Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: Anyone Recommend a Video Capture Prgm?

This is topic Anyone Recommend a Video Capture Prgm? in forum Film-Yak at Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE.

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Posted by Frank Angel (Member # 248) on 07-06-2011, 10:18 PM:

I want to capture some YouTube videos, maybe some Skype stuff. I want to be able to box just the area on the screen with the video (needs to record the sound as well). I don't care what file format it creates, as long as it is one of the common usual suspects. I know there are plenty out there, but any recommedations for a app that you use and particularly like for this sort of thing would be great. Thanks

Posted by Randy Stankey (Member # 64) on 07-06-2011, 11:16 PM:

There is an extension for Firefox which will directly download video from YouTube and other websites. It's called Download Helper.

http://www.downloadhelper.net/

I don't know about Skype but if it is embedded in a web page, DH might do the job.

Posted by Joe Redifer (Member # 3) on 07-07-2011, 04:14 AM:

Skype isn't a stored file that can be downloaded. Either FRAPS or Unregistered Hypercam might work. Make sure Unregistered Hypercam remains unregistered so that it puts an Unregistered Hypercam watermark on your video to keep 'em classy.

For Mac, you're screwed. But if you want to pay, ScreenFlow is excellent.

Posted by Randy Stankey (Member # 64) on 07-07-2011, 07:37 AM:

For the Mac, Snapz Pro will capture anything that appears on your screen or plays through your speakers. Including Hulu.

http://www.ambrosiasw.com/utilities/snapzprox/

However, it is real-time capture, not download capture.
i.e. Whatever it is you want to capture must be played through from beginning to end during the capture operation.

Posted by Damien Taylor (Member # 4255) on 07-07-2011, 11:21 AM:

It's already somewhat built into mac. Quicktime>File>New Screen Recording. The downsides is that it's not window focusable, but I guess you could crop in movie editor of your choice. Also its 15fps. Eh, it's already there though.

FWIW you can download youtube videos with keepvid.com or similar.

Posted by Randy Stankey (Member # 64) on 07-07-2011, 12:07 PM:

Quicktime can do screen captures but DRM and certain codecs can break it.

Snapz Pro will capture anything that appears on the screen, DRM or not. It is also window and border select croppable.

Posted by Monte L Fullmer (Member # 2797) on 07-07-2011, 12:11 PM:

I've nailed tons of video with downloadhelper - even sites outside of YouTube...

..then I convert them to AVI's to make DVD's with ... or, with an audio program to extract the audio from those .flv files to made audio CD's.

Multimedia fan I am. - Monte

Posted by Brad Miller (Member # 2) on 07-07-2011, 03:06 PM:

www.zamzar.com

Posted by Joe Redifer (Member # 3) on 07-08-2011, 04:54 AM:

Randy, we had SnapzPro at work and I was never really impressed with it. The framerate noticeably stuttered. I think Screenflow is better. The framerate is still variable but far more seamless. When there is a change, it always keeps up. If you have something playing at 30fps, that's what it captures at, no dropped frames. If nothing moves, it is at 1fps, at least that has been my experience. Always uncompressed (though you can edit it right in the app itself before you save it and compress it to whatever you want). I've used it to capture gameplay from MAME and many of those games are already using a lot of the computer's horsepower. Might choke on an iMac or iLaptop, though. But it seems to work well on non-iComputers like my Mac Pro.

Ambrosia's Wiretap Pro, however, is excellent.

Posted by John Wilson (Member # 269) on 07-08-2011, 04:58 AM:

A really easy one is http://keepvid.com/

It allows a link in your favorites bar of your browser and if you're watching something on youtube, you just click it and it opens and gives you resolution options to capture it with.

Good stuff.

Posted by Randy Stankey (Member # 64) on 07-08-2011, 08:40 AM:

Joe, the reason I use Snapz Pro is because it will capture anything that appears on the screen. It takes its data directly from the video source (video RAM?) and won't be fooled by DRM or funky codecs.

I have not seen it drop frames or anything but I also have an 8-core Mac Pro so that might be the reason why.

The next time I have to capture video from the screen I'll take a look at ScreenFlow.

I have WireTap but I have not thought of using it to capture video from the screen so I'll have to give that a look-see, as well.

Posted by Joe Redifer (Member # 3) on 07-08-2011, 03:21 PM:

Wiretap is only for audio.

ScreeFlow also captures anything that appears on the screen and any sound that the computer makes. I remember some article about Mac screen capture apps and they rated them all on features and whatnot. Damn, I wish I could find that link. But I think SnapZpro came in second.

EDIT: I don't think this was it, but it's a good look at Mac capture apps anyway.

Posted by Wayne Keyser (Member # 2420) on 07-08-2011, 09:11 PM:

Used to really like keepvid but it quit working for me.

MPEG STREAMCLIP does a good job on Youtube.

Posted by Joe Redifer (Member # 3) on 07-09-2011, 02:18 AM:

MPEG Streamclip is awesome, but it always errors out on Youtube videos and never grabs any for me. It's almost like it is expecting old-school Youtube with the one resolution instead of the various multi-resolutions it offers these days from 240p to 1080p.

EDIT: Nevermind, they seemed to have fixed it in 1.9.3b5

Posted by Damien Taylor (Member # 4255) on 07-09-2011, 09:59 PM:

Wayne, keepvid changed they way it worked, it now relies on a java applet which you must allow to run.

edit: On mac so no one writes viruses for me. YMMV