Make Movie on a Mac still don't work?

Hi all,
Noticed that the File/Make Movie option still crashes my Mac even with 1.19.0.5 version. But I've also heard it's better to make a movie capture with an external software anyway, like SnapzPro.
Is this the general overall feeling, best to use another bit of sofyware?

thanks for your ideas/opinions

hi, yes it has not worked for ages (please search the forums for loads of responses and advice to this question).

In short, on a mac you can use external screen capture software (Snapz Pro, iShowU, etc) but don't expect the world. If you can bring yourself to boot your mac into windows, and use Fraps, you will get the best results there.

Yes, trying to get the video record from viewer to work is a pointless exercise.

You'll need an external screen capture tool... one that does video.

The three that leap to mind are:

Copernicus (free software... but limited to one kind of compression. So not ideal for high quality captures)

IshowU - which is pretty cheap and a lot of people seem to like it

SnapZ Capture - the most expensive of the options I've found... but I really like it and the record quality is very high

There is also a piece of software called

ScreenFlow- which looks very interesting and I may try out at some time


The issue with any of these capture softwares is two fold:

The first is image quality, there is a considerable variation between softwares

The second is "how processor hungry is the capture software?"

This is important because: say for instance you're capturing some footage in a club... there are a lot of avatars, some who have their bandwidth set too high, some with complex AO's, some with particle effects... you look at the framerate and you're pulling just over 15 fps... which you'll just about get away with if you edit round the dropouts

However, the second start your capture software you'll see the frame rate plummet to under 15fps and everything starts to get jerky.

This is because your frame rate is effected by your processor's workload.

What I suggest is you download the demos of each software, fire up the viewer and in debug mode press Apple/Shift/1

in the top right hand corner of the screen you'll see the framerate.

Then test out each of the demo capture softwares to see how they effect your frame rates.

Then compare the images from each software.

After you do that you'll know which capture software to go for, for your machine.

Oh... and if you can, max your machine out for RAM... it does make a difference.

Thanks for adding this list of options for mac.
-MRO

Hey.. Mac user here. ishowU is my favorite out of those options. I've tried many programs, that was the most reliable for me. It is easy to use but gives you lots of manual options, more than a lot of PC capture programs do, so that's what I like the best about it.

I find that making screen capture video of Second Life works for me about half the time. Often, SL crashes when I try to resize the window down to a size that video capture can manage. It always starts in a window that fills the screen [not full screen, just a large window]. AFAIK, there's no way to resize it until I log in, when I can finally get the File>Window Size menu. It crashes as often as it works, at that point. So I restart, wait, crash, etc.

Using iShowU on a new Mac Pro with gobs of HD space and 3GB RAM, and the latest SL client.

Is there a way to tell SL to start with a smaller window size next time?

Using iShowU on a new Mac Pro with gobs of HD space and 3GB RAM, and the latest SL client.

Is there a way to tell SL to start with a smaller window size next time?[/QUOTE]

I'm using iShowU and an iMac - I might be missing something in your question -
I just resize the SL window the same way as with any Mac window - grab the corner and drag it smaller or larger. You can resize the iShowU window the same way.

Let me know if I didn't understand your question right and I'll give it another try.

Thank you, Pye.

It seems you understand me well, I'm afraid. I am resizing the window, and at that point, SL locks up, the SL window filled with random pixels. Only Force Quit gets me out of this. I've even let it sit 20 minutes. It definitely crashes, consistently.

I discovered, today, that I could resize the window before I log in... although no resize widget appears in the lower right corner. I am carefully trying to click the corner without clicking on the letters of the phrase "Forgot your password?", and I'm able to resize at that point.

Sadly, when I log in, then teleport elsewhere, SL crashes exactly as before 5 out of 6 times, so far today.... random pixels, locked up, only 2 Force Quits can put a stop to it.

If there's a way to edit some text file that tells SL to start at 640x480 [for example], I'd love to know about it.... or some similar trick that forces it to start at that size, before I log in, it'd be worth a try.

I'm in at the moment [hurrah!], so I'm going to try to make some video captures while it's working for me.

And this with a Mac Pro? Hmmm.. I have a lowly Intel iMac Anyway.

I almost never crash - and I'm pushing this thing to the limit with machinima with the graphics on High. (I just don't move the camera too much)

One thing that seems to be a must for Macs is to clear your cache - I do it on a daily basis. Try that first and see if the problem clears up.

I also screen capture to an external firewire drive. A dedicated drive helps big time.
You didn't mention what graphics card you're using. Driver updates are many times the solution.

Let me know how that works.
Good Luck!

If there's a way to edit some text file that tells SL to start at 640x480 [for example], I'd love to know about it.... or some similar trick that forces it to start at that size, before I log in, it'd be worth a try.[/QUOTE]

Pye, I've actually crashed a lot, on 3 different Macs that I use, but it's seldom a problem. This crash is only a problem because I'm trying to resize the screen to make some machinima on a deadline.

I'm capturing to a dedicated internal HD, btw. I have a separate drive for Final Cut Pro scratch, capture scratch, etc. and I'm using it. Capturing is not a problem. iShowU caps look great, and cap smoothly. The problem is resizing SL so I can start a capture session. I was able to resize, today, as you probably saw in my earlier post. Next time I capture, SL should open at 640x480 on that machine.

Cache? Thanks, I'll look through menus and prefs for caches to clear.

Driver updates? I hoped that I was past all that since switching to Macs years ago. I haven't had to update a Mac's graphic drivers since, oh, OS X was released. Do people actually do that on Macs? I used to keep track of graphics card updates, when I used Windows, but not since using Macs. Of course, I run Software Update between projects. Everything's up to date now.

My graphics card is an NVIDIA GeForce 7300 GT, 256MB VRAM, PCIe. Sure, I'd love a better one, but this is what the office chose for us.

Preferences > Network > clear cache
or on the Mac - Users >Library > Application Support > second life and drag it from there to the trash.

Here's a link for the firmware upgrade for your card if you need it.
http://software.techrepublic.com.com/download.aspx?docid=327858

Betcha a virtual cookie you don't crash as much!

Thank you, Pyewacket! I'll give these a try.

A followup:

I never got up the nerve to try upgrading my drivers, because SL was the only program I'd had such trouble with -- and it's a work machine, as in making money, so I didn't want to risk breaking anything more important to me, like video editing.

But all ended well. I just found that I could resize the window a small amount, wait till it "settled", and do it again and again. As long as I didn't resize instantly to 640x480 from 1680x1050, but did it in small steps, maybe 4-5 steps, it was OK.

I got all the footage shot and the video finished on time. The program iShowU did a great job, and I was well pleased with it, so pleased that I bought a 2nd license for my other Mac.

You've given me fodder for the next local Mac SIG meeting, an interesting issue to consider and discuss with other Mac users I know. I thought about this thread when I read the recent MacWorld article about the "Mac clone", too. That seemed at least somewhat related.

Thanks so much for the idea, and for your suggestions!