Imported screen capture file looks blurry

Hi, I am re opening an old post, because I didnt find any answer.
The post is from 9'th of May 2008:
"I'm using a demo version of iShowU to record my computer screen. The resulting .mov file looks great! However, when imported into FCE and rendered, the quality is not nearly as good. It becomes blurry and the text is choppy.
I have tried several preset and a few custom settings in iShowU. Almost all of them produce a great looking movie when playing in Quicktime. But none of them look good in FCE 3.0. They look passable, but not as good as I had hoped.
Any suggestions?
Thanks,
Mike
I have the same problem, using the FCE 4.0. I am struggling with this for two weeks now and still couldnt find any solution. I would really appreciate if somebody could help me,
thanks in advance,
Michał

Thanks for Your answers, it were inspiring
I think I have the answer.
1) You should use Animation codec, instead od dv pal or dv ntsc
do not scale it or resize if You plan to edit it
2)In FCE You MUST choose in the sequence preset, one of Apple Intermediate Codec. Using any dv preset, will cause blurring.
(I don't know how it works in FCP, any info will be greatly appreciated)
in FCE all apple intermediate (as HD ) are in 16:9 aspect ratio, i wonder how can I make screencast in 4:3?

Similar Messages

Imported screen capture avi looks pixely in pp2 cs3

Okay this is my first post on here so please bear with me, I will try to make this any easy one.
I am using Adobe Premiere Pro cs3 and I have been trying like mad to get a usable screen capture incorporated into my videos. I work for an internet company and I am charged with the task of creating tutorial dvds for training new employees and new website owners how to use our software. I am a professional, but I have never had to use so many screen captured elements, to be truthful, I have not used any until recently.
I have tried importing flash files of the content I need into premiere, which as far as I can tell is impossible and not the way to go about this. I then aquired a program called Hypercam that allows me to screen capture directly to AVI which I thought was wonderful until I brought the avi movies into premiere. What I am seeing is the source go from looking near perfect when not in motion in the source window, then the instant I hit play, the pixels turn to crap and it looks terrible, unusable for my purposes as smaller text gets completely obscured. The same is true if the avi file is brought into the timeline, no matter if it's rendered or not.
Upon closer inspection it appears that the pixels become wider and blurred when the video is played than when it is at rest.
The AVI files default properties copied directly from what premiere is telling me are as follows:
Type: AVI Movie
File Size: 22.6 MB
Image Size: 1280 x 1024
Pixel Depth: 1280
Frame Rate: 10.00
Total Duration: 00;00;17;17
Average Data Rate: 1.3 MB / second
Pixel Aspect Ratio: 1.0
Depth is 16 bits.
Compressor: 'CRAM', Microsoft Video 1
My project settings are:
720x480
dv ntsc PAR .9
29.97 fps
My system is a Dell XPS 710 Quad core with Nvidia 768mb 8800 GTX card and dual monitor set up.
I have read through the other thread dealing with this and as far as I can tell, it is either a PAR issue or a problem with using an AVi in premiere. I need help friends, and I guess the questions I need answered would be one or many of the following.
1. How do I screen capture into a usable format for Premiere with no loss of quality?
2. How can I use/convert my existing files so that I may edit them without loss of quality?
I will continue looking and I will be monitoring this thread until I get something that works. I'm not afraid to spend money to do this right so any and all suggestions are welcome. Please HELP!

So I have been doing some more homework and I took Harm's suggestion to get Camtasia. Thank you for that, I love it. It is quite versatile and looks great(It should for $300). So now I am able to produce a screen captured video that is workable though I am having a couple of issues still. The Dv/NTSC standard of 720x480 PAR .9 is not the easiest to match up. I have output my camtasia video as an AVI, 640x480 with a PAR of 1 and set it to 30fps, I also set my premiere project to 30 fps. The AVI file I created is about 14 gigs as the movie is 9 minutes long. I tried importing it but only the first 2 minutes of the video come into the project which makes no sense to me. I am getting low on Hard Drive Space ~30 gigs left of 320, so maybe there are safeguards in the machine or program which won't let me use the whole file as it would bring me too close to the limit(don't worry, I'm getting a 1TB external drive later today). So now I am pondering my options and again asking for help.
My first question is why would a 9 minute avi cut itself off to 2 minutes when imported into premiere and how can I get it to import properly?
Second question, perhaps I am approaching this the wrong way, is there a better way to make a tutorial video with the screen captured AVi that I now have? I want to do some fancy stuff with AE an PP to make it shine but neither seem very willing to comply. What I'm considering is just producing an intro and ending separately and then importing the finished videos back into Camtasia, even though their transitions are kind of basic, it would work I think.
I am going to be using this alot as I have 12 different lessons to create so if Harm or anyone else wants to offer suggestions on the best way to approach this and/or fix my importing/compatibility issues, I would greatly appreciate it.

How do I add time/date stamp to my screen capture file names?

I'm on mac osx.
I'm trying to add time/date stamp to my screen capture file names. (at the moment it's just 'Picture 1' etc..)
I've tried the following command in terminal but have not had success. please help!!
defaults write com.apple.screencapture name "datestamp" at "timestamp"
killall SystemUIServer

Surely someone else will provide a better solution. Meanwhile, however, you might want to try the following script. Copy and paste the script into the AppleScript Editor's window and save it as an application. Then drop your screen capture files on the droplet's Finder icon.
on open theDroppedFiles
    tell application "Finder"
        repeat with thisFile in theDroppedFiles
            set theFileName to name of thisFile
            if (word 1 of theFileName is "Picture") and ¬
                (word 2 of theFileName = word -2 of theFileName) then
                set theExtension to name extension of thisFile
                set P to offset of theExtension in theFileName
                set theCreationDate to creation date of thisFile
                set dateStamp to short date string of theCreationDate
                set timeStamp to time string of theCreationDate
                set name of thisFile to "Screen Shot " & dateStamp ¬
                    & " at " & timeStamp & "." & theExtension
            end if
        end repeat
    end tell
end open
Message was edited by: Pierre L.

Screen Capture file location?

Suddenly my screen captures are sent only to the clipboard instead of the desktop as they used to. How can I change that back? I'm using ShiftCtrl+Cmd4 or ShiftCtrl+Cmd3.
Also, where would you change where the screen capture files ends up?

You're pushing too many buttons. The additional ctrl button copies to the clipboard.
See the Preference panels>Keyboard>keyboard Shortcuts for the list of buttons.

Premier Pro CS4 and Camtasia imported screen capture

I have a question from one of you professionals regarding Camtasia screen capture video imported to PP. I used several settings that was suggested in the posts in these forums and others and the quality of my video is still very bad. Please Help:
I am making a four minute training video that includes some screen shots of software. The final video will be put on DVD and Flash for website.
My capture settings of Camtasia are 1024 X 768. I used Tech smith codec and I used Logarith codec to produce the video in AVI from camtasia.
I set my PC screen size to 1024 X 768 as well.
My Premier Pro CS4 Setting HDV 1080i, 29.97 frame rate. 1440 X 1080 Frame size.
I also used the following frame sizes DV NTSC, 29.97 frame rate. 720X480 frame size
I also used MPEG2, HDTV 720p, 29.97High quality, 1280 X 720 frame rate
None of the above settings worked. Please help
Thank you

This ARTICLE and the included links might be helpful. Be very sure to look at all of the replies by Jeff Bellune on using the TechSmith CODEC's from Camtasia. I think that he replied in most linked threads.
Good luck,
Hunt

Screen Capture files are corrupted

I use the built-in Screen Capture all the time....Command-Shift-3 and Command-Shift-4.
As recently as two days ago, it worked beautifully.
Today, it's not working correctly. The files get saved to the desktop, but they are corrupted. I can make out the image that I captured, but it looks like the horizontal setting on old cathode ray TVs is waaay out of sync.
I've tried a different user on the machine. I've tried changing the format from png to jpeg to pdf and back to png. Same result.
This is weird.
Any ideas?

OK, weird. The problem has 'gone away' without doing anything specific. I didn't even realize it - I just did a screen shot because I needed it and then sent it to the person who needed it. Only later, did I realize that I had had problems just yesterday.
I didn't even get a chance to try the suggestions listed above.
By the way, all three versions of the file were corrupted: the desktop icon, the Quick Look version and the actual file as seen in Preview.
If it happens again, I'll be back.
Thanks for the help people. I hope to return the favor.
Message was edited by: Zonker in Russia

Screen capture file storage

It looks like Jabber stores screen captures forever under My Documents/MyJabberFiles. Does Jabber jimit the growth of these? Is there a way to change this to use the temporary files directory so that they can be easily purged?
The endless growth of screen captures and chat history isn't a good behaviour.
Thanks,
Eric

I just came across this "problem" today as well. File transfers are stored in this location as well. My concern is not only from an excessive file growth problem, but also a litigation discovery problem. We don't like to have any data on our desktops that is discoverable. I would like to be able to change this default location for screen captures and file transfers to a network location. Or even better, an option to change the location to a network location and purge after x number of days.
We do not keep chat history for the same reason, to avoid having to retrieve files from desktops if a discovery request comes in.

Importing Screen Capture into CS3

I use Jing to capture screen images. When I take those images into Photoshop, the size is shown at around 2megs at 72ppi and the.png image looks pristine and sharp. When I import the screen captures into PPro they fall apart in the timeline. Can this be corrected? Thank you.

Jim,
The Project Settings: 720/480; D1/DV NTSC (0.9); Lower Field; Display- 30fps, non- drop; Edit Code: DV NTSC; Timebase: 29.97.
Hunt,
I don't know where to begin to do what you suggest. You are brilliant with this.....me not so much. Any easier way to explain it so that I can try your suggestion? By the way, I do scale in Photoshop so that is not the issue.
Thanks to you both.

Screen Capture File Size Discrepancy

Can someone please explain to me why the screen capture (cmd-shift-4) generates such huge files?
I made a screen capture which was saved to my desktop as picture-1.png. Examining the file's properties showed that the file size was 1.03MB.
Next I opened the file in Photoshop, used Save For Web, and set the file type to PNG-24. This file, which in every way is identical to the original except for file size is only 11kb.
Why is the OSX screen capture larger by a factor of nearly 100?

Just by way of illustration, when I take a PNG screenshot of my 23 inch LCD I get a 4.4 MB file. But only if the desktop picture is all that is showing.
By contrast, a PNG screenshot of the same screen with OSX windows covering the desktop is only 360KB. Why the discrepancy?
PNG compresses using a raster notation that works at its best when continuous identical pixels cover some horizontal stretch. Just like Mac OSX windows. Noncontinuous colored pixels are very hard for PNG to compress, since there are very few identical colors. This is why photographs should be compressed with JPG (which uses a color averaging scheme) and web animations with PNG.
The OSX screenshot format uses 32 bit PNG, which is 16.7 million colors. So if you are reducing the bit depth to 24 bits, that is a huge reduction in filesize. Especially if the 24 bit format converts colors to identical runs, which compress better in PNG. I am talking about color variation you can't even see. That would explain the "factor of nearly 100" you noticed.

Screen Capture File Type (PNG)

I would like to change the file type, currently PNG, of OS X's screen capture. Is there a preference I can change to choose different file types? I would like it to be JPEG.
Thanks for your help
John

Found answer by using terminal.
Alright, start up Launchpad. Go into your Utilities folder and start up Terminal. Just type in what I show you & I'll also included it in the text below so you can simply copy paste it into your Terminal.
defaults write com.apple.screencapture type jpg
Now, the last part jpg is obviously saying that we want the default to be a JPEG. You can actually change this to any image format you want. You can change it to a BMP, TIF, PDF, whatever. Once you have that hit enter and type:
killall SystemUIServer
Make sure to capitalize it just as I have here. Once you have that hit enter. Ok Lets take another screencpature and see how the info has changed. Command+Shift+3 .. Right click .. get info ..
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6SD7rAfBJPk

Screen Capture File Format

Does anyone know a way to change the default file format in the Mac OS screen capture utility to a different format other than PNG? Thanks.

cbenham wrote:
Does anyone know a way to change the default file format in the Mac OS screen capture utility to a different format other than PNG? Thanks.
There are two default screen capture mechanisms in Leopard:
The direct ⌘ shortcut, and the application, grab.
I presume you are referring to the ⌘ shortcuts since the default for grab is tiff
⌘-Shift-3 = Screen
⌘-Shift-4 = Selection
⌘-Shift-4 + Spacebar = Window
To change the format, in a terminal enter
defaults write com.apple.screencapture type image_format
where "image_format" can be
tiff
jpg
pdf
and possibly others.
When using the terminal, you are on your own and if you are unfamiliar with it, be very careful.
Message was edited by: nerowolfe

Screen Capture (file format) used to be pdf

Is there a way to change the default file format for a screen capture. The file format in OS 10.3 used to capture as a PDF. Now the format is PNG. I know you can open the file in preview and resave it.
I just want to see if there is someway to change preferences or something so it will default as a pdf file.
thanks

Hi, amantia and costicladop —
amantia, welcome to Apple Discussions!
There are various options to accomplish your objective.
OnyX 1.6.5 (a free utility) and Cocktail 3.6.5 ($14.95 shareware utility) offer the option to change graphic file format with a "single click" — in OnyX »» Appearance »» Screen Capture and Cocktail »» Interface »» Misc. »» Screenshot file format, respectively.
They're both just implementing Terminal commands — which provide another option.
bmp, gif, jpg, jpg-2000, pdf, photoshop, pict, png, sgi, tga, and tiff options are available in both utilities.
Hope this helps . . .
Regards,
Dean
p.s. costicladop — following your link engages an automatic download. (Duh.) Wanting to read something first, I went to http://www.arenasoftware.com/ — which forwards to http://www.digitalarena.co.nz/. The software page on that site only mentions three software products, none of which is shotChoice. Could you provide a descriptive link? Thanks!

Grab - default screen capture file location

HI. Is there a way to have Grab save screen captures to a location other than the Desktop? I checked in Preferences and there are none.
Thanks!

are you talking about the app "Grab" or are you talking about screen capture via the keystrokes cmd-shift-3 and cmd-shift-4? if you're talking about the cmd-shift-3/4 then there is an easy way to change the save location for the file.
in terminal issue the following command
*defaults write com.apple.screencapture location /LOCATION*
where LOCATION is the location of the directory you want to save to.
for example if you wanted to save to a folder that you've created on your desktop called 'Screenshots' then the command would be
*defaults write com.apple.screencapture location /Users/YOURUSERNAME/Desktop/Screenshots*
or alternatively
*defaults write com.apple.screencapture location ~/Desktop/Screenshots*
this will take effect once you log out and log back in.
hope this helps

Help transferring a screen capture file (.gif) of an Agilent E4443A to a PC over GPIB???

I'm currently using an Agilent PSA Series Spectrum Analyzer E4443A which has an internal HD, but not accessible via LAN like the newer Window based Analyzers. I've read the programmer's manual and tried the examples, but no luck. I'm able to send the command in Labview to capture the screen using ":mmem:stor:scr 'C:mal.gif' " and that work's fine. I'm having trouble with using the " :mmem:data? 'C:mal.gif' " Not sure how to handle VISA read calls to get the data to a file. Example attached.
Mal G.
Test Engineering
Empower RF Systems Inc.
Attachments:
mal_g_gif.vi ‏13 KB

smercurio_fc wrote:
雪飘人间and梅 wrote:
I have the same problem with Agilent E4447.
With the command "MMEMTOR:C\111.GIF", I can store the .gif file to the E4447 C Drive, but how to transfer the picture to my PC?
See here: http://forums.ni.com/t5/LabVIEW/Agilent-E440x-Spectrum-Analyzer-screen-capture/m-p/361469
I want remote command for save screen shot in .gif and tranfered to local PC means Remote PC. I am using C#.NET for remote accessing.
I dont want use any Drivers,lib.
Thank you in Adavance

Importing screen capture from Quicktime X

I am in the process of making training videos for my job. For a couple videos I want to show how to access certain areas of a website. I have been doing screen captures of these using Quicktime X. They are recording at 1920x1200 with a frame rate around 9fps. My timeline in FCP will be 1920x1080 at 29.97, upper-field first. I will be working with pro res 422 from AVCHD camera files. For the life of me I can not get these screen captures into FCP. It says invalid format, and I'm guessing it has to do with the frame rate. I tried converting these screen captures to pro res 422 at 1920x1080 in Toast 10, and while they converted, the videos then played back super super fast in FCP, probably adjusting to the frame rate.
Can someone help me figure out a good way to do this?

There are a couple of things that will absolutely make you task rife with challenges; one is that 9fps will cause the screen capture to play back in a 29.97fps or even a 24fps video sequence way, way fast! Optimum solution is to capture at the same frame rate that you will be editing your training video in. Hopefully you can do that over and adjust the frames per second. The other issue is that your screen capture is not in a video resolution. Regardless, you should be able to set in the resulting video of the screen capture and keep the aspect ratio, and either size it to fill or fit within the 1920x1080 sequence frame. As for the frame rate difference, it's just extremely different, so you may need to conform it in Cinema Tools and then slow it down by using command- J (apple key + "J") and entering a percent under 100, somewhere around 30%.
So basically the best solution is to be able to do your screen capture at 29.97 fps but if you're past that opportunity, then conform the clips in Cinema Tools to 29.97 and slow the clips down.

Imported screen capture file looks blurry

Similar Messages

Maybe you are looking for