how to improve screen recording quality?

[George2]

Hello everyone,

I am using Windows Media Encoder (high quality mode) to record screen, but the recorded video quality is not very good. Any ideas how to improve it? Is there any ways to improve video quality by editing profile to apply some magic parameters?

My environment: Windows Vista + Windows Media Encoder 9.

Here is the original desktop screen snapshot,

http://i40.tinypic.com/zmxm6b.jpg

Here is the recorded desktop screen snapshot,

http://i42.tinypic.com/9ia5mx.jpg

thanks in advance,
George

[guns1inger]

That sort of banding would suggest you have your colour depth set too low. Make sure the colour depth is set to at least 16 bit, if not 24 bit. Although this will require a higher bitrate

[George2]

Thanks guns1inger, you mean the color depth of my screen resolution or some recorder setting? My screen is already set to be 32-bit.

That sort of banding would suggest you have your colour depth set too low. Make sure the colour depth is set to at least 16 bit, if not 24 bit. Although this will require a higher bitrate

[roma_turok]

Click on Properties -> Compression and select Full screen video , but best for screen capture use Camtasia 30 day trial

[George2]

Select "select Full screen video", then??

Click on Properties -> Compression and select Full screen video , but best for screen capture use Camtasia 30 day trial

[roma_turok]

Click Start Encoding

[Bjs]

Another route is Jing > www.jingproject.com, payed version offers other features but free lets you decide.

What is the required outcome of this project ???

[guns1inger]

I suspect it is related to this : https://forum.videohelp.com/topic368214.html

[Safesurfer]

Have a read of this "Best Practices for using the Windows Media Screen Codec", this part is interesting.

Should I Use Version 7 or Version 9 of the Windows Media Screen Codec?
In most scenarios, it is recommended that you use the Windows Media Video 9 Screen codec, which provides improved handling of shaded images, screen motion, and scrolling for screen captures. This latest version supports one-pass constant bit rate (CBR) and variable bit rate (VBR) encoding with no dropped frames, and is fully optimized for both streaming and download-and-play scenarios. It provides a higher frame rate than the Windows Media Screen 7 codec, so users will have a better experience when they view the content.

Use version 7 when you want all of the capture area, including the continuous-tone regions, to look exactly like the original. The tradeoff of having this exactness is that many more frames will be dropped, and some scene changes may be missed entirely when you capture content using version 7 of the codec. Version 9 decreases the resolution in continuous-tone regions, but provides a better viewing experience. By design, the more restricted the bit rate is, the more quality will be lost in the continuous-tone regions.

They also recommend not using a Background desktop image, which makes sense.

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/howto/articles/ScreenCodec.aspx

This link also has some helpful info.

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/howto/articles/screencap.aspx

[Safesurfer]

You might also try changing the pixel format to YUY2 per this link -

http://www.screencapturenews.com/2009/02/25/screen-capture-recording-and-broadcasting-...media-encoder/

My video has both high frame rate and bandwidth settings, but is still not of sufficient quality.

You might have to modify the video processing options. Stop your recording and click on the “Properties” button that is located at the top of the main WM Encoder window. From there, navigate over to the “Processing” tab and select “YUY2" as the pixel format.

[George2]

Cool, your solution works! I met with a new issue related to this question, I posted here,

https://forum.videohelp.com/topic368382.html#1970073

appreciated if you could take a look.

Click Start Encoding