SnagIt 11 Video Capture

amendegw wrote on 3/3/2012, 7:01 AM

I got all excited a couple of days ago when I received an email notifying me of a SnagIt upgrade to version 11. SnagIt is one of my favorite apps. The announcement hyped the new video capture improvements.

Version 10 of SnagIt captured in avi format (codec id: CRAM) and played very nicely with Sony Vegas.

However, SnagIt 11 now encodes in mp4 format (codec id: mp42/avc1) and when I attempt to drop the clips on the Vegas timeline only the audio appears.

There is a workaround - if I re-encode the SnagIt capture with HandBrake (using same framesize, framerate, etc), I have no problems dropping the clip on the Vegas timeline (as seeing both video & audio events).

So, the quesiton is... Does anyone have an idea why won't Vegas accept the SnagIt 11 captured video files?

Here are the details:

Actual video clips are here: SnagIt-11.zip

...Jerry

Comments

ChipGallo wrote on 3/3/2012, 7:58 AM

I just installed the Snagit upgrade and will try this when I get to the editing system. Wondering if Camtasia has or will have the same issue with screen captures. Camtasia is the Techsmith desktop capture/edit product.

paul_w wrote on 3/3/2012, 8:07 AM

looking at your MediaInfo data, the re-encoded handbrake version has a lot more header data fields than the original. Especially, Frame Rate Mode and Frame Rate. But there are others too. Obviously Vegas needs something thats missing.
Is there any option in snagit to include extra data in the encoded video file?

Paul.

JohnnyRoy wrote on 3/3/2012, 8:16 AM

I'm just guessing but I suspect that format profile is the problem. Snagit is using Baseline@L4.0 while Handbreak is using Baseline@L3.1. When I render to MainConcept AVC and check the profile for the baseline it's also Baseline@L3.1. Maybe this is as high as Vegas supports.

~jr

amendegw wrote on 3/3/2012, 9:01 AM

Paul_w asks, Is there any option in snagit to include extra data in the encoded video file?

Unfortunately, there are almost no configuration options for video capture in SnagIt.

JohnnyRoy says, I'm just guessing but I suspect that format profile is the problem. Snagit is using Baseline@L4.0 while Handbreak is using Baseline@L3.1. When I render to MainConcept AVC and check the profile for the baseline it's also Baseline@L3.1. Maybe this is as high as Vegas supports.

My gosh, I Googled "h264 baseline" and found several hits. However, they read like Greek to me. Seems to somehow relate to "maximum decoded picture buffering" - what's that? I'm glad there are people who understand this stuff.

...Jerry

btw: Another workaround that seems to work nicely is that the SnagIt files will encode to Cineform using the free Cineform Studio app. It's just cumbersome to go thru these extra steps in the screencast process.

paul_w wrote on 3/3/2012, 9:39 AM

Could try emailing them and mentioning the problem, sounds like they are not writing a full implementation of the file spec. :( Hence the converters work, they do write the header fully. Thats my guess anyway.

Paul.

Robert Johnston wrote on 3/4/2012, 3:33 PM

If you have Quicktime Pro, you can open the MP4 file in the Quicktime Player, then do a "File>Save As" to do a quick save to a MOV file without transcoding. The Mov file will then work in Vegas (10).

I tried changing the file extension on the original file from MP4 to MOV, but that didn't work.

amendegw wrote on 3/4/2012, 4:09 PM

@Paul_w, Yeah, I submitted a problem report to TechSmith here I frankly don't hold out a lot of hope that they will offer a suggestion.

@Robert Johnston, No I don't have Quicktime Pro - thanks for the suggestion. There are a number of workarounds. Including another emailed to me by a good friend - run the video file thru Avidemux.

...Jerry

NickHope wrote on 3/4/2012, 9:56 PM

RhinoFanny.veg??? ... ah, you're American :)

Video stream doesn't open here in VP10 either.

RZ wrote on 3/4/2012, 10:51 PM

I have used Camtasia for video capture and SnagIt for still capture. Is there any advantage of using SnagIt for video capture. Am I missing something.

RZ

amendegw wrote on 3/5/2012, 5:22 AM

Nick Hope says, "RhinoFanny.veg??? ... ah, you're American :)"

Ha! Nick, you really have eagle eyes! Now, I guess I have to explain. Of course, a "fanny" has a different meaning in American English. My sister has a Facebook friend who collects animal derrieres (mostly stills). If I get some video footage, I'll send it to her. Upon reflecting, I guess that makes me somewhat aberrant as well!! Hold the wisecracks (pun intended). [chuckles]

RZ asks, "I have used Camtasia for video capture and SnagIt for still capture. Is there any advantage of using SnagIt for video capture. Am I missing something."

Only the cost of Camtasia ($300). SnagIt has a very limited video capture function, but I find it serves my limited needs, when used in conjunction with Sony Vegas.

...Jerry

paul_w wrote on 3/5/2012, 8:23 AM

Jerry, I just downloaded a trial of Snagit 11. Nice :) and yes the Mp4 video, same here, no dice in Vegas as expected.
Got my dropbox workflow setup too, thanks for this.

Paul.

Robert Johnston wrote on 3/6/2012, 4:34 AM

One of the features of Snagit is being able to send the video to a program after capture. I set up Snagit to send the video to Sony Vegas when I click on the "Finish Profile" button in the editor. Vegas opens up with the video on the timeline and correctly displaying in the preview window. Go figure.

amendegw wrote on 3/6/2012, 5:56 AM

Robert,

I got all excited when I saw your post, but, alas, I still only get the audio. Are you using SnagIt 11? Did you do anything special to set up Sony Vegas as a Share Profile?

...Jerry

paul_w wrote on 3/6/2012, 7:09 AM

Same here, audio only.

Paul.

ChipGallo wrote on 3/6/2012, 8:39 AM

Could Robert have a codec installed that allows this to happen? I forgot to try it last night on my VP11/Win 7 box but I will tonight.

amendegw wrote on 3/7/2012, 6:16 PM

fwiw, my submission to TechSmith support has produced the following from "Tim" (in software development).

"Thanks for reporting this. I did some more testing, and it appears if you've captured an MP4 from Windows XP or Vista, it will import into Sony Vegas fine, but an MP4 captured from Windows 7 will just import the audio.

...Jerry

gpsmikey wrote on 5/10/2012, 7:17 PM

Snagit is also one of my favorite utilities and I was about to upgrade from 10 to 11, however, this looks like a pain. Has anybody heard any more on this issue from Techsmith ? Looking at their site, it still looks like the latest release of 11 is the original 11.0.0 release.

mikey

amendegw wrote on 5/11/2012, 4:39 AM

fwiw, I reverted back to SnagIt 10. There were not enough improvements to offset this annoyance.

...Jerry

gpsmikey wrote on 5/11/2012, 11:27 PM

OK, thanks for that. I guess I will stay at 10 also - sure makes it easy to post annotated screenshots etc in emails etc (or save images of stuff).

mikey

gpsmikey wrote on 6/27/2012, 1:03 PM

For what it's worth, I just got email from Techsmith asking for input on questions and problems with Snagit. I submitted a question on this issue with a pointer to this thread (and asking if they had addressed the issue). If I hear back, I will post a follow-up here for folks.

mikey

gpsmikey wrote on 6/29/2012, 10:03 AM

Well, the good news is that the Snagit folks actually respond to these questions in a timely manner. The bad news is, they have not solved the issue yet (but they have identified what the problem is). Here was the response I got from them today:
for XP and Vista we use Main Koncept as our encoder for MP4, but we use the Windows 7 Media Foundation library for Windows 7. Tim says they are still working on it, but he did not have an ETA for me on a fix at this point, unfortunately

So it looks like it is still an issue, but they are still aware of it. If this is a problem caused by using the Windows 7 Media Foundation library, then this sounds more like an issue that Sony should be addressing since others are undoubtedly using the same library to create video files as well.

mikey