Recording desktop from S Video
 

I am trying to record my desktop in HD onto my H1. I ran SVideo out from my graphics card into the H1 but..no joy. I played with it a while but had no successful results. Has anyone done this?

Hey Johnson,

I've recorded my desktop successfully using my Powerbook G4 in the past.

I simply hooked up an S -Video cable.
Powerbook: Turned the monitoring option to 'mirror desktop'.
XL H1: Set the "AV->DV" setting to "ON"

And I was able to record the desktop to tape. SD, 4:3, 60i.

The resolution left a little to be desired, but I think this was a problem on my Powerbook's end of things.

Now, if you're on PC, I don't think I can be much help. But thought I'd chime in and let you know that it can be done.

Good luck!

S-Video does not support an HD signal, but as James mentioned you can do this with the H1 in SD. ;)

Thanks guys. Unfortunately, I am a PC user so I will have to figure out my PC settings on my own I guess. But I had not turned on the AV>DV setting so maybe this will help. As far as the quality of the video, well, it can't be any worse than the quality of the many screen/desktop capture programs as far as stutter, lag, and poor resolution.

Hi Johnson,

The AV-->DV is a big 'must do'.

But if that doesn't solve the problem. One other idea is to relay the signal through a television or monitor with an S-Video or standard RCA Video Out, and into your XL H1.

(this assumes the graphics card doesn't recognize the XL H1 as an external monitor. If it does, then your home free. If not, a television relay should work)

Cheers

James

Ain't got it yet
 

when I first connect the camera to the PC it shows 16:9 at the top but it go's from 16:9 to DV 4:3 when I clone my PC. Even though my monitor is widescreen. Also, when I try it on one PC it shows up in color, but my other PC shows it in black and white, and they have the same graphics card(nvidia geforce 6600). Still fishin' for ideas.

Why would you want to record a computer into a camera?

You'll get the best results using screen capture software.. I like Camtasia Studio. Then the file is saved in the format you want (avi, mpeg, etc), and you can burn it to a cd or dvd, put it on an external hard drive, flash drive, etc.

If you need to sync the computer picture with something else, send the audio into the computer's audio input and capture that to the video file too.

Your picture will be full digital and look just like the original. Unless you can record a digital signal from the computer, it's never going to look as good.

You can also capture only part of the screen with this program (and others). So you can run 1600x1200 or something on the desktop, but only capture the 800x600 window you're interested in, without having to reduce the computer's resolution, change output settings, etc.

Hope this helps
-Eric

Hi Eric. Thanks for letting me know about camtasia. It is a solid program.

Though, I find that the resolution is not as good as I would like it to be. It is blurry to the point that it is hard to read text. Do you know what I can do about this? I already have the screen resolution set at 1920 by 1080.

What exactly are you trying to accomplish? You need a final resolution of 1920x1080, but need crisp graphics from the computer at that resolutiion?

You said you're trying to record your desktop. Do you mean desktop computer or operating system 'desktop'? You can adjust the settings in Camtasia to reduce compression, etc. Make sure you pick yes when it suggests to disable acceleration during recording. It appears slower on-screen when recording, but it records a better picture to the file, which is what matters. Also make sure you increase the frame rate to 30fps (default is 15 I believe). You'd probably get the best results recording an uncompressed AVI file, though it will be a huge file and may be slow recording, because of the resolution and the frame rate. It's worth a shot though. :)

You could try a custom resolution of say 960x540, which would be 1/4 of your output resolution, if you need to record a window for example. And then doubled in each direction would give you 1920x1080, so it wouldn't be scaled up too far. It really depends on what your computer image consists of. The main thing would be recording 30fps, possibly uncompressed, to get the best quality.

-Eric