VideoStudio 8 able to Capture a Screen Segment?

[uqes]

Hi all,
I just have a quick question, if I have a VCR/DVD player hooked up to a capture card using VideoStudio 8; would I be able to capture a specific segment of the screen, OR is videostudio only able to do the entire screen? Thanks

[BrianCee]

If you mean you just want to do a partial screen grab then the answer is no - but that is not a problem , since VideoStudio screen grabs are either .bmp or .jpg files according to your preference then you can import the grabs into any photo editing programme you may have and crop to your hearts content.

[uqes]

Thanks for the prompt reply BrianCee; but what I was more inferring was capturing a whole video with a particular section of the screen only. Is VideoStudio or any known program able to do this? Thanks

If you mean you just want to do a partial screen grab then the answer is no - but that is not a problem , since VideoStudio screen grabs are either .bmp or .jpg files according to your preference then you can import the grabs into any photo editing programme you may have and crop to your hearts content.

[Ken Berry]

I doubt very much whether any reasonably priced program could do what you want -- and for that matter I have not heard of any higher-end program that can do it either, though they may exist.

At any rate, Brian's advice still applies to video as much as to still images. Once you have captured your whole video, you can use the VS9 crop filter to isolate the area of the clip you want and apply it to the whole video. Depending on the size of the screen segment and the original quality of the captured file, however, there might be some concern about the final quality of the cropped segment when it is expanded to fill the entire screen. And of course, in the cropping, you would need to maintain an aspect ratio which is consistent with a final DVD format (e.g. 4:3 normal or 16:9 widescreen) if it is to appear 'properly' on screen.

[anisa9162]

Yes there is a program that does this EASILY... it's called Camtasia Studio... it's pretty good.. I find that for certain projects this works for me better than Video Studio...

[Ken Berry]

Thanks for that Anisa. Looking at Camtasia's features, it seems to do precisely what you say, and apparently you can set it to record either the full screen, the current active Window or a region on the screen. I am not sure, though, whether the asking price of US$299 puts it into the consumer category or more into the prosumer one...