Celestia Forums

Hi -

I'm using Celestia 1.5.1 on Windows Vista; and for love not money I cannot figure out how to capture a movie. I can use the 'capture movie' menu for sure, but there is no way I can find to stopping the capture routine subsequent to letting Celestia run for a certain time. Hence all I see is file of length 0 Kb on my hard disk; and indeed I need to exit Celestia to stop the cature routine.

I would be very grateful for any pointers to instruction on how to do this. I have searched the forum but to no avail.

Also - I wish to use the movie in PowerPoint, and hence within Windows Media Player; and wonder if the movies created can run within this Player? I have seen reverences on this forum to people saying that it id possible to store the captured movie in various formats; but again I do not see this facility - the only available option available to me is to record it as a Microsoft AVI. Again pointers to saving to various formats would be most appreciated.

Thanks,
Kevin.

What resolution and codec are you trying to use?

After you select OK for the option for Windows AVI, a second popup window should appear. That second window offers a choice of codecs. Windows AVI is just a container format. It is understood by all video editing programs. It does not specify any particular encoding method.

Under Windows XP, after you've chosen the codec, Celestia displays a red outline of the region in its window which will be recorded. At the bottom left of that outline are instructions in red which describe the function keys which cause movie taking to start, pause and stop.

F11 = start and pause
F12 = stop

*However* if you want to use the HDTV resolutions (1280x720 & 1920x1080), it seems that you need an HDTV compatible codec. If you haven't installed one, only the codec "Full Frames (Uncompressed)" will work for the HDTV resolutions I only tested 1280x720.

For example, when their popup status window is enabled (Configure/Advanced button/ clear the checkbox "Do not prompt with errors and warnings"), DivX encoders (v2.4? & the current v6.8.2) complain
"Invalid width, check your crop settings"

"Full Frames (Uncompressed)" is understood by Windows Movie Maker. Don't forget to select the appropriate aspect ratio in WMM.

selden wrote:What resolution and codec are you trying to use?

After you select OK for the option for Windows AVI, a second popup window should appear. That second window offers a choice of codecs. Windows AVI is just a container format. It is understood by all video editing programs. It does not specify any particular encoding method.

Under Windows XP, after you've chosen the codec, Celestia displays a red outline of the region in its window which will be recorded. At the bottom left of that outline are instructions in red which describe the function keys which cause movie taking to start, pause and stop.

F11 = start and pause
F12 = stop

*However* if you want to use the HDTV resolutions (1280x720 & 1920x1080), it seems that you need an HDTV compatible codec. If you haven't installed one, only the codec "Full Frames (Uncompressed)" will work for the HDTV resolutions I only tested 1280x720.

For example, when their popup status window is enabled (Configure/Advanced button/ clear the checkbox "Do not prompt with errors and warnings"), DivX encoders (v2.4? & the current v6.8.2) complain
"Invalid width, check your crop settings"

"Full Frames (Uncompressed)" is understood by Windows Movie Maker. Don't forget to select the appropriate aspect ratio in WMM.

?h 720p24 test

Microsoft video 1 => 100% & 720p 93000kb/s

------------------------------------------------------------

intel Indeo(R) video iYUV R2.0 version 2.00.0.0 1992-1997
codec intel IYUV => 720p 265420kb/s

------------------------------------------------------------

1992-1995 version 1.10.0.11
codec Cinepak de Radius 100% & 720p24 24975 kb/s

------------------------------------------------------------

dixv v6.8.2 codec (2000-2007)
720p30 8000kb/s ~9300kb/s

test

Video codec can be over whelming. I would recommend the DIVX codex
http://www.divx.com/divx/windows/download/?lang=en&tiger_aff=z02_download_divx_player&cid=ENARBGOO1684&gclid=CKGHj_LP25MCFR0ZagodxS5gZA
because the file size is small and the quality is very good. It is a variation of MP4. This should run in PowerPoint (PP) once the codec is installed and you will see it as a selection when making the movie in Celestia. Realize that if you show this PP on a computer that does not have the codec it will not play.

Hope that helped
Don