Optimize Screen Capture
Because of the amount of data being manipulated and the CPU power required, capturing screens is a performance-intensive process. Use the following guidelines to ensure that the screen image you capture will encode and play well:
- Use a fast processor.
- Use the Windows Media Video 9 Screen codec.
- Set your monitor to use a lower display size. For example, capturing at a 1024 x 768 resolution yields more data than capturing at 640 x 480.
- Set your color display to 16-bit or 8-bit color. Or, to further improve the CPU usage set the encoder to run in 256-color mode. Keep in mind that running in 256 colors can introduce a palette change when switching between programs that have different color schemes. The encoder does not support palette changes for real-time screen capture. Therefore, you should use 16-bit colors or capture to an .avi file first, then use the encoder to convert the file to Windows Media Format.
- Use a low frame rate. You may have to experiment with the setting to determine the frame rate that meets your needs.
- Capture a smaller image.
- Use a higher bit rate.
- Avoid multiple scene changes, such as opening and closing windows in rapid succession during the capture.
- Capture screens or regions only from the primary monitor when using a dual-monitor scenario.
- Disable hardware acceleration. (However, enable hardware acceleration after completing the screen capture for best results with other programs.)
- Quit all video programs you are not using.
- Set up the output frame size to be the same as the source. Do not use the encoder to resize the source video.
Optimize Audio Capture
There are ways to improve the quality of the sound that you capture so that it will be clear when you play it on Windows Media Player. One way to improve sound quality is to try to eliminate background noise. Another is to use microphones properly. An echo-canceling headset microphone will give good results. If you use a clip-on type of microphone, face it away from clothing and do not place it too close to a speaker’s mouth. Holding the head of a microphone can also cause noise or feedback.
The Audio panel on the Windows Media Encoder user interface is useful for monitoring recording levels. It is helpful to keep the encoder maximized during encoding so that you can see whether audio levels are too soft (consistently in the lower part of the green zone) or too loud (consistently in the red zone) so that you can adjust microphone usage and recording volume accordingly.