Recording video

[AirForceLynda]

Here's a question. I don't have Captivate yet, but should be getting it soon (so I can't just test this for myself!). Can I do a screen capture of a Windows Media Player window with video running in it? If yes, will it also capture the audio? We're looking for a fairly easy way to grab short clips from movies to use in educational products. Has anyone done this and does it work fairly well?

[Captiv8r]

Welcome to our community, AFL

Typically you won't be able to use Captivate to accomplish this. Audio MAYBE, but only if your sound card supports it. Video, most probably not. Usually you end up with a black box where the video would be.

The best way to get stuff like this is to have it in FLV format already. But it doesn't sound like that's the case here. You sound like you are wanting to simply capture it as it plays. You may wish to investigate a few other products.

Fraps (usually captures games) http://www.fraps.com
Applian Technologies http://www.applian.com

Cheers... Rick

[AirForceLynda]

Thanks Rick...
Part of my job is to create visual aids for classroom instructors. They've gotten accustomed to using short video clips from Hollywood movies to reinforce points in the lessons. Of course, with movies only available on DVDs these days, and with the CSS piracy protection built-in to all commercial DVDs, grabbing clips is not as easy as it used to be. I'm not comfortable tangling with the numerous shareware DVD rippers available for download -- especially since I work for a federal government agency! Since "fair use" allows for educational use of movie clips, and since I'm not trying to duplicate a DVD, I thought I would investigate the possiblity of screen capture. Do you have any other suggestions? I'll definitely look into the products you've recommended!

thanks again! L~

[Shnoogins]

Lynda, I have had much success with Camtasia for capturing clips that I use in my training materials. I usually record a the "player" that the video is running in, keeping in mind the size of the video. I try not to go over 640 x 480 on my player window size, so that the video is not too choppy (I also disable video acceleration). I then export the captured video as an flv, and then import it into my Captivate project.