2 Camstudio questions (annotations and freezing)

by 3 replies
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Hi Warriors,

Not sure if this is the right forum to post this in but thought it'd be the closest.

I'm using Camstudio to record my screen with audio of me speaking over it.

1. What I want to know is, what is the best way to go about adding annotations AFTER the video has been recorded (during editing). There are certain parts of my screen I want to block at times, such as usernames/passwords and other information. I'm aware of Camstudio's built in screen annotations feature, but I would rather do it after the fact instead of having to mess with Camstudio throughout recording. I'm not using any fancy video editing software either, just Windows Movie Maker to edit afterwards and publish, then upload to YouTube. I do have VirtualDub and Wax.

2. About every 4th video or so, after just a few minutes of recording, my entire system freezes and doesn't come back without doing a hard reboot, and I lose all the video I made at that point. I'm on Vista. Is there something I need to change in Camstudio's settings or could it be that my system is too crappy? I'm saving the video (both temp and final copy) to an external hard drive if that makes a difference.

Thanks for any help.
#programming #annotations #camstudio #freezing #questions
  • Hi

    You're doing double the work here, dont use movie maker, it'll at times make your video larger. Use correct screen recording sizes to keep file size at optimum.

    Don't use too many captions, it makes the video larger.

    Best recording size, is 1280x720, this allows a good compression once the video is downsized to an out put of 640x360,etc.
    1024x768 is also ok. but the former is better.

    When you want to blur out a password/username text field, ZOOM all the way in, start it from there, don't use FADE-IN, turn it off and don't use FADE-OUT, turn that off too. that way it transitions in straight away.

    This process can take as little as 60 seconds to a few minutes, it all depends if you're scrolling up and down all the time.

    As for text annotations, use the Youtube Feature instead, this will keep your camtasia output size at minimum

    Compress the video at 50% or at minimum 40%

    use 112Kb/s audio, and set frame rate to 27 - I've had lower sizes of files this way... I can get a 1280x720 output file down to 15MB for a 10-20 minute video, depending on how much movement, scrolling, etc is done.

    So try not to do that, keep the page still at all times and ONLY scroll down or up when absolutely necessary. This will reduce the amount of times you have to apply the BLUR feature.

    Camtasia already has a feature for you to upload to Youtube, so don't use the movie maker.

    K, make sure you have EVERYTHING not related to the recording, CLOSED, no image programs, no skype, or any other instant messenger, just the application you are recording ONLY. Try not to use too many tabs, keep browser tabs at minimum to save RAM usage.

    Your PC should really be using approximately 64-68 processes at any one time via the "task manager" section.

    Ideally, you need a 2GB system, with an Intel processor Quad Core, or higher, the RAM needs to be ideally, DDR3 ram, DDR2 is ok, but DDR3 is much better in regards to performance and if possible, a 1033Mhz RAM frequency, or higher.

    My set up is
    i7 EXtreme Gamer (top of the line) DUAL Quad Core (8 cores) 3.6Ghz Processor.
    2GB Radeon ATI Video Card
    RAID 0 2x 2TB Drives at 7200 RPM
    8GB DDR3 running at 1866Mhz

    And it runs like lightening

    Hope this helps

    Loz
    • [ 1 ] Thanks
  • askloz, that was some great information. Exactly what I was looking for, thank you!

    Sick system you got by the way.
    • [1] reply
    • No worries, btw, its Loz

      yeh, system is pretty neat, comes in handy when you work faster than the pc does so its good to have something that can catch up with you

      All the best

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