Lin Evans Posted May 10, 2015 Report Posted May 10, 2015 Today I've tried no less that 15 screen capture tools to make tutorials with. I'm looking for one which can capture PTE Previews with smooth animation.... Only one so far has been able to do that - and I can't get the sound to work with it. I started with Camtasia Studio - Terrible flashing on the screen during animation no matter how I set it up...Next I tried WM Capture - no luck and it's really not designed for the intended purposeNext EZ Vid - no luck at allThen Moavi - won't work with XP and capture microphone AND audio from sound simultaneously. Bad flashing on Win 81.Next the freeware HyperCam - terrible flashing and nearly impossible to choose folder you want...Next CamStudio - no luck bad flashing....Next AshampooSnap - won't handle full screen videoNext CamVerce - Won't capture audio while capturing videoNext WM Recorder - Terrible video qualityNext Snagit 12 - No go... jerky motion - flashingScreen Recorder Gold - been using it for years but it flashes bad regardless of which CODEC I try with it...About the only well known I haven't yet downloaded is the super-expensive AdobeCaptivate....About five others which were total junk.... not worth mentioning...I have a tech support mail to FastoneCapture - It works beautifully with the animation, but I absolutely can't get the microphone to record. Don't have this problem with the majority of the others....Anyone have any other suggestions? I tried FastoneCapture on my Win 8.1 machine but couldn't get to run at all there....LATE UPDATE - Finally got FastoneCapture to work on my 8.1 system - works beautifully. Tried it with some serious heavy duty animation and though it wasn't perfect, it was 1000% better than anything else I've tried so I'll spend the $19.95 and consider it a bargain!!!LATER LATER: I discovered that if I reset my screen resolution on my 2560x1600 30" display to 1280x800 as suggested, then create my tutorials with FastoneCapture, even heavy animations with PTE are perfectly smooth in the created video. This is the best product for screen capturing PTE animations that I have found! I'm a happy camper now......LinThanks,Lin Quote
Guest Yachtsman1 Posted May 10, 2015 Report Posted May 10, 2015 Lin I've been using Camtasia Studio 8.3 for 2 years, made over 30 tutorials with it. I contacted TechSmith about the problem with animation & its poor reproduction about 18 months ago, but they weren't able to come up with a solution. I know of a couple of other users on here, maybe they will come in & comment. Getting the mike to record the screen has to be set up, particularly if you have a web cam connected to your PC. Not sure if 8.3 is the latest version. I record the voice over with my Logitech USB mike/earphone set up & you have to plug this into your PC before opening Camtasia as with Audacity.EricYachtsman1. Quote
Guest Yachtsman1 Posted May 10, 2015 Report Posted May 10, 2015 Just checked if I had the current version & I hadn't. The current version is as the screen shot. Had a quick look & the working screen looks the same, will have to wait until I have something to record before a thorough test. To anyone who has been put off Camtasia by Lin's rant, I checked all the available stuff at the time before spending quite an amount on buying it. There are lots of so called free versions available on the internet, but I think you will find they are very old versions.Yachtsman1 Quote
Guest Yachtsman1 Posted May 10, 2015 Report Posted May 10, 2015 Just checked my Emails & it was Feb' 2014 when I had conversations with TechSmith. These are copied below, I have omitted the final one as it contains around 2 pages of technical strings which I don't understand, if anyone wants them PM me." Feb 17 06:06 PM Hi Mike I use Pictures to create Audio Visual entertainments, I've been using it since 2007. The quality of the reproduction of digital images is superior to any other similar programmes such as Pro Show. I have a number of shows on Youtube under my user name of stearman65. The quality on You tube isn't as good as an exe file. I think someone on the PTE forum mentioned that Camtasia can't reproduce or record the animation created in PTE. With certain things with lots of motion like quick transitions and slide in text it can record a bit jerky in Camtasia. Im curious though. We can do things like that in Camtasia. Is there a reason you're recording PTE? What does that program give you that you're unable to do in Camtasia? Please let me know if there is anything else I can do to help. Kind Regards,MikeSenior Support Specialist Hi MikeI re-captured the piece with the problem & it produced & saved to MP4 without any errors, so I'm assuming there was a gremlin of some sort during the capture. I have updated as suggested , hopefully there won't be any more problems. I'll be back in touch if anything else happens.I do have one other problem, when recording animation from a Pictures to Exe produced AV show, the Camtasia Capture can't handle it, even scrolling text is jerky, any answers to that?Thanks for your help" Yachtsman1. Quote
Lin Evans Posted May 10, 2015 Author Report Posted May 10, 2015 HI Denis,I don't think I tried that one but I will. I'm having real good luck with FastoneCapture on my 8.1 system but no ability to record sound on my XP. FastoneCapture handles the animations very well. I don't know which CODEC they are using, but it has all the "features" I really need. I will give ShadowPlay a try though, thanks!..Hi Eric,I gave up on Camtasia. It has wonderful features - probably as good as there is except perhaps for AdobeCaptivate which undoubtedly is the best available, but it simply doesn't handle the animations well so not worth investing in for me. If one were making tutorials which needed to be able to be used on virtually "all" media (Cell Phones, Tablets (Android and Windows), MacIntosh, Windows Computers, etc., then AdobeCaptivate would be the way to go. It creates a single file which can be used with mouse or with pinch/swipe screens, automatically sizes for tiny devices, etc. It's really the "cat's meow." To do those kinds of things with virtually ANY other tool requires the creator to make multiple files and sort them and send them according to the user's hardware. With Captivate it's a one file works for all - but it's $30 per month on the Cloud or over $700 to buy. It's out of my league either way.Best regards,Lin Quote
Lin Evans Posted May 10, 2015 Author Report Posted May 10, 2015 Hi Denis,For some reason, I can't run Shadowplay on my XP system. I have SP 3 installed and I have a compatible nVidia GPU (GTX 750 Ti) with 2 gigabytes RAM and a Core 2 Duo with 4 GB RAM but apparently some Windows driver isn't compatible. I've tried to chase down the problem but keep running into 3rd party sellers who want to sell me software to update Windows Drivers so I've given up on being able to use ShadowPlay on my XP system until I can sort out the reason why my drivers are not satisfactory. I did notice that apparently one has to "list" the games they want to record and since PTE isn't a "game" I'm not sure how that would be done?? Are you using ShadowPlay to record PTE and for screen captures? Perhaps I'm missing something...Best regards,Lin Quote
denisb Posted May 10, 2015 Report Posted May 10, 2015 Are you using ShadowPlay to record PTE and for screen captures? Perhaps I'm missing something...No my Nvidia Card is noy compatible. I thought that as it use the GPU of the Nvidia, it could be a good free solution.Denis Quote
jt49 Posted May 10, 2015 Report Posted May 10, 2015 .... I did notice that apparently one has to "list" the games they want to record and since PTE isn't a "game" I'm not sure how that would be done?? Are you using ShadowPlay to record PTE and for screen captures? Perhaps I'm missing something ...What about this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=joOv2BkO0eM ?Regards,jt Quote
Lin Evans Posted May 10, 2015 Author Report Posted May 10, 2015 Hi JT,Unfortunately my French isn't good enough to completely understand what is being said on this video. My nVidia card is plenty powerful and suitable, I'm running XP service pack 3 with the latest drivers and it "should" work with ShadowPlay but I get these error messages. When I look at the "system requirements" it appears that I have them all satisfied but still no luck so I suppose I'll have to use my latest system with Win 8.1 and the software I am purchasing from Fastone (FastoneCapture) works fine. I understand that ShadowPlay uses the GPU and is really a great solution for capturing games and even using the microphone simultaneously, but unfortunately I can't test it on my XP system...Best regards,Lin Quote
Guest Yachtsman1 Posted May 10, 2015 Report Posted May 10, 2015 Could it be that XP3 isn't 64Bit?Yachtsman1. Quote
Lin Evans Posted May 10, 2015 Author Report Posted May 10, 2015 I don't think it has to be 64 bit, it's supposed to work with Home Edition, but who knows.....Best regards,Lin Quote
Barry Beckham Posted May 11, 2015 Report Posted May 11, 2015 LinMy experience of Camtasia is that it doesn't capture enough frames to really do justice to PTE transitions and animations. In all other aspects it's great. I haven't tried any others, so perhaps some can I don't know. I have always assumed that if they did, then the capture rate would have to go way up and the file size for downloading may become too great. However, that is getting less and less important these days too. Things move fast don't theyI know you would have considered this, but to make sure my demos are top notch, if necessary I will break the video and suggest the viewer watches the exe coming up next. Then continue the video.I see your tutorial is an AVI and I used to use those for quality, but gave up because of the large file size. Your tutorial is 12 minutes at 1280px and its 192 meg. Through Camtasia you would achieve a 1600px video of the same duration which would come in at about 25MB. But, as already stated, it will not show PTE off at its best Quote
Lin Evans Posted May 11, 2015 Author Report Posted May 11, 2015 Hi Barry,That's pretty much what I discovered. The one I'm trying now (FastoneCapture) actually does a really decent job with animation. It's not perfect, but so much better than the others I've tried that it's really night and day. It creates a .wmv format and apparently captures display resolution which is sort of a problem because the unit I'm running it on has a 2560x1600 display. I'm converting a test file of a brief (less than 4 minute) demo right now. PTE has been grinding on it for over 5 hours and it's 98% finished so I should know how it's going to be shortly. The original won't run correctly in PTE but runs perfectly in the latest version of VLC Media Player (doesn't work well in my version of Kantaris though - which is based on VLC). It's about 175 meg in size and less than 4 minutes so would be absolutely HUGE unless I can downsize it. PTE just finished but didn't create a converted file - or if it did I can't find it anywhere. I'm going to try do downsample it in one of my video programs and see what happens. The quality is excellent but I sure don't want to start distributing tutorials at 2560 x 1552 which is what it turned out to be because I opted to not include the "status bar" at the bottom when I made it. I'll have to check FastoneCapture and see if it's possible to set the size to less than screen display resolution or I'll have to change the resolution on my display before I make tutorials..... Later: I just converted the big AVI to a smaller AVI (in pixel dimensions) in Video Pad Video Editor and it came out to 3.2 "gigabytes" LOL. Well that wouldn't do but it converted it in less than 2 minutes. I changed the parameters and converted to a WMV at 1280x720 and bingo - excellent quality at 52 meg. I can distribute this perfectly with no problems at all. There is essentially no quality loss from the 2560x1552 but I do need to change from 720 to a custom size because it clipped off the bottom half inch or so, but I think this is a solution. I've got to learn more about this software (FastoneCapture) because it "does" have some text and editing capabilities such as found in Camtasia. Of course not nearly as sophisticated, but for less than $20 USD and excellent handling of animation, it's a bargain I think.Best regards,Lin Quote
tom95521 Posted May 13, 2015 Report Posted May 13, 2015 Hi Lin,Late to the conversation. I have both a hdmi to usb recorder device that will capture 1080p30fps and 720p60fps and also snagit, which is a cheaper version of camtasia. Snagit recordings save only to mp4.http://gamerzone.avermedia.com/game_capture/live_gamer_portable2 MB snagit capture from a youtube web page (local guy who is into quadcopters).http://www.tommendenhall.com/video/dji_inspire_crash.mp4from Tom Quote
Lin Evans Posted May 13, 2015 Author Report Posted May 13, 2015 Hi Tom,I have both Snagit and Camtasia but neither is worth a tinker's damn for screen capturing and recording PTE animations during a tutorial. I have an evaluation copy of Camtasia and it has incredible features, but just can't handle the 60 fps of PTE and all I get are multiple "flashing" issues which have been the bain of every product I've tried except FastoneCapture. Fastone has no flashing and handles the screen capture in a fairly smooth fashion - far from optimal, but better than any of the other 16+ software tools I've tried.The hardware device looks interesting. Have you tried it for screen capturing running PTE animations along with simultaneous audio from the running show and from the microphone? I wouldn't mind paying the price "if" it works better than the software solutions. It's nice to have the editing capabilities of the tools like Camtasia or even the much abbreviated ones of FastoneCapture, but I would trade that for perfectly smooth animation capture. I notice in the FAQ's that "voice is recorded only via separated .mp3 file." If that means I would have to do my tutorials in two stages it wouldn't be a solution.Best regards,Lin Quote
tom95521 Posted May 13, 2015 Report Posted May 13, 2015 Hi Lin,I have not tried it with a microphone but it does have that capability. I will try and report backHere is a hdmi capture I did awhile ago. Quote
Lin Evans Posted May 13, 2015 Author Report Posted May 13, 2015 Hi Tom,Try it with a live PTE session - Open one of your own PTE files and run a preview containing some fairly heavy animation and see how it records that live. There is a world of difference in capturing an already produced video being played by a decent player, and screen capturing your own work which is being crunched in real-time by your system. I have no problems at all capturing a video perfectly smoothly when being played by a video player, but trying to capture a live PTE preview is a whole different ball-game... The system is already being taxed by the PTE preview which is in essence running an executable file and all that entails. Adding yet more to that with the recording software results in a real performance hit.Best regards,Lin Quote
Guest Yachtsman1 Posted May 13, 2015 Report Posted May 13, 2015 Lin instead of keep slagging Camtasia off because it won't produce things as you want it to, try using it as a component in the construction of your tutorial. Use PTE to construct your tutorial, then publish an MP4 of the tutorial, take that back into PTE & cut out the complex animation into separate clips & convert in PTE. Then open Camtasia, do all the bells & whistles it is good for & add your MP4 clips at the appropriate points. Unfortunately I haven't any demos showing PTE complex animation, a because I don't use it often, b because I found long ago Camtasia can't handle it & C I'm not very good at it. I do however have a short demo of using PTE video editing, which was made using PTE & Camtasia, similar to what I'm suggesting. Finally, have you looked at the tutorials of how to use Camtasia on Techsmiths web site? Did you get your trial version from Techsmith or one of the many so called freebies?https://www.techsmith.com/tutorial-camtasia-8.htmlEricYachtsman1. Quote
Lin Evans Posted May 13, 2015 Author Report Posted May 13, 2015 Hi Eric,Sorry, but I have no clue how to use PTE to construct my tutorials. My tutorials demonstrate "how" to construct a show using PTE so the live screens complete with keystrokes, previews and such need to be recorded in order to accomplish that. To my knowledge there is no way to create a tutorial demonstrating how to use this product "with" this product in any straight-forward manner.Yes, I have looked at the Techsmith tutorials and yes, my evaluation copy was downloaded from Techsmith. I'm not "slagging Camtasia off" anymore than any of the other sixteen or so products I've evaluated for this purpose. Camtasia simply can't handle the 60 fps animations while recording - it has the same issues as the vast majority of other products I've tried. Camtasia itself uses a lot of the processing power of the system and there simply isn't enough for it to function in an optimal fashion when PTE is running a heavy animation preview. Unfortunately I have neither the time nor inclination to piecemeal a tutorial together by creating multiple mp4's and separate audio tracks and combining them in an editing tool like Camtasia. I can't justify the expense of Camtasia when it isn't suitable for the task at hand. Probably the best solution is going to be something along the lines of what Tom is doing with a hardware rather than software approach. There just isn't sufficient resources in even my top-end 8.1 system with 32 gigabytes of RAM and a 4 gigabyte high-end video card to both run and capture complex animations simultaneously and that's what is needed. Programs such as ShadowPlay by nVidia can do it by using primarily the GPU rather than the CPU but ShadowPlay only works with established video games. External hardware exists which can do what I want but the ones I've found are in the $2000 range and far beyond my budget. Right now the best thing I've discovered is still FastoneCapture and it's less than $20 and includes the ability to zoom, add text and do minor editing, etc., The only reason I haven't settled on it yet is that I think there may be a hardware solution which is better but that remains to be seen.Best regards,Lin Quote
Lin Evans Posted May 14, 2015 Author Report Posted May 14, 2015 O.K., I'm prepared to give FastoneCapture the thumbs up!! I lowered the resolution of my 2560x1600 display down to 1280x800 and ran a really heavy animation sequence and it was as smooth as silk! This is by far the best yet I've found and it's cheap! Here's a link for anyone who wants to try a free 30 day evaluation. http://www.faststone.org/FSCaptureDetail.htmI'll put up a demo capture in a few minutes for anyone who wants to download to try....This is a LARGE video download - about 195 meg zipped - but it shows that FastoneCapture can handle the PTE very heavy animations just fine. In this sample I had created a rotating zooming icosahedron with 3620 independent video displays in simultaneous live action (181 on each of 20 icosahedron faces). Included are alpha channel videos and masks with text, etc., all perfectly smooth as captured by this tool. Please ignore the poor audio from the microphone. I had not yet balanced my very loud audio from the demo with my microphone which needed to be much louder. It's a learning experience: Here's the link to the 1280x800 video:http://www.lin-evans.org/snow/heavyanimation.zipBest regards,Lin Quote
tom95521 Posted May 15, 2015 Report Posted May 15, 2015 Hi Lin,I did upload one screen recording to YouTube (along with the samples I sent you in a PM).The Avermedia does a good job capturing the hdmi from the graphics card and combining the audio from my usb microphone.Thanks,TomClick on the YouTube icon in the lower right corner and then watch at 1080p for highest quality playback Quote
Lin Evans Posted May 15, 2015 Author Report Posted May 15, 2015 Hi Tom,On my system the 720p looks best - a little problem handling the YouTube 1080p but in all much, much better than the vast majority of software solutions. I'll try a similar one tomorrow and put it up on YouTube with FastoneCapture and we can compare how they perform. It's difficult to know exactly how the YouTube conversion affects things but perhaps we can sort it out.Best regards,Lin Quote
Guest Yachtsman1 Posted May 15, 2015 Report Posted May 15, 2015 Hi Lin,I did upload one screen recording to YouTube (along with the samples I sent you in a PM).The Avermedia does a good job capturing the hdmi from the graphics card and combining the audio from my usb microphone.Thanks,TomClick on the YouTube icon in the lower right corner and then watch at 1080p for highest quality playback Hi TomHad a look at your demo on Youtube, on my PC at 1080P quality, live streaming there was moir on the car radiators & the rotating images weren't smooth, both in the mini player & more-so in the full screen views. So I downloaded the file which came to me as 30MB MP4 & tried again, the symptoms from the live stream were not as pronounced as you would expect.Regards EricYachtsman1. Quote
Guest Yachtsman1 Posted May 15, 2015 Report Posted May 15, 2015 Hi Eric, Camtasia simply can't handle the 60 fps animations while recording - it has the same issues as the vast majority of other products I've tried. Camtasia itself uses a lot of the processing power of the system and there simply isn't enough for it to function in an optimal fashion when PTE is running a heavy animation preview.Lin One last attempt to try to get you to like Camtasia better. I haven't tried this myself as I don't have the animated subject you are complaining about. I've had a couple of conversations with Mike Smith of Techsmith & he has come back with a possible solution to your problem of recording 60FPS. This is a copy of his last email "Mike Spink (TechSmith Support)May 15, 7:50 AMHi Eric,You can manually enter 60fps into Recorder as shown here.http://screencast.com/t/FnV47Bwm So Camtasia will do it's best to capture 60fps but odds are we won't be able to and we'll drop frames during capture. You're welcome to give it a try though. However, whatever you capture, can only be read at 30fps in the timeline.Please let me know if you have any questions.Kind Regards,MikeSenior Support Specialist"To find the TOOLS item to set the frame rate capture shown in Mikes screen shot you need to open Camtasia, click the red RECORD THE SCREEN button (see screen shot cam1), this brings up the set up box bottom right, (see cam 2). click the TOOLS on the top bar, click the INPUT TAB, click the drop down arrow for the SET SCREEN CAPTURE FRAME RATE, the maximum shown will be 30FPS, delete that & add 60FPS. Although Mike has no faith that Camtasia can handle 60FPS, without trying it we'll never know. If you don't want to try this, send something recorded at 60FPS to Dropbox or Mediafire & I'll download it & give it a try.EricYachtsman1. Quote
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