Good screen recorder?

[dr_tolle]

Anyone can recommend a good screen recorder for PC

This is the requirements :

it should be able to -

1. record a defined part of the screen
2. record in (nearly) lossless quality and without skipping frames.
3. Not dim the colors as some recorders do (probable related to the codecs used)
4. if its free it helps.

Hope someone have ideas.

Thomas

[lordsmurf]

I'm also looking for a new/good one.

Lossless is hard to find, everybody wants to compress it with H264 as MP4, which is crappy.

Yes, color/dimming is almost always the fault of the codec, namely downconversion to 4:2:0 or 4:1:1, maybe even 4:2:2, as what you see is 4:4:4. Biggest quality loss.

Nothing good free exists to my knowledge. I looked some months ago.

I had some nifty stuff in the XP days, even Vista days, but it's since stopped working. Mostly do with 64-bit OS, but some of the programs simply ceased development, if my paid ones (though cheap, under $50).

[dr_tolle]

Thanks for your answer. if it had to pay something it wouldn't be a problem. Just checking out what is on the market first.

Anyway I found one program called 'debut video capture' ... When recording with a codec called 'Huffyuy (native)' it does not dim the colors. But the size is too big then. So when I drag the video into my video converter program (Freemake video converter) it instantly dims the colors again. A bit weird, but I think it needs to preserve what is called RGB colors.

Regarding the lossless thing I was talking about. If it looses a little of the quality its ok. I just dont like the color dimming.

So I am still looking for solutions.

Thomas

[lordsmurf]

The "color dimming" is a result of colorspace compression. Again, 4:4:4 down to 4:2:2/4:2:0/4:1:1

Huffyuv is lossless, 4:2:2, and about 35gb/hour.
Lagarith is a bit smaller, at about 25gb/hour, and still 4:2:2

If the 4:2:2 looks good, then you need to retain that when encoding to something smaller (H264 in MP4 or MKV?). The default is 4:2:0, but you can change it to 4:2:2 with a good encoder. Freemake is junk. I use the payware MainConcept Reference/TotalCode, which has the option. But Avidemux and Hybrid should as well. I see the locked options, but don't use either enough to recall how to unlock offhand. Sekur has a forum for Hybrid.

Debut is from NCH, and their software has always had nasty spyware payloads at install. Or it would octopus itself into your system. I'm wary to install anything from that bottom-barrel company. NCH screwed a computer so badly in 2002 that I had to reformat it.

[hodgey]

You can use OBS studio with the custom ffmpeg output option, which lets you record to any ffmpeg-supported video format, lossless options include huffyuv, utvideo and h264 lossless. (The ffmpeg version may be a bit old though).
File -> Settings -> Output
Set Output mode to advanced
Under recording select Custom output (ffmpeg)
You can then select video compression, container format, audio compression and other settings.
May also have to set color format under advanced in the settings menu.

It's possible to do it directly with ffmpeg too, thought that may be a bit more difficult.

Alternatively, virtualdub also supports screen capture.

[dr_tolle]

Smurf thanks for the ideas. I tried Amixmux but couldn't find the H264 format in that, plus it kept crashing. Was just about to try one of the other of suggestions when I thought I wanted to upload the color-dimmed video to Vimeo. After having uploaded the video the dimming was gone - and the original colors was there again. So actually no need to me to convert the videos then, as long as the videos has the right colors on Vimeo.

Hodhey - thanks for the suggestion. I might wanna try that thing. Can it record the screen too ?

[RobertaBSmith]

AZ Screen Recorder is good so far I know.

[lordsmurf]

Quote:

Originally Posted by RobertaBSmith

AZ Screen Recorder is good so far I know.

That's an Android app, not "for PC" as requested.

[RobertaBSmith]

Oops my bad. I forgot.

[ehbowen]

Quote:

Originally Posted by dr_tolle

Anyone can recommend a good screen recorder for PC

This is the requirements :

it should be able to -

1. record a defined part of the screen
2. record in (nearly) lossless quality and without skipping frames.
3. Not dim the colors as some recorders do (probable related to the codecs used)
4. if its free it helps.

Hope someone have ideas.

Thomas

The Live Screen Capture option available under the "Capture" tab of Corel VideoStudio 2018 is an option you should consider. The only reason I'm not recommending it unconditionally is because, at least as far as I can see, it only supports the WMV file format...there's a drop-down menu with file options, but the only option it's populated with is .wmv. I'm reaching out to Corel to see if there's a way to install additional codecs which the module can use; will let you know if I get a response.

EDIT: Attaching sample captures.

[ehbowen]

Well, I finally heard back from Corel. They say that at this time WMV is the only option for their screen capture module, but that they will pass my request along to their development team for possible future implementation. And they thank me for the feedback. So, we'll see.