Recording a Monitor

[Summoner]

Hi,

I want to use my video camera to record the monitor on my PC.
The trouble is, pointing any digital device at a screen tends to give you those lines that scroll down the receiving monitor - guess this has something to do with refresh rates or line resolution.

My question is, how can I record a screen and avoid this?

I had the same problem with my digicam recently, but couldn't do anything about it. If it were an SLR, I could set the shutter speed manually, but as far as I know, this isn't possible on a digital video cam.

Any help is much appreciated!

Thanks,

S.

[Spirit of 45]

Get an LCD screen

[Summoner]

Thanks - but short of this, is there any workaround?

Surely people have been dealing with this for some time?

Thanks

[Spirit of 45]

I believe there is something that can be done, and it has to do with calculating something regarding the interaction between the capture and the screen refresh rate. But exactly what it is I'm sorry, but don;t know exactly.

But you can see how rare it is that even professionals get it right.... How often have you seen TV footage of an office, or a computer in the background during an interview, and all the screens have the slowly rolling scanlines on them ?

[Summoner]

Much appreciated - thanks.

[onine]

Change the shutter speed on the camera, you can usually get a pretty close match. Honestly - try it, it can work.

[Summoner]

Onine,

I didn't know you could change the shutter on a video camera. Is this possible on all video cams?

Thanks,

S.

[onine]

Um, I dont know really. I was working with a moderately recent (no more than 4 years old) sony mini-dv cam.

[Summoner]

Thanks - I'll see if I can work it out.

BTW - I am actually trying to record a program (in Dos Prompt) via a video cam. If there were any other way of doing this, without racking up thousands of megabytes (I want to record about 2-3 hours of footage) via a PC-based program, or another kind of hardware, I would appreciate any suggestions.

Thanks,

S.

[onine]

Well, Camtasia seems to do a good job. I've never used it but others seem to recommend it. Check it out

[Summoner]

Thanks I'll give it a try!