Camstudio Files are Blurry After Being Edited with VS9

hordak · Post by **hordak** » Mon Oct 30, 2006 6:35 pm

SUBJECT:
Camstudio Files are Blurry After Being Edited with VS9

Nature of the problem:
Camstudio is an AWESOME program. I'm using it to record my desktop to demo some websites. The outputted quality from the program itself is great. But I'm having problems retaining it's great quality with VS9. I'm using VS9 to edit the file to add in some music and "bumpers". However, when I export ("share") the project from VS9, the video quality is noticeably blurrier when compared to the raw Camstudio AVI file (captured with Windows Video 1).

Properties of your source files (format, file size, where did you get it?):
Full screen capture with Camstudio. My resolution on my laptop is at 1024x768. The quality of the edited file is somewhat better when I record the desktop at 800x600, but it is still not crisp like the original file.

What devices are involved and their mode of connection?:
No extra devices used. Just the software: Camstudio 2.1

Project Settings:
Default (clicked on new project)

Output format (file, DVD, VCD, SVCD)
I've tried "sharing" it as MPEG2 (720x480) and NTSC DVD as well as custom exports jobs with "full frame" order, 100% quality, and dual-pass.

PAL or NTSC:
NTSC

Error Codes (if any):
None

System information:
* zv5000 HP laptop
* VS9 (with patch)
* Camstudio
* Win2k

I've search through the forums, and I noticed a number of people are Camstudio users. I was wondering if you guys could share how you retain the quality of the video when editing with VS.

Thank you in advance!

Hordak

Trevor Andrew · Post by **Trevor Andrew** » Mon Oct 30, 2006 7:03 pm

Hi

Properties of your source files (format, file size, where did you get it?):

Not sure if I can help, but just to get things started.
Post the properties of the captured files.

If they are compatible project files, you can copy and paste.

From File ¡V Preferences ¡V tick- Show Messages when inserting first¡K¡K.

Start a new project¡Xinsert the captured file¡Xa pop up window shows the video properties ¡Vpress display¡Xcopy and paste the details of the video file.

Otherwise:-

Insert the captured file to VS timeline, right click the file and select properties.
What are they?

Trevor

hordak · Post by **hordak** » Tue Oct 31, 2006 3:56 am

Hi there,

Thanks for responding, and sorry for the tardy response. (I had to wait to get home from work before I was able to find out the details.)

Here are the file details:
File
File format: Microsoft AVI files
File size: 6,895 KBytes
Frame rate: 200.000 Frames/sec
Duration: 43.785 Seconds
Data rate: 152.72 kbps

Video
Compression: AVI Decompressor
Attributes: 16bits, 1024x768
Total frames: 8.757 Frame(s)

Audio
None

Thank you for trying to help!
Hordak

Phil S · Post by **Phil S** » Sun Dec 03, 2006 6:09 pm

I've got exactly the same issue. Captures the AVI fine and plays it as clear as a bell but when imported into VS10+ it loses quality.

If played on the timeline as a project it is unreadable. I had the same avi settings as you but I've experimented with 25fps and some of the other codecs but without much improvement.

If a full screen is captured then you can only get what your screen res is set at. ie. 1024x768 - is the blur/unreadable video due to this when it's scaled down to a lower resolution by VS I wonder.

I'll keep searching the forum

Post by **Ron P.** » Sun Dec 03, 2006 9:51 pm

What you might try is scaling down your monitor resolution to 1024 x 768, which is the minimum VS allows to work. Then do your capturing with Camstudio or whatever program you choose. Once you are done capturing, reset your monitor to the resolution you normally use.

I have been using Wink to do tutorials. I'll capture at 1024 res then reset to my normal resolution of 1280 x 1024 to do the typing. Wink does allow resizing, so I'll then resize my captures to about 80-85 % which still produces a clear image.

I have in the past tried Camstudio, and just d/l again today, to give it another spin. However I don't normally edit my screen caps in VS. I may run a quick one through just to see how much difference resetting my monitor res makes in VS...

**EDIT**

Well I just done a quick trial using Camstudio, with the above mentioned procedure. The AVI capture is great, however VS does down-res the video to 720 x 480 (NTSC) which does present the quality issue. I'm not sure at the time what if anything can be done to alleviate this. Since I produce my tutorials for the web, I use the SWF format that produces a small file size and good quality.

Phil S · Post by **Phil S** » Sun Dec 03, 2006 10:35 pm

My default screen is at 1024x768 and it is that that I captured with but VS doesn't seem to like the resultant AVI files.

I did change my screen res to 800x600 (it's minimum) and do a capture, then changed back to 1024x768 to run VS and read it in. It was slightly better but not as good as I would expect.

I suppose what's really needed is to be able to capture the whole screen at say 768x576 or 640X480 or even 320x240, ie. the sort of sizes you would normally use for PAL video and VS is expecting, but Camstudio won't do that.

Or perhaps I'm on the wrong track altogether.

Post by **Ron P.** » Mon Dec 04, 2006 12:56 pm

So far the only way I've found to edit a Camstudio capture in VS 10+, and have the rendered video quality acceptable is to render it to WMV, HD NTSC 1280 x 720.

However it took roughly 35 minutes to render a 2 minute segment. This could be due to just having to guess at the project properties. I tried using MPEG and AVI, however each not having properties to match the video produced by Camstudio.

I think I'm finding out why I stopped using Camstudio. The kicker is that now I get an error message in VS10+ when trying to use one of the supplied AVI files, which uses the Indeo codec. So I'll probably have to reinstall.

Post by **lancecarr** » Tue Dec 05, 2006 5:06 am

Is it just me or are these kind of strange properties?

Frame rate: 200.000 Frames/sec

Data rate: 152.72 kbps

Post by **Ron P.** » Tue Dec 05, 2006 5:16 am

Yes the frame rate makes for some quick viewing. I dismissed that as a typo, thinking he meant 20 fps. The data rate does puzzle me though..

Phil S · Post by **Phil S** » Tue Dec 05, 2006 9:30 am

My Camstudio installation defaults to 200 fps so it's not a typo.

I changed mine to 25 fps (frame every 40ms) but still didn't get good results in VS10+.