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When asking for help, what should I include?

Neil Clayton March 17, 2009 • 2 • Solutions

For Lion Users:

Differences in v1 when running on Lion     

 

Differences in iShowU HD when running on Lion 

When you can't get an application to work, it's understandable that you might send it a help request with "aaaaarg!  it doesn't work" as the subject line.

For us to help you effectively, we usually need a *little* bit more information than that.  Here's some tips on how you can help us help you:

  • Let us know what you're trying to do.    Do you want to get footage into iMovie?  Record full screen? 
  • What size is the movie you're trying to record?  Is it full screen (your desktop)?  Or small (say, 640 x 480).
  • For iShowU HD / Pro users - what is your output movie?  HD can capture at a different size to the output movie, but it's the later that's important.  To find this out, look at the summary bar just above where the recordings go.  You want the bit that says something like "Video size: 1280 x 720...".
  • What compression method are you using?  Common methods are Apple Intermediate H.264, MPEG4 and Apple Animation.
  • What kind of machine do you have?   G4? Intel?  1GB RAM? More?
Sending us a screenshot can also be a good way to communicate this info (as long as, er, it's actually IN the screenshot).
Sending Crash Logs
If the machine you're using isn't on the internet, it's going to be difficult to submit crash logs automatically. In this case, you can find them using the Console applications (it's in Applications/Utilities).  Here's how you can find them quickly:
Picture_3.png

After you've loaded a crash log, you can then use the Reveal in Finder option to bring up the folder that they are in.  From here you can then more easily drag all of the iShowU HD (or other app - we're using iShowU HD as an example here) crash logs directly into an email, or save them to a USB stick for transfer to a machine that's on the net.  Send these to support@shinywhitebox.com with a brief description of the problem.

That'll help us lots!

 

Recommended settings

Neil Clayton February 17, 2009 • Solutions

Introduction

It's not easy providing recommendations, since everyones workflow and final requirements are different, but I'll give it a shot.  In addition the actual media you're recording can influence how you'd go about doing it.  For example, I'd record a full screen desktop using Low CPU mode, but I might choose to record a full screen OpenGL game using Apple Intermediate  and turning on variable length frame durations. Both are full screen, but because of what I'm recording I choose different settings to get the best result.

 

DVD with iDVD

You've got to decide your aspect ratio. I'm picking 16:9 is the way most people will go.

The best result is when the area you're capturing is exactly the right size for iDVD. This will result in minimal scaling of the final video.  I captured full screen Apple Animation into iDVD 08, and it came out fine. Well, where "fine" means I could make it out.  Some people would have though the quality was bad, because the content had to be scaled.

For the best visual result, I would have to capture exactly 796x480 (NTSC) or 956x576 (PAL).  In these two cases I'm capturing at a 16:9 ratio, where my width was calculated by multiplying the height by 1.66.  

 

iMovie 08 

It's important you capture using the same aspect ratio of the project (see the comments above, for DVD with iDVD).

Any kind of scaling will result in some quality loss - and scaling will occur if you (for example) capture at 16:9 but then insert the media into a 4:3 project.  Ideally you want to capture at exactly the resolution of the iMovie project.  Failing that get the Aspect Ratio's the same.  Failing that you've no choice but to crop and/or scale the media.

 

High Quality .mov

The best quality depends on two factors:

  1. Capture size vs Output size; and
  2. Compression method
For best quality, always capture 1:1.  Set your capture area (what you want to capture) and then choose the Same as capture size option from the gear dropdown just above Output video in the toolbar. Picture_2.png
Now you've ensured that iShowU HD won't scale the video.

Secondly, select Apple Animation as a compression method (drop down the same gear icon you did before, above Output video and choose "Apple Animation"). Picture_1.png This is lossless and provides excellent quality and speed.   AA can be somewhat disk intensive however, so if your framerate drops choose Apple Intermediate.

Finally, compress the movie with Stomp.  The AA and AIC codes provide excellent visual results but are massive. You'll need to compress to H264 if you want to put the movie onto the web.  

 

Email a QT movie

Here space is the primary concern.

There's a couple of built-in settings in iShowU HD that do this.  Click the Output video button in the toolbar and choose Email.  Three options are available. Choose one to suit.

The essence of the presets is this: reduce the frame rate down, compress directly into H264 and scale the video down as well.  The combination of all three provides videos that still serve the purpose of explaining something to someone, while at the same time not being overly large to send via email.

 

Creating a very small movie

If you want to make the SMALLEST movie possible, follow these steps (you will need Stomp).

iShowU HD

  1. Setup your capture area to grab what you want.
  2. Set the movie to be 2/3rds the size of the capture area, using the Gear dropdown menu which is on the toolbar above Output video.  This will reduce the visible movie size, but the text should still be legible.
  3. Set the video framerate to be 4 frames per second.  This is low, yes, but less frames equals a smaller movie.
  4. Set the video to be Apple Intermediate.  This will produce a nice clean file that we can compress using Stomp.
  5. Set the audio to be AAC.  It is likely this already.  While you can go into the advanced panel and reduce the audio rate, there's probably not much point.  You might save a couple of MB, but normally audio is the least of your space concerns.iShowU_HD_Pro_-_Capture_for_web-1.jpg
  6. To check - the summary on the gray bar just above where the recordings go should read "Video Size: (width x height), (Video: Apple Intermediate Codec, 4fps, AAC 44100 khz, 2 channels)".
Now, do you recording. And then get this recording into Stomp (dragging it there is a good option).

Within Stomp:
  1. Select H264 as the compression format.  
  2. By default it's set to a quality level of 64.  You can go lower if you want a smaller file, but you'll do so at the expense of visual quality.
  3. Make sure your new movie is selected in Stomp, then click the Process button.  
  4. Optional:  If you want a smaller file, reduce the quality of the H264 process.  Click the "Settings..." button in Stomp (next to the "recompress video" drop down) and then lower the quality.  Try 50. Or lower if you dare!  It's really up to you (or rather, what you think your viewers will be happy with).

Summary of what you've done 

You've created a slightly scaled movie, with a very low frame rate.  It'll be good for showing something from the desktop where you're explaining as you go.  The movie has been recorded using a compression method that doesn't "loose" quality, so when you compress it it'll compress very well.

In Stomp, you've chosen the best compression method currently available (as of March 2009).  Stomp is already configured to perform the best compression it can (at a reasonable visual quality) and it'll also setup the video so that if you stick it on the web it can start playing immediately (known as streaming).