Capturing screens

You can capture your entire desktop screen, individual windows, or a region of the screen and broadcast the screen or encode it to a file just as you would any other content. You can use the screen capture feature for:

• Capturing from .avi files that were created with a third-party screen-capture utility.
• Capturing a window (or the entire desktop) directly from your desktop.
• Capturing from a card that is connected to a scan converter device.

When you capture a window, you can save the session for later use. Keep in mind, however, that the title of the window and its coordinates are saved along with all the other configuration information in the session file. When you reload the session file for a subsequent screen-capture session, the encoder looks for a window that matches the stored title. If the encoder does not find one, it captures a window that matches the stored coordinates.

When you capture the entire desktop and save the session, the display size and color settings for your monitor are saved in the session file. If, after saving the session, you decide to change the screen size or color, you must create a new session to include these settings.

If your screen saver is displayed while you are capturing a window or the entire desktop, the screen saver will be encoded. Therefore, it is recommended that you turn off your screen saver when capturing a window or the entire desktop.

Notes

• Artifacts can be introduced when an analog signal is run through a scan converter and converted to National Television Standards Committee (NTSC) format. These artifacts are amplified during encoding and can degrade the quality of the encoded video.
• When you are done capturing a screen, be sure to click Stop encoding on the toolbar. Simply minimizing the window being captured does not end the encoding session.

Related topics

• Configuring sources
• Improving performance when encoding screens
• To encode an .avi file containing screen content
• To capture a screen on the desktop