Video Screen recording options

[JayPeeBee]

Hi ! and thank you for your quick reply !

I'm in my way to buy a new train simulator but, i'm not shure to wich one i will buy. As an owner of Microsoft train simulator, i know that is not possible to tape the screen to it in video montage. I tried to do it with screen video recorder like camtasia but the result fail... So, because it's for me an important feature, i will wait to a clear answer befor to buy anything...

Thank you again !

 

[Euphod]

Yes, you can use Fraps to record Trainz, and I'm sure Camtasia as well.

 

[Sampug394]

Yes, you can use Fraps to record Trainz...

Figured. I think Hypercam 2 Works as well.

 

[ckthomson]

FRAPS is definitely my screen-recorder of choice. I've even seen the FRAPS core built into games (since sometimes the standalone FRAPS can cause programs like Hackshield/Gameguard to kick you out of games).

 

[Johnk]

Both work fine, but FRAPS is the best.

Please read this to save disappointment: Learning to make screen videos takes time, patience and skill. Like learning to drive a car or play the guitar, you get better with practice. Although FRAPS is the easiest to use as a capture program, the resultant files are massive - about 40 to 60 meg a minute. Thus you will only get about 10 minutes on a CD. You need to use other software to reduce the video size to something like a meg a minute if you want make a long movie or put it on YouTube.

FRAPS costs around $40, Camtasia costs around $300. Another program called Cam Studio costs nothing, but recording sound is tricky.

FRAPS has a freeware version that does 30 second stints. Keep in mind that the average professional movie scene is around 15-20 seconds so that's no problem. Just join your 30 second pieces together with a free program like Windows Movie Maker.

If making movies id your main reason for buying any game, then learn to make movies first and buy the game last.

 

[suprimer]

hi...
Usually I use in work Screen VidShot, this program it's really helps me in my work.

 

[Mick_Berg]

Hi.

I'm about to make some screen recordings using Fraps. I will then edit the videos and make a DVD and also YouTube videos using AVS Video Editor.

Is there agreement about what is the best resolution etc to use to get decent video quality, but with reasonable file size? What have others used with satisfactory results?

Thanks,
Mick Berg.

 

[JCitron]

Hi.

I'm about to make some screen recordings using Fraps. I will then edit the videos and make a DVD and also YouTube videos using AVS Video Editor.

Is there agreement about what is the best resolution etc to use to get decent video quality, but with reasonable file size? What have others used with satisfactory results?

Thanks,
Mick Berg.

Hi Mick,

When recording, you want to record at the highest resolution that your PC can handle while running in Trainz. You'll have to experiment with this since you'll be running Trainz and writing to the drive at the same time since FRAPS will add to the overhead that your PC has to deal with.

The reason for the higher recording quality is the video will be compressed down by YouTube when you upload it. By using a higher resolution to begin with, you'll have less loss on the output.

Once the video clips are recorded and joined, you can then convert them into MP4 format before uploading them to Youtube.

John

 

[philskene]

Hi Mick --

"I'm about to make some screen recordings using Fraps. I will then edit the videos and make a DVD and also YouTube videos using AVS Video Editor."

The FRAPS videos I make are usually enormous in size - we are talking several GB for a 10 minute recording. So they do need compressing before uploading to YouTube.

My editor and compressor of choice is VirtualDub. It's free, easy to use and quite fast. To make DVDs from the avi file, try DeVeDe - again free, fully featured, easy to use and fast.

"Is there agreement about what is the best resolution etc to use to get decent video quality, but with reasonable file size? What have others used with satisfactory results?"

Resolution? As high as possible. Same with frame rates. To give you some idea, see here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O-vDhLB4YaI

But to give you some idea of size, even for just a 5 minute compressed HD video, the upload was a shade over 300MB in size. Fine if you have T1 or T2, but it took about an hour to upload with ADSL 2+.

Phil