the Best Screen Capture Program (record ANY video from your screen)

[AncientElite]

i've never used a Screen Capture Program, just because of quality issues.

I would appreciate if someone could tell me what the Best Screen Capture Program is with a User Defined Area to use.

ref: Comparison of screencasting software / Wikipedia

Screen video capture software need some tricks if you want to record in high quality:

• You need a 2-PASS encoding to get smaller files. But you can't capture from your screen using a 2-pass encoding!
• For the best quality it is recommended to record using HUFFYUV lossless codec first. Huffyuv provides very good quality, but generates a data stream of 10-15 MB/sec.
  
  If your hard drive is not fast enough then you may use a MOTION JPEG codec: Morgan MJPEG, PICVideo MJPEG, MainConcept MJPEG. Motion JPEG codecs generate data stream of 3-8 MB/sec while providing good quality.
• After that you may compress your Huffyuv or Motion JPEG recordings using MPEG-4 AVC codec (like x264) or MPEG-4 ASP codec (like Xvid) and a 2-pass encoding method.
• It is usually a good idea to convert WMV to WMV, RM to RM, .MOV to .MOV, .FLV to .FLV (Windows Media to Windows Media, Real Media to Real Media, Flash video to Flash video) to have less quality loss.
  
  But you can test other codecs as well. For example: free x264 or free xvid.

One of our favorites you can try is Replay Video Capture. It records from screen using MPEG-2 or Windows Media codec and I'm very satisfied by its quality.

Originally Posted by Stream Recorder

Screen video capture software need some tricks if you want to record in high quality:

• You need a 2-PASS encoding to get smaller files. But you can't capture from your screen using a 2-pass encoding!
• For the best quality it is recommended to record using HUFFYUV lossless codec first. Huffyuv provides very good quality, but generates a data stream of 10-15 MB/sec.
  
  If your hard drive is not fast enough then you may use a MOTION JPEG codec: Morgan MJPEG, PICVideo MJPEG, MainConcept MJPEG. Motion JPEG codecs generate data stream of 3-8 MB/sec while providing good quality.
• After that you may compress your Huffyuv or Motion JPEG recordings using MPEG-4 AVC codec (like x264) or MPEG-4 ASP codec (like Xvid) and a 2-pass encoding method.
• It is usually a good idea to convert WMV to WMV, RM to RM, .MOV to .MOV, .FLV to .FLV (Windows Media to Windows Media, Real Media to Real Media, Flash video to Flash video) to have less quality loss.
  
  But you can test other codecs as well. For example: free x264 or free xvid.

If super high-quality is not very important, you can try Replay Video Capture. It records from screen using MPEG-2 or Windows Media codec and I'm very satisfied by its quality.

I do not suggest to use 2-pass ABR encoding anymore. This practice was widely used in the past, but no longer recommended

Best practices for recording video from screen:

• For the best quality it is record video from screen using HUFFYUV lossless codec. Huffyuv provides very good quality, but generates a data stream of 10-15 MB/sec.
  
  If your hard drive is not fast enough then you may use a MOTION JPEG codec: Morgan MJPEG, PICVideo MJPEG, MainConcept MJPEG. Motion JPEG codecs generate data stream of 3-8 MB/sec while providing good quality.
• If you need MPEG-4 or MPEG-4 AVC video, recompress your recording using CRF (quality based) 1-pass encoding. You can use free x264 for creating MPEG-4 AVC videos and free XVid for MPEG-4 videos. I recommend you to use MKV or MP4 container for your files depending on hardware that you have.
• When you record anything from screen, close all unnecessary applications including instant messengers, e-mail clients, Web-browsers. It is also a good idea to stop your antivirus, anti-malware, anti-spyware software, disconnect from the Internet (if your game doesn't require it) and stop your firewall.
  Don't forget to turn on your system protection after recording.
  
• Consider lowering the desktop screen resolution
  
• You may need to turn off hardware acceleration when recording from screen. Otherwise you may get black screen instead of the video.

Any other ideas?

If you prefer speed over excellent quality, you can try to record using MPEG-2 video codec. MPEG-2 is not resource intensive. And it gives good quality.

MPEG-2 it is a video codec used on DVD-Video discs. If you plan to create DVD-Video discs from your screen recordings, it is recommended to record using MPEG-2 video codec. Then you can use DVD authoring software that allows to create DVD-Video from MPEG-2 .mpg files without any quality loss.

Note that MPEG-2 video files need to be DVD compliant to avoid recompression. Recommended settings DVD compliant settings:

1. Video:
   720x576 (PAL) or 720x480 (NTSC), up to 9800 kbit/s
2. Audio:
   - AC3, 48 kHz sampling rate, 1 to 5.1 (6) channels, up to 448 kbit/s
   or
   - MP2 48kHz, 1 to 7.1 channels, up to 912 kbit/s

Also note that it might be easier to use screen video capture software software like WM Capture / Replay Video Capture that allows to record into DVD-Video format.

Please learn more about DVD Authoring Tool software that you plan to use, what input files are recommended and how to set up the software to avoid recompression.

Personally when I record streaming videos with screen recorders or when I record with TV Tuner, I use MPEG-2 codec. It is not resource intensive, so this allows me to record and work on my computer at the same time. My TV Tuner is just recorded in the background. And Replay Video Capture or WM Capture allow me place the window I record from on top of other windows. Both programs are good for recording for hours while keeping audio and video in sync.

Another interesting feature of Replay Video Capture or WM Capture is that they allow you to record video with sound even if you don't have stereo mix or wave-out mix. This is the only way to record video with sound on computers where you can't enable "Stereo Mix" / "Record What you hear" / "Waveout mix" (unless you want to buy another sound card).

[rox108]

I think the best software for that is Camtasia.

Actually I have a problem with Camtasia. When I click Record button the program is shutting down with an error (something with codecs). Don't know what to do

Camtasia is great, but very overpriced.

Try freeware CamStudio or shareware Replay Video Capture.

Video tutorial: Introduction to Replay Video Capture
Video tutorial: How to manually set the recording window area in Replay Video Capture

[shiva]

do these work with windows 2003 as well ?

Haven't tried it on windows 2003 server, but I don't see any problem for screen recorders to work.

[shiva]

i tried the windows screen capture program on a remote win 2k3 server and the quality was bad ,