SnapProX, 1920x1200 capture, for use with HD editing...

I am wanting to use SnapProX to capture my Desktop at 1920x1200 for use in a HD 1080i video edit I am doing, which is long form ( 2hrs, though individual captures should never be more then 10 minutes long each )

My main question is will a Mac Pro Quad be able to handle this while I am running an application like Maya ( which I would capturing ) or would it be recommended that I go with the 8 Proc Machine.

My machine will have either 4x 3ghz or 8x 3ghz procs, and either 6GB to 8GB ram. My drive would be an off the shelf 320GB Sata Drive in the second drive bay.

As I am wanting to keep the footage as pristine as I can ( though I don't need uncompressed ) what codec would I be best suited to use? Is there support for the Apple Pro Codec as of yet?

Thanks for any advice!

- Rock

It should work on both models, but the Quad MacPro certainly wouldn't hurt. My recommendation would be to actually try it out, which you can do because Snapz is shareware. The real defining factor is probably going to be Maya though.


Keep in mind that Snapz records to the boot disk, and nothing else. There is currently no way of changing this.


Apple Pixlet Video and Apple Intermediate Codec have considerably good compression ratios for what they are—either would work fine for your purposes. Pixlet offers essentially the same quality as uncompressed video, while being 20-25 times smaller. Do not listen to people who tell you to use the Animation codec, they are giving you severely outdated information.

Unfortunately, there is currently a bug in Snapz which prevents you from using any codec at the "best" quality setting, so you won't see perfect results regardless of what codec you use. Pixlet seems to do the best job of limiting artifacts caused by this bug, while still maintaining a decent compression ratio.

This is a cosmetic bug. If you select best, you should get best, regardless of the fact that changes when you exit the screen.

Glad I checked in. The "medium" reference in the codec description was driving me nuts. I have been working through the list but haven't used Pixlet yet. Most of the time I just settle for the "none" setting. Of course my situation is different than the one described by orochimaru but in a basic way similar. I am running RealPlayer and capturing segments of it's screen. The test uses the default size of the player for that stream so my iMac G4 800MHz machine does not have a 'heart attack' (note: I don't expect the GeForce2 MX to be perfect. Just do enough for compare. I like the slow old lady, walker and all). Here is some data from video grab without compression.
While MPEG Streamclip makes a Pixlet version of the example above I'll just say a word or two about the /var/tmp problem. I am working around that limitation by manually moving files. More about that is in another post Snapz Pro X - location of temporary movie file? When I have more info on my safer but painfully time consuming method I'll update the post. Here is the conversion data on a run that generated the wrong file (can't type) but the compression is nice.
The Pixlet video looked good with some artifacts and blurriness at double size & fit screen, not unexpected; forget full screen because it is beyond reason to expect it. One got you (for me at least) is VLC hates both; it calls uncompressed, "araw" and Plxlet, "pxlt", and declares no codec error. Duh! So, at the expense of dragging you into my insanity. Sorensen 3 looked as good. Would it also work if the finished video is HD as described earlier? EDIT: not? I got "rainbow" effect (on the room's walls) and motion was distorted when anything moved. Guess the better is Pixlet. For compatibility I guess I am stuck unless I use QT export to MP4.
-duddits

Great. I was completely unaware of this.