Any way to capture to avi?
 

Maybe an odd request, but I play with tv (both OTA HDTV and non-encoded cable channels) captures and was wondering if there is any way to capture MA to avi or another format. I saw that Serenescreen has a DVD out, but would like to capture my own selections for burning a DVD for my tv. I know, "Who would want a screensaver on their tv!"? Just something to play with.

Have tried various screen capture programs, but, even the best seem very choppy. I suppose the frame rate, etc, are too demanding for capture software, but was curious if anyone else has tried.

3D to AVI
 

That's not an odd question!

I've looked for a simular program myself. The program I use is a demo, but it does capture 3D without any problems. I'm not sure of the name of the program I use so I'll have to get back on that, but here is an url for a site that has a collection of simular programs. I've jet to find free program that will do the magic, but maybe you're lucky.
http://www.findapp.com/fmgmt/products.aspx?C=49|DIS-0.

Have you tried FRAPS?

That's the one!
 

Thank you Dr. Fish! that is the program I use.

Will try. So far, have tried:

Camstudio (free and best so far)
HyperCam 2
VHScrCap

Am running a dual-core 2.8 with 1GB ram with a dedicated sata drive, so the machine is pretty fast. Of course, unlike my tv capture boards which have hardware encoders, I am having to capture internally while running memory intensive video. Don't know any way to stream a screen to disk.

Downloaded Fraps. As with the others, the frame rate for MA drops a lot (145 to 17) and gets jerky. I have tried setting MA fps at 60, but no change in drop.

Will keep experimenting. It would be nice to mux MA with AC3 classical music for some nice music DVD's.

I think the only way it's able to capture the Aquarium that way is to switch from DirectX hardware overlay to software rendering, which greatly limits the framerate.

Afraid you just zoomed by my level of incompetence!

Fraps has turned out to be the best candidate so far, but still need something better. Shame Jim doesn't just add a "save to avi" option. (Just joking!)

It must be possible to get better performance, some of the FPS captures I've seen FRAPS do are really nice and smooth. What res are you trying to capture it at? What does your HDTV handle? 1080i? That could make things slow... Try a lower res first maybe...?

Not capturing with the ATI HDTV capture card, as it only does OTA. I am capturing from the monitor screen with software. I am going to try reducing the resolution and also try keeping higher resolution and capturing a smaller window area. So far, I've been capturing a region containing widescreen on fullscreen. The capture software really eats up the MA framerate.

Since there is a real difference in the performance of the capture programs I've tried so far, I'm hoping I can find one that will capture MA at a reasonable resolution.

I guess what I need is for someone else to attempt it with Fraps and see if they enjoy greater success. My skills in this area are somewhat limited. I'm much more at home processing videos with Avisynth filters, etc.

...right, that's what I was asking... If your computer was running MA at 1920x1200 it might be a good idea to try 1680x1050 instead or a more traditional 1280x720... Maybe even give 640x400 a shot. That's why I wanted to know about your HDTV though, cause I'd feel bad owning a 1080p capable beauty and only running MA at less than VGA quality...

Considered hooking a PC to the TV? :TU:

Edit: Oh wait, I'm an idiot... You said you were playing it back from DVD so anything more than VGA wouldn't make sense... :o

Edit 2: Unless you have a player the upscales to 720p or something I guess... We need a couple more data points to determine what would be optimal...

Running at 1280x720 on a 19" gateway lcd. Of course I could go higher, but don't think it would improve MA any on small screens. I want to end up with a 720x480 DVD, 29.97FPS. I can manipulate the capture ok, but would like to max the pixels I have to work with when later compressing and resizing to 720x480 (DVD std resolution).

Do wish there was a way to involve one of my hardware encoder capture boards in this, but, alas. I will finally get a TV out board and go directly to TV. My machine runs with MCE. Just want to try my hand at DVDing a bit.

The OTA HDTV (1080) captures with AC3 are outstanding and, given the capabilities of Avisynth, make perfect DVD's. I actually enjoy all high quality screensavers, and with music, could enjoy them more. Beats reality tv re-runs.

Until Jim finishes MA3, I just need a little help figuring out how to make 720x480 MA2 DVD's. I think I'll have a lot of time to experiment before he launches his next endeavor!

We just need a leaked version of the Aquarium that when you hold down a special key combination of 3 or 4 keys, it starts spitting out BMP files of each frame at 30 fps.

That would work. I would like the keys close enough together to sit a beer on the keyboard, as it would run a long time. Maybe with a secret password (encoded, of course)!

You know of course, that such a routine could build frames at any desired rate or resolution. It might run a day or so and fill up a large drive or two to build a one hour HDTV resolution file, but it would be something else.

Actually, if you could just slow down the program down and generate frames that could be captured and later compressed to the proper viewing fps, say 29.97fps, it would do the same thing.

Whatever. There must be a way.

30fps can become 29.975 fps by dropping 1 out of every 1,000 frames I believe.

Do you have the 'Sharks: Terrors of the Deep' screen saver? ... With the 'Ray O'light' tank filled with Manta Rays, and The Blue Danube playing in the background, the effect is incredible. ..... Why Blue Danube? ... Think, '2001: A Space Odyssey'. - Try it. It's perfect! :)

.... And it looks, (and sounds), even better on dual monitors! ;)

Just tested River Past Screen Recorder - worst of lot.

Threw in the towel. I've tried several screen capture packages, but none do really good dealing with MA2. My most successul captures were with Fraps and CamStudio. With both, I had to shut down all except essential processes with Task Manager and capture at lower resolutions and frame rates. I never succeed with a truly smooth, detailed capture. Not all that disappointed, as it was interesting to see how good (or not so good) a lot of these capture programs are.

Thanks for the suggestions.