Recording what’s on my Computer Screen

[Shane Ross]

SnapzPro by Ambrosia Software. That is what I use for my tutorials.

http://www.ambrosiasoftware.com

Shane

Littlefrog Post
http://www.lfhd.net

[Will Keir]

Sweet! Thanks Shane, I’ll check it out.

Will Keir

[Will Keir]

Shane,

Downloaded the free-trail, works great, really simple to use but I noticed one thing, small quality loss, is that how it is with you?

[Shane Ross]

How are you saving or exporting the captured video? I export as Animation…a bear to work with, but high quality.

Shane

Littlefrog Post
http://www.lfhd.net

[Will Keir]

I was doing DV NTCS. So the quality was a bit lower, when I did “None” for compression it
seemed to get better, but here’s another catch. I dropped the .mov file I made into my FCP timeline and
the quality in my 16:9 DV timeline dropped significantly. I don’t know what to do about that, any ideas?

So when you

[Shane Ross]

[Will Keir] “when I did “None” for compression it
seemed to get better, but here’s another catch. I dropped the .mov file I made into my FCP timeline and
the quality in my 16:9 DV timeline dropped significantly.”

It will. DV is highly compressed…5:1. So yeah, it looks like crud.

[Will Keir] “So when you

[Tom Wolsky]

Be really careful with Animation if you have to go to a format that goes out to tape, DVD or other format designed for television display. Animation is interframe compression and can produce weird smearing and strobing when things move quickly about the screen. I find PhotoJPEG produces excellent results without Animation’s drawbacks.

All the best,

Tom

Author: “Final Cut Pro 5 Editing Essentials” and “Final Cut Express 2 Editing Workshop” Class on Demand “Complete Training for FCP5” and “Final Cut Express Made Easy” DVDs

[Will Keir]

Shane,

What’s this about EXPORTING to a RAID? Basically you export to a RAID hard drive or set of drives right?
Does doing that actually increase the quality of the image? I’m editing on a Mac Book Pro, top of the line specs, and I export to my External LaCie 7200 RPM firewire 800 drive, so am I getting lower quality images than say… you with your
RAID setup?

With the editing, to get a high quality picture into my DV 16:9 timeline, I want to make a new sequence right?
But what Sequence Preset should I be looking for. The file is a .mov file and I know I don’t wanna go DV because of the quality loss, so what do you use or recommend for the highest quality possible?

HDV, Uncompressed, Offline NTSC, XDCAM HD etc…

Then I take that timeline I’ve created, and Exporting it “using quicktime conversion” and seclect H.264 and that should get me some high quality footage to then bring into my DV NTSC Anamorphic timeline?

I know it’s long winded, but everything your teaching me helps tremendously, thanks a lot!

Will Keir

[Uli Plank]

OK, first a question: What’s your target format? DVD, the Web or a tape recorder? This will influence the choice of codec for the timeline.

A RAID can be helpful, yes. AFAIK, SnapzPro is first writing your footage to disk uncompressed and later it converts into the format of your choice. So (depending on other factors of load on your machine) you might get better frame rates with a RAID.

The best codec for editing would be something like uncompressed 8 bit 4:2:2 if your system can take it (RAID needed). If not, Photo-JPEG@75% is a better compromise than DV.

Regards,

Uli

Author of “DVDs gestalten und produzieren”, a book on professional DVD-authoring in German.

[Will Keir]

Target audience is DVD for film festivals, then DVD and then Web.