Bandicam External x264vfw - H264 MPEG-4 AVC Codec

[Bridgy]

Hi everyone, i use Bandicam sometimes for doing screen captures, and i generally use the following settings, which seems to give me pretty decent results.


[Attachment 86040 - Click to enlarge]

Today i was checking out the AVI setting profile and noticed that there is an option to select an External Codec, so i messed about with this option and created the following profile.


[Attachment 86043 - Click to enlarge]

I then clicked on the "About" button and it offered me a box with details about this external Codec.

I have not seen a reference to x264vfw before, and i noted that it has a build date of July 2017.

Can someone shed any light on this for me, as i am just curious about what it all means.

I am still going to continue using the MP4 Container option using the H264 CPU Codec as it does what i need it to do, and the MP4 option has no option to select an external Codec.

Cheers

[davexnet]

It's an implmetation of the h.264 codec (decode and encode) using the old Video For Windows interface.
Was popular with Virtualdub users a number of years ago

[Bridgy]

Strange why they offer that external Codec option only for those who choose to record in AVI container and not the MP4 option.

[poisondeathray]

Strange why they offer that external Codec option only for those who choose to record in AVI container and not the MP4 option.

It's because that option uses the old VFW (Video for Windows) subsystem , which only supports AVI container. Any installed VFW codecs can be used - eg. ut video codec, huffyuv, av1vfw, x265vfw, .. dozens more...also 3rd party commercial codecs. Other programs that support VFW can also access those codecs, including most Windows NLE's

There is no similar "universal" codec subsystem for Windows where you can install various codecs that support MP4, that is why AVI is the only choice

(Quicktime for windows is similar in terms of being a video/audio subsytem, but for MOV container, but also discontinued.)


BTW you can upgrade your 2017 x264vfw by installing a newer version. The latest as of this post is Feb 02, 2025
https://www.videohelp.com/software/x264-VFW

(You can actually export MP4 from x264vfw, using the extra command line options box - using -o output.mp4 . But there are limitations - no audio, a few other codec options not supported by x264vfw )

[Bridgy]

ok thank you for that info.

I did a 5 minute recording just before using that AVI x264vfw Codec and it recorded ok, but when i threw it into VRD Pro and tried to export it using the Same as Source profile and export to HEVC (h265) VRD informed me that it removed 105 video resink frames, and when i played the file it was horrid, kind of like slow motion and very jerky, and it looked very low quality too.

I am going to try vokoscreenNG that has been recommended, but looking thru Bandicam more i think i will just stick with the MP4 H264-CPU (60fps) recording mode that i have been using, it does the job and when i need to do any edits, VRD handles them, and i usually export them to Same as Source in HEVC mode, using the intelligent recode option.