give a try.