CamStudio Support Forum

Also, see this link, as it is one detail I left out that stymies a lot of folks!

http://camstudio.org/forum/discussion/988/camstudio-recorder-window-disappearing-act

Terry

As a aside, I can't get the video and audio to sync when using DivX even when the Capture Frame and Playback frame numbers comes up to 1000. I've tried various combinations without success. It usually starts ok, but from about the middle of a video, it starts to go off sync on a 1 hour video. It used to be working well when I first installed CamStudio, but for some reasons, it no longer sync properly. Any suggestions ?

I am using CamStudio 2.0 on Windows XP.

eclat,

Are you using MCI to record in the audio settings? That usually takes care of the problem.

Frankly, I'm surprised you've got DivX to work at all! It has frozen my CamStudio for almost 2 years now. And I paid for the pro version, so that really pissed me off! I should try the latest if we can figure out how to get it working right with the sync now.

Terry

Hi Terry,

Thanks for your reply. Apoloigies for taking so long to write back. I didn't realised I have a reply from you here here as there's no email notification about this.

In answer to your question, yes, I have the MCI on. The sync started ok, and then begins to go out of sync about 30 minutes into the recording.

As for DivX, I am only using the Free version. I do sometimes get the message that the selected codec cannot work and asked if I wish to revert to the original setting for recording, or words to this effect. (Can't remember the actual wording. But I am sure you know which I mean). I figured out that the 2 setting in terms of region that is good for DivX is 640W x 356H or 596W x 332H. These dimensions suites my purpose for my recording and I have not tried anything larger than these. The dimensions are all divisible by 4. But other combinations around the region I wanted which are divisible by 4 don't seem to work. Also you need to set the configuration Cert Profile to the highest which for mine is 1080 HD, Encoding at 1 and Rate Control Mode Rate at 1 Pass and 6000 kbps.

On the other settings. I have the Quality at 70
Set Key Frame Every 40 Frames
Capture Frame Every 25 millsecs
Playback Rate 40 Frames/Sec
I find that selecting the Auto Adjust works better with the sync and without having this selected, it tends to be out of sync a bit earlier in the recording/playback. But I think this depends on your system. I spent some hours playing around with this to get the best for my system.

I hope the settings I have works for all of you who wish to try DivX. But which every I select, even the Xvid, I still have the sync problem at these setting.

Where are the "shownotes" that you mention?

eclat,

When you bookmark a thread, you begin to receive email notifications (click the star at the top-right till it turns yellow).

The auto adjust checkbox only allows you to set the three settings using the slider, and should have no effect upon sync, as it merely enters numbers in there for you. Also, the quality setting does nothing for most codecs - it primarily affected Microsoft Video 1, if I recall correctly. Pretty useless!

Your settings should all be fine and hold sync. All I can imagine is that your computer may not be able to keep up with settings as high as you've got there, and is dropping frames in an effort to keep up. Try these just to test:

Set Key Frame Every 100 Frames
Capture Frame Every 50 ms
Playback Rate 20 fps

I've held rock-solid sync for up to three hours using the following for my webinar recordings:

Set Key Frame Every 200 Frames
Capture Frame Every 100 ms
Playback Rate 10 fps

If "Use MCI to record" being checked isn't working, it may be something in the sound system that bypasses that - I just encountered a user here who had that issue, and he had to ignore the "Use MCI" checkbox, unchecking it entirely, and instead manually set the compression to PCM, at 16-bits, 44.1MHz from the drop-down settings. Try that and see if you fare better with that approach.

Keep me posted about any results you get! :-)

Terry

cmikej,

They are the notes beneath the video. You will need to click on "Show More" to see them.

Terry

Hi Terry,

Thanks about the bookmark tips. I've done it and hope I will get notifications when I have posts here.

I will give the settings you suggested a try and will keep you posted. There was a whole series of video tutorial in YouTube about using those settings which seem to have some effect on the sync especially the Capture Rate and the Playback Rate. That gave me the impresssion that those settings are quite curcial. But I'll have a go on the ones you suggested.

I didn't have any problems with the sync until I installed a few codecs related to Xvid, if memory serves. But I can't remember what they are exactly. Anyway....I will keep you posted and thanks for the suggestions.

BTW, I hope you managed to gave the DivX a try ? Did it work on the setting I suggested ? Good luck.

eclat,

Yes, do keep me posted! :-)

I haven't given Divx another chance in a little over a year, as several version numbers completely broke CamStudio - and I mean entirely so it wouldn't even record. I own the pro version - that is, I actually paid for the darn thing - yet I've never been able to use it so far. I'll give it another try and hope for a working (at last) Divx version so I can get my money's worth! :-)

Terry

I am trying CS2.0 with Xvid. It would not accept the large area that I described and reverted to Microsoft Video 1. I get a good video & good audio. However, in a 1 minute test video, the audio trails by 6 seconds. Hope I can get this "nailed" so I can focus on the presentations that I want to develope!

cmikej,

You probably had your region selected by hand and it turned out not to be even-numbers for both the width and height (mentioned and illustrated in the video). When hand-drawing my region, I use "Fixed Region" and the "Select" button, then fix the numbers.

Problem is, during various attempts to fix the window-region issues, sometimes you have to deliberately subtract 1 from both the width and height depending upon the version and what video card and drivers you have. What a pain!

Terry

cmikej,

Also, the audio lag is usually due to not having the numbers right for the video options. For the "Capture Frames Every" and "Playback Rate" settings, use these only, as these two have to multiply to 1000 or you'll get lag.

10/100
20/50
25/40
40/25
50/20
100/10

Terry

Thanks for your response! I did adjust the window to be even numbers & that worked in both 2.0 & 2.6b. I also made sure that the CFE & PBR were set in one of the 1000 multiples that you suggested. Again, I got a reasonable recording & audio with the same audio lag as described before. I'm working on a Dell Win7 64bit laptop. I'm using a KVM switch with another PC. I can try it later, connecting wirelessly to my network if this should cause. My mic. is a Samson Go-Mic USB plugged directly into my laptop.

In each case I was using Xvid

Well, I just ran a test using my laptop mics. The audio synced perfectly. I Samson does not have a fix & it is too late to return it, I'm out $50. I bought it to improce my recording, especially in a conference room setting. If anyone has a workaround for the Samson "Go-Mic", I would appreciate it.

Hi Terry,

I've tried both the settings you suggested, and with the MCI on and the MCI off, including my original setting with the MCI off and sadly, they all don't work. In fact, the sync started to go out sooner than with my original setting with the MCI on. I tested these settings on a 30 minute video. The best result achieved (I THINK) was with the setting of SET FRAME:100, CAPTURE 50, PLAYBACK 20, MCI 0ff. I reason I added "I THINK" is because after awhile, the video started to get quite choppy at this setting and it is difficult to see if the audio and the video are out of sync or not or how badly they were out of sync. But on all the settings, they usually started out ok for the first several minutes of playback.

Sorry that your paid version of DivX didn't work. The version I use is the free version, 8.2.3 Build 10.3.3-10. But as I said, it does not work on certain settings and frame size. If you like to try it again, perhaps you can use the settings I gave as a guide to start, even though most of the settings as you said, have little or no effect, and good luck.

I have gone back to using XviD, hoping I will get a better sync result, but sadly I am also getting the out of sync problem similar to DivX and with a less smooth playback. :(

Oh, one more thing. Since you siad one of the possible problem could be my computer, I have tried my original setting on another laptop and I get the same out of sync results.

By the way, I am also not getting any notification that I have a reply here, even though I have book marked this thread.

eclat,

With your MCI turned off, what were the audio and compression settings being used? They should optimally be 44.1 kHz, 16-bit stereo in PCM. Set the upper drop-down first.

What you describe does not fit the normal scenario, so I'm thinking there must be one setting being missed here somewhere.

Odd that bookmarking isn't yielding notifications - that's the only way to get them that I know of. Check that your email in your profile is correct.

Terry

cmikej,

Bummer about the Samson go-mic - that's a USB mic? Why would the mic make a difference here???

Terry

Hi Terry,

The audio settings were set to 44.1KHz, 16 bit stero in PCM. I specially noted this because I was surprised when I first read your suggestion for this setting as I thought it was pretty high compared to what I usually set at, which was 22.05 KHz, 16 bit stero on Lame MP3. But I don't understand what you meant when you said "set the upper drop- down first".

I have followed all the settings as I double checked them before starting to record becasue in my mind, I was thinking I'd hate to spend all those time waiting for each 30 minutes test recording to finish only to find I had the wrong settings. So I did made doubly sure the settings were as you suggested and were correct. Is there anything else that could influence the recording ?

I have checked my profile here and my email address is correct and I have also checked my spam mail box and the notifications have not gone there. I will change my email address after this post and see if that makes a difference as this did worked on another forum site.

In the meantime, I'd be gald to have more suggestions from you regarding the sync problem.

eclat,

By "upper drop-down" I meant to set the recording format selection first so that the "Choose compressed format" button would populate with 44.1 stereo options.

This has just got to be a sound-card anomaly hitting us here. I cannot see any other reason for it. If you are using PCM and the "Capture Frames Every" setting multiplied by the "Playback Rate" setting sum to 1000, you should be getting good sync (rock solid, in fact...) So, I'm out of ideas for now. LAME MP3 NEVER worked for me in multiple tests - it always drifted badly, even when I applied it in post with VirtualDub or Any-Video-Converter!

However, my plan formulating for next week's activities is to run tests on every combination conceivable with both my XP Pro single-core machine AND my HP Quad-core Win7 machine. I may even throw in tests on the laptops! I'm going to do a whole series of videos on recording using various means and compressors, as well as a bunch of tests on post-processing. So, that should be dribbling out of my "lab" over the next couple of weeks if other work doesn't interfere. Watch for it to be announced up top in case this thread scrolls off where I don't find it (or remind me!)

Terry

Hi Terry,

Thanks for your clarification about the "upper drop down" which was what I did first. Disappointed nothing more can be done.

Just FYI, I also used the same settings you suggested (which totals 1,000 when mutiplied between the capture and playback) on another laptop and got the same disappointing results. So I'm not sure if its the sound card or something else. But I'll keep playing with the other options, in particular the "Audio and Video Synchronization" option settings and see how that goes.

Oh, btw, having changed my notification email address, I still didn't get any notification. :(

Look forward to the result of your testing next week.

Cheers !

Just thinking out loud here.

Terry, if you’re going to “run tests on every combination conceivable “, I think you may be at it for an extended period of time. Remember, what we have at this point is (at least) 4 distinct versions of CamStudio, 3 different O.S., 2 different hardware platforms and a host of different codec and processing options.

It seems to me that a few of the issues which have come up might never have existed had both the CS lossless codec and earlier versions of 2.6 been simply removed from the download site.

In testing MP3 sync, I’d first eliminate the possibility that it’s simply due to a bad LAME encoder - just remove and replace. I’d then do tests with LAME vs. Fraunhofer and see how they compare. I’ve found that Cam works very well with the latter, but I’d also have to add that the only problem I’ve had with LAME is getting the thing to properly register on our older Vista machine.

Since you’re thinking about testing other processing options, I’d have a good look at the effect that Cam’s key frame slider has on the output. It was apparently designed (remember, I’m using 2.0) for MSV1 and a few lossless types, and is not functioning constructively using MPEG4, but does seem to be interfering with that encoder’s ability to set its key frames properly. I believe it should actually be grayed out when most codecs choices are made.

More, but am having trouble getting the board to work now.

Ken

Ken,

Heh... well, I really just meant I would test a bunch of configurations handy to me. I won't be testing CamStudio Lossless at all, and I agree it should be removed from the downloads. LAME vs Fraunhofer sounds like a worthy test. Also, it will be only 2.0, 2.6b r294 and 2.6c that I pay any attention to, mostly to see if there are differences in the sync (but I doubt there will be, as those parts of the program have not changed in a long, long time to my knowledge).

I'm most interested in getting to the bottom of why sync fails in cases like eclat's. This is not entirely rare, though it is pretty rare. I'm shocked to see eclat failing to achieve sync across multiple machines. For the two years, almost, that my sync video has been up, only recently have there been such reports of failures to achieve sync with the CFE X PBR = 1000 formula in action, so I'd love to find out what is different lately.

Terry

Terry:

BTW I didn't mean "key frame slider" ... I was referring to the key frame box below the quality slider, neither of which seems to work when using Xvid MPEG-4, from what I can tell.

Oh let's see here, after giving it some thought, my notion is that the MP3 audio is fine, but it won't sync when the video has a problem. Some audio seems to be able to resolve itself to video with VOP problems, but the LAME encoder does not. Eclat does mention less than perfect video playback, so that might reinforce the theory. Might the reason for increased bad MP3 sync, even when using correct settings, be related to the greater use of MPEG-4? We're dealing with compression vastly different from that found in the other codecs, and the audio compressor needs to "figure it out", so to speak.

Anyway, my guess is that, if we produced a one hour MP3 recording with Audacity and the same one hour long MP3 with Cam, they would be the same to the last millisecond, and that the video would be the "odd man out".

Ken

Hi guys,

I was reading through the posts here and although I was lost in some of the points mentioned as I am not that technically inclined, I have to say that having searched the internet, it seems that this problem with sync is not that uncommon. It appears that those who have this sync problem after their recording with CamStudio will use another program (virtualdub ??) to sync the recording. Not sure how this is done, but it seems to be a common remedy that I don't have the time to explore yet. But I feel that there should not be a need to use another program to correct the problem as I am sure this is not what the CamStudio designers have in mind.

I have tried all manners to try and get the syc to work since my last post here, but no joy. I've even uninstalled and reinstall, both CamStudio as well as any codec that were installed separately without any positive results. :(

eclat,

Bummer. Usually, the cases you see written about on the 'net concerning losing sync had the folks not following my little CFE X PBR = 1000 rule, and weren't using MCI to record, but once they did follow those two rules, their sync started working. You are in an odd position since checking "Use MCI to record" will not work at all for you. Just a thought - are you set in your audio configuration to default to a sample and bit rate other than 44.1 kHz at 16-bits? Like, perhaps, 48kHz (DVD quality) or maybe 24-bits? That could be breaking the "Use MCI to record" bit.

Terry

Hi Terry,

I remember reading that some users in the reporting on the 'net' did followed the CFE x PBR =1000 rule and still having the sync problem. I ddn't have this sync problem when I first started using CamStudio, but for some reason, it just started to go out of sync along the way after a time.

How do I check the setting in my audio configuration default ? Is it in Control Panel --Sound Reality Audio under Sampling Rate in the Advance Tab ? The default there is set to Dynamic and I have never changed it. Let me know if I need to try anything there or otherwise. Thanks.

eclat,

Yes, I believe that would be the area you'd make the change. See if you can change it to "CD Quality" or something with similar naming. "Dynamic" sounds like it may be using some variable bit rate system - you'd want the 44.1 kHz 16-bit fixed setting, I'd imagine.

Terry

Hi Terry,

Changed the setting to 44.1kHz and did a test recording. But sadly, it makes not difference.

I'll play around a bit with using various combinations of setting and see how it went. If I managed to get a good syc, I'll report back. In the meantime, if you have any further suggestions, please don't hesitate to let me know. Thanks

By the way, this just crossed my mind. Not sure how much difference it will make. I am using the Speaker for my recording although I still make changes to settings as we discussed previously in the microphone recording setting page. I've never use the Microphone to record as it picks up all the surrounding noises as well (although the microphone is the recommended option in most of the posts I've read on the net).

LATEST UPDATE: I just made a test recording with the built-in mic on my laptop by accident a few minutes ago (the setting somehow defaulted to this mode of recording on its own) and it still does not sync.

eclat,

If you are using the "Record from Speakers" setting somehow, that could be a problem.

That is a totally different manner of getting sound from the MCI system and other options available via the "Record from Microphone" selection

(which includes using Stereo Mix, the preferred method of deriving sound from your system over the other method). I'm surprised that you had any luck at all with "Record from Speakers" as most systems broke that so it doesn't work at all for several years now.

Yes, I have been using Record from Speakers all the time ever since I installed CamStudio. This cut out all the surrounding noise from being recorded. I have not had any problem using this recording method apart from the recent sync problem. (Just for info, when I use the AutoTest in the setting, the pop up said it does not work. But it does !) I do, however make all the adjustment in the audio setting in the Record from Mic - and I know in some way it does affect the final result, even though the recording is from the Speakers.

Even when I record from Microphone as stated in my last post, the sync problem is still there.

There is no Stero Mix option that I can see. I am using CanStudio v2.0 all thsi while.

eclat,

Ahh - well, if you do not have a Stereo Mix option, you are doing the best you can then!

Terry

Hi, great video Terry, got me understanding more of CamStudio.

Two things I would like to ask:
1) I have install the XVid Codec but I cannot view it in the video options (much like the Lossless Codec issue), how can I fix this? Am I missing something?

2) You said in your video to record audio with the microphone but this does not allow recording what comes out of the speaker so I am recoridng, say an interview, the sound coming out of the speaker through Skype won't be picked up.
Is there a way to work around that? I tried record with speaker and it was working though the sound wasn't so great. Any Ideas?

EDIT: after trying many times again it seems that on speaker the sound is very faint and I also got this error when clicking on it: WaveoutGetSelectControl() failed.


Cheers,
AK

EDIT2: after several hours of struggle I finally was able to activate stereo mix (if you are looking for that instead of bashing your head against the wall with drivers and what not, try this first, you will save time:http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/39532/how-to-enable-stereo-mix-in-windows-7-to-record-audio/)
But now I only get the sound from the speaker and nothing from the microphone, is there no way to get both ?

If you have your default source set to Stereo Mix, you can then "Listen" to the microphone input, sending it to the Speakers. You need to have something plugged into the speakers for this to work, as Stereo Mix gets its signal from the speaker mix section. See the video on that in my playlist at my channel.

If Xvid is not appearing, you may have installed the 64-bit version. CamStudio requires the 32-bit version (or the combo 32 + 64 bit version if using Jawor's Xvid)

Let me know how it goes - and thanks for the link to howtogeek.com!

Terry

Well in the end Terry I did not used it, I sacrificed the video and went to use a plugin for Skype that listens to your conversation. As the video was an extra, this worked fine!!

Thanks again for all the help you provided!

AK

That's cool... which plugin did you use, out of curiosity?

Glad it worked out!

Terry