Synchronized screen and webcam recording

[cctoide]

So, I've been watching all the Mack and Mesh videos and, since I have three or four webcams lying around, decided to see if I could record my screen along with a webcam pointed at myself at the same time, mainly to check out my reactions while gaming (not that I intend to scream like Mesh, mind).

Problem is, there doesn't seem to be software ready for this. I'm not sure what Mack uses to do their videos, but I've either got Fraps - which will record my screen, but not webcam output - or Camtasia Studio - which is really not meant for games; it just records a black screen and acts incredibly choppy.

Does anyone else know of software that can do this, or should I just set up a system where I "mark" the webcam video with a gesture or something, so I can later synch up the screen footage to the webcam footage? (I'm not sure whether this would work, due to small discrepancies in both recordings adding up, but eh...)

 

[MRG]

An interesting idea you have there cctoide, & welcome to the forums.

Now do you want to have the video camera recording you all the time while playing or just at certain points? First off, please tell me the type of cameras you plan to use, so that I can look into their specs to see what they can & can't do.

Also whats the file type that the video cameras record to? .avi? MPEG? Keep in mind that if it's the older .avi file type, the video file will be very, very large. So make sure you have enough HDD space.

Easy Web Cam
http://www.msagentsoftware.com/easyfreewebcam/

Free Web Cam Software
http://www.eyespyfx.com/index.asp

Video Surveillance Software
http://www.digi-watcher.com/

WebCamXP
http://www.webcamxp.com/

TinCan Software
http://www.tincam.com/

Capture Screen Activities
http://www.deskshare.com/msr.aspx

More Screen Capture Software
http://www.exefind.com/record-desktop-screen/

I'm not sure if the above will help or not, or are what you are looking for. Let me know how things turn out.

-MRG

 

[Asus]

If I was doing that I would put them together later with video editing tools. You could make some kind of que in the video recording yourself when you begin the game recording. If the game supports it, might be better to record ingame from console commands (like with Source games) instead of via fraps.

 

[cctoide]

MRG: I have looked at most of the software you listed, but I'm afraid those applications are either for screen recording or camera recording, not both at once. Camtasia Studio does it, but it doesn't like games.

The "cue" idea might be the best one, actually. I'm just not sure whether screen recording apps lag during the "Loading..." bits, which might affect footage synchronization. I'll look into the Source Recorder, though.

And before all this I should really pick up a new 500GB HD or something, my existing 250GB one (with barely 10GB free) isn't very helpful when it comes to long recordings.

To answer MRG's other question: The camera would probably be recording all the time, but I'd probably have to stop at each chapter break, because the amount of footage recorded is likely to rapidly fill up the hard drive. The webcams I plan on using are fairly standard and cheap - I a "Lego camera" that came with a Mindstorms Vision Command kit (I think it's actually a Logitech Quickcam Communicate), a crappy "Spincam" from NGS (although it has semi-decent resolution...), and another one whose manufacturer I forget right now.

 

[MRG]

That is turning out to be a tricky question you have there.

There are countless ways to record your game play while actually playing. The same for recording you as you play, but to do them both at the same time from one program, thats the tricky part. Are you looking for a free program or are you willing to pay for one?

Another game capture program:
FastCap Pro - http://fastcappro.ejoystudio-inc.qarchive.org/

Have you tried to use the newest version of Fraps & then dub in you playing the game? How fast is your PC? Gonna need to be pretty beefy to do what you want & to do it well. I submitted a guide here awhile back on how to record ingame video & on how to edit it. It's a little old, but the basics on "How-To" are covered.

EDIT: I looked & couldn't find it, so here it is again. It's basic I know, still it might help.

Have you tried using one of the Web Cams you have & doing a trial run on recording yourself as you play?

Greetings all,

Welcome to my guide on how to capture video while playing ingame. While I am well aware there are several better programs that are available, I will be covering video capture taken with the free program called "FRAPS" This version of Fraps has been developed with the 43.45 Detonators for Geforce cards, and the 3.2 Catalysts for Radeon cards. Please make sure your installed video card drivers are at least these versions! Earlier drivers may suffer performance problems. (LMAO! These are waaaay older versions of these drivers. Of course you'll have newer versions installed.... Right? )

Since I am not the maker of "FRAPS", my recommended system requirements will differ than of what the makers suggest. I have tried on a "Lesser PC" & had mundo problems & performance issues.

Recommended PC:
Pentium 4 or AthlonXP @ 1.50ghz or faster
Radeon 8500, GeForce 3 or better
At LEAST 512mb RAM. More = BETTER.
40gb HDD or larger
WinXP HE or PE

The Programs I used are free (Other than WinXP) & have no time limit or Watermark stamped onto the edited Video.

1)FRAPS http://www.fraps.com/ -Ingame Video Capture Program that saves video in .AVI Format.

2)VirtualDub http://www.virtualdub.org/ - VirtualDub is a video
capture/processing utility for 32-bit Windows platforms 95/98/ME/NT4/2000/XP), licensed under the GNU General Public License (GPL). It lacks the editing power of a general-purpose editor such as Adobe Premiere, but is streamlined for fast linear operations over video. It has batch-processing capabilities for processing large numbers of files and can be extended with third-party video filters. VirtualDub is mainly geared toward processing AVI files, although it can read (not write) MPEG-1 and also handle sets of BMP images.

3)TMPGEnc MPEG Encoder http://www.tmpgenc.net/ -Converts .AVI files to MPEG. Allows editing of source video & joining of an audio file such as .WAV or MP3 to the source Video. Also converted files to MPEG are smaller in size than most other formats. After you used "Windows Movie Maker 2" & saved your movie, you could then use "TMPGEnc MPEG Encoder" to convert the finished video to MPEG which would then also be smaller in size, while keeping the videos overall quality.

4)Windows XP Home or Professional.

5)Windows XP Windows Movie Player 2 http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/moviemaker/downloads/moviemaker2.asp (Need to Download)

Start FRAPS & wait until the Yellow "99" is down in your taskbar. (Next to your Clock) Next Right click on the "99" & click on "Settings" Experiment with the "Sampling Rate", "Overlay Style" & the "Overlay Corner"

My Settings:
a)Sampling Rate = Continous
b)Overlay Style = Transparent
c)Overlay Corner = Bottom Right Corner
d)Enable Video Capture Hotkey = This lets you start & stop video capture ingame. I have mine set to "Num 0"
e)Movie Framerate = 20fps (Believe me, your video will look just fine framerate wise.)
f)Enable Screen Capture (Takes Screenshots while ingame) Set the HotKey to whatever you like. Mine is the "Num Lock" key.

The following settings after that I have left unchecked.

After your done, minimize, or You can also Exit out & then restart FRAPS & your settings will be saved. FRAPS must be running for it to work.

2)Start Game
Now when you capture ingame video with FRAPS, your gaming performance will take a big hit. So I would recommend that you have 2 or more people to film. One to actually do the video capture & the rest to "Act" Of course you already knew this. If you want to do a solo
video, then simply turn the ingame resolution down to 640x480 16bit. This will greatly improve your gaming performance while capturing video at the same time. FRAPS will capture the video @ 640x480, even if your ingame graphics are higher. At the normal screen size of the capture that FRAPS takes, your videos will be of good quality. Any & all videos you
capture will be saved to the FRAPS directory located here (By Default) "C:\Fraps"

**CAUTION!!**
RAW video taken with FRAPS will be VERY BIG in size. 3 minutes of ingame capture can easily be over 300mb.

Be sure you have the free space on your Hard Drive before you begin. Once you are done capturing the video, go to the FRAPS directory "C:\Fraps" You will now see your video. the name of the video will often be the name of the game you were playing. For examply, You play COD & capture video, then the default name of the video you took
will look something like "COD2342163-663-234" The file type will be .AVI.

Here is where it starts to get tricky & it would take me way too long to type out each step on how to convert & edit the video from .AVI to MPEG. Converting the RAW .AVI video to MPEG, will hugely cut the size of the video. For example. A 300mb .AVI video will be around 4mb after you convert it to MPEG. You can convert the video to MPEG by using the
"TMPGEnc MPEG Encoder" I listed earlier above. I would highly advise that you install, FRAPS, TMPGEnc MPEG Encoder & VirtualDub all into the "C:\Fraps" folder. Makes it MUCH easier to find & do everything. I will gladly tell you via TS, Ventrilo or ICQ Voice Chat on how to convert the RAW video. It would take only about 10 minutes. Very simple to "Tell You", very time consuming if I were to type it all out. The GOOD news is that it's pretty straight forward. Anyone can do it if they have a little patience. If I had DSL, I could easily "record my voice" & place the audio file online, but on my lowly 56k & lack of online storage, thats not a feasible way for me to do things at this point.

Either before or after you converted the RAW video to MPEG, you could then use "Windows Movie Maker 2" to make the video. Some people won't have "Windows XP" & "Windows Movie Maker" or "Windows Movie Maker 2" Thats why I didn't just say Use "Windows Movie Maker."

I'm tired of typing. Post your questions & i'll see if I can help. Remember i'm a noob at this myself. But thought I could pass on what I had learned.

Remember, i'll gladly "Tell you" how via TS, ICQ Voice Chat or Ventrilo.

-MRG

 

[MRG]

Have you tried having a Cam record you as you play & then have a second line coming out the back of your video card into a capture device to recored your gameplay while you play? That way both you playing & the game itself would be captured. You might need to edit some afterwards to Synch.

Blaze Media Pro
http://www.blazemp.com/video_capture_software.htm

Video Capture Devices
http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?Submit=ENE&DEPA=0&Description=video+capture+card
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/category/category_tlc.asp?CatId=1423
http://www.pcmag.com/category2/0,1738,396324,00.asp
http://computers.pricegrabber.com/video-capture-devices/p/336/

-MRG

UPDATE:

Check this out: http://www.safe-install.com/programs/webcam-video-capture.html

Capture and Share Anything : Webcam(s), any window, part of the screen or full screen to AVI or WMV video formats.