Troubleshooting - BSR Screen Recorder

Screen recorder applications can not record overlaid video from the screen unless you do some settings. Some videos like DVD videos are overlaid on screen by the media players which prevents screen capturing.

Solution on Version 4 :

Check 'Disable Video Acceleration When Recording' option in Configure->Video tab (in the old version: Configurations->Page I->Options). This will provide BSR to disable and enable hardware acceleration of the system (except on Windows Vista, for vista see below) automatically and should prevent blank recording. But, if still you get blank video , then, you should also turn off the hardware acceleration/video overlay from the media player's settings. Or you should try to play the video with another player for recording from the screen.

You can turn off the video overlay in Windows Media Player by doing the following :

1. In Windows Media Player, on the Tools menu, click Options , and then click the Performance tab.

2. Click the Advanced button.

3. In the Video Acceleration area, clear the Use overlays check box.

4. Restart Windows Media Player and try to record again.

On Windows Vista :

- Right click to your desktop (on the wallpaper)

- Click Personalize

- Click Display Settings

- Click Advanced Settings button

- Click Troubleshoot tab

- Click Change Settings button

- Turn off hardware acceleration (if the option is disabled then you should try to turn off the video overlay from the media player's settings or you should contact to your graphics card manufacturer)

You may also need to turn off the hardware acceleration/video overlay from the media player's settings. Or you can try to play the video with another media player for recording from screen.

Old Version 3 : If you get a blank screen when you try to record videos of media players (this is a common problem for all Screen Recorder applications), you may need to turn off hardware acceleration . You can always enable acceleration after recording.

To turn off Hardware acceleration :

1) Right click on the Desktop and click Properties
2) Select the Settings tab and click Advanced .
3) Select the Troubleshooting tab and move the Hardware Acceleration slider to None .

Now try to record the video while the hardware acceleration is turned off.

(Most probably you will not need to restart your computer, but in case still recording blank screen you may need to restart your computer. Additionally you may also need to turn off hardware acceleration in movie player's settings.)

Note : Some applications like games may not work when hardware accelearation is turned off. You can always enable acceleration after recording.

Texts are not sharp enough, they seem blurry :

You should try to change the compression you're using for recording from Configure->Video tab->Video Compression settings (in the old version : Configurations->Page II-> Video Compression). For instance, the default video codec does not provide a clear display of texts in full screen mode. You can try to record with DivX or XviD codecs.

Video Recording (or snapshot feature) does not provide sharp (or smooth) captures :

In the 'Other Settings' you will see the draw mode options for video and picture captures. 'Smooth' will record with 'blurring' on them, 'Sharp' will produce sharp pictures/video displays.

It doesn't record audio or the sound comes in very muted. It can hardly be heard.

You should check the recording volumes (not playback volumes). (For Vista click here)

- Right-click the microphone icon on the main panel, click to 'Recording Volumes Setup' and increase the volumes of each device.

- Close the volume setup window.

- Right-click the microphone icon on the main panel and select the audio source you want to record from such as microphone, line-in, CD, speakers etc.

- Activate audio recording by left-clicking on the Microphone icon on BSR main panel. And now you can record with BSR. Check if your computer receives audio signal from the audio source (such as the microphone). It will not record audio if the selected device can not transmit audio signals to your computer. If still not recording audio and you're sure that everything is normal, try enabling 'Reverse Mixer Channels' option which is located in the 'Other Settings'. And try to record again.

You can also do these settings manually from Windows' Settings : (For Vista click here)

- Open Volume Control of Windows (This can be done by double click on Speakers icon in the system tray (where the computer time is displayed))

- Click Options in the menu and Properties, select Recording option. Select all volume controls in the list and click Ok.

- Now you can select the audio source (such as microphone) and set its volume

- Activate audio recording by left-clicking on the Microphone icon on BSR main panel. And now you can record with BSR.

The 'Speakers' option in the audio source selection is grayed out.

If the 'From Speakers' option is grayed out, it means that your sound card doesn't support recording from speakers. Almost all sound cards have wave-in lines for microphones, CD Audio, midi etc but some of them do not include a wavein line for Stereo Mix or Mono Mix which provide audio recording from speakers.

Please check this manually from Windows Volume Control window: (For Vista click here)

- Open Volume Control of Windows (This can be done by double clicking on Speakers icon in the system tray (where the computer time is displayed)) or running sndvol32.exe will bring up the same window.
- Click Options in the menu and Properties, select Recording option. Select all the volume controls in the list and click Ok.
- These are all wave-in lines provided by your sound card. If "Stereo Mix", "Mono Mix", "Speakers", "What You Hear" or something similar exists, you can select it as the audio source and set its volume. Now, BSR will record from Speakers even if the option is grayed out.

Screen Recorder records audio from microphone in spite of setting it to record from Speakers or records from speakers instead of microphone :

Enabling 'Reverse Mixer Channels' option which is located in the 'Other Settings' of BSR Screen Recorder will fix the problem.

I can not record audio. It returns one of the following errors : "Couldn't find a Wave_In line in mixer!", "Couldn't find any source line for audio input!" or any other message related to 'Mixer'.

The error shows that your sound card does not provide a wave in line for audio recording. The reason for that may be :

1) Your sound card does not record audio at all. In order to understand you can try to record audio with Microsoft Sound Recorder (sndrec32.exe -> which is located in the Windows/System32 directory). You should make necessary settings such as unmuting and opening record volume of microphone. If you can record at least from microphone and listen to it, then, close Microsoft Sound Recorder and try to record with BSR Screen Recorder. Normally if Sound Recorder records audio from microphone then BSR should record audio too. (Even it returns the error message.)

2) Second reason may be that your sound card is not Microsoft supported and its driver may need to be updated.

Audio is not synchronized with the video :

You should try to record with “Activate audio-video synchronization” option enabled. It is defaultly enabled and located in Configure->Audio tab (in the old version : Configuration->Page II->Audio Settings). By default, audio synchronization is set to 'High'. You can set BSR to ask you the synchronization level (low, medium, high levels) after each recording is completed by seting Configure->Audio tab->Synchronization Level to 'Ask' (in the old version : Configuration->Page II->Audio Settings->Snych Level). With this setting, after each recording BSR will ask you the synch level to apply. ‘High' will provide the best synchronization if the capture performance is not poor.

Capture performance is very important for audio synchronization. To view and increase the capture performance :

After completing a recording, an information window is opened which includes grading for the last capture performance. You can click on the small button to view the capture performance graph. (Another way to open the capture performance graph is to click the Menu button on the main panel (the button just below the red Flash button) and click to ‘Last Performance Report' button.) That window will show you the performance of the computer during last recording. Low performance will prevent audio synchronization since the computer omits many frames during recording. There are two options just below the graph :

- Set Higher Priority For BSR Screen Recorder (this is already activated by default)

- Disable Video Acceleration During Recording

Activating these two options will increase the capture performance. You should also either close other applications running in your computer which keep CPU busy or wait their tasks finish (such as backups, virus scans and other CPU intensive background tasks).

Finally, you can also use the synchronization feature in the Movie Studio for synchronizing the videos you recorded. While watching the video in the synchronizer, you can use -2x, -1x, +1x, +2x buttons to increase/decrease the video speed until you decide that the video&audio are synchronized.

At first, the audio quality was very good, now it is broken up :

You should change the audio quality from :

Right-click to microphone icon on the main panel and click Audio Quality Settings (or from Configure->Audio tab-Audio Quality Settings (in the old version: Configuration->Page II->Audio Settings->Audio Quality) .

For instance, you can try recording with 8 bit sound. The default settings are 22,050 kHz, 8 bits, Mono.

Audio Settings on Vista (How can I record audio from speakers on Vista? How can I set audio source and recording sound levels on Vista?):

Enabling Sound Recording From Speakers on Windows Vista:

In order to be able to record from speakers you should first activate it from Windows' settings which is deactivated by default on Windows Vista :

1. Right-click on the microphone icon on the main panel and click to 'Audio Source Settings in Windows VISTA'. Sound control panel of Windows will open.

2. In the Recording tab, you will see your devices enabled for audio recording. Right-click anywhere on any device or in the white blank area. Click on Show Disabled Devices in the popup menu.

3. If your sound card supports, 'Stereo Mix' , 'Mono Mix', 'Wave-Out', 'What U Hear', or something similar will appear. Right-click on that device and click Enable.

4. Now select the device you enabled or another one which you want to use for your audio recording and click Set Default.

Setting Audio Source and Recording Sound Levels on Windows Vista:

1. Right-click on the microphone icon on the main panel and click to 'Audio Source Settings in Windows VISTA'. Sound control panel of Windows will open.

2. In the Recording tab, select the device which you want to use for your audio recording and click Set Default

3. Double click on the device or click on 'Properties'. Click on 'Levels' tabs for setting the recording volume level of the device. After setting the volume click OK. If the green input level meter rises while the sound produced in the device you should be able to record audio from that device.

Capture speed rate of the recording (capture performance) is very low :

Low capture speed is mostly related to the computer's performance during the capture. For instance, when you set the recorder to record 30 fps, it will try to capture 30 frames per second and if computer's performance is not sufficient enough, resulting rate will be lower. In order to increase the capture speed, you should reduce the load on CPU :

- You should either close other applications running in your computer which keep CPU busy or wait their tasks finish (such as backups, virus scans and other CPU intensive background tasks).

- Enable 'Set Higher Priority for Screen Recorder' option.

- Check 'Disable Video Acceleration When Recording' option.

- You can try to select a smaller region on screen for recording or use size functions in Video Dimensions settings in Configuration

- Also computer's performance (CPU speed, RAM amount and harddisk space) is an important factor on cpature speed rate.

If you want to get the maximum capture speed, you can also use No Compression (Full frames) option in Video Compression settings. Compression of each frame keeps CPU busier. You can compress the video in Movie Studio (Resample AVI) or in Movie Lab after you finish the recording.

How can I reduce sizes of video files I record?

Converting recorded AVI files to SWF (flash file) or WMV format will reduce the file size significantly. You can convert AVI files to SWF and WMV with the converter of BSR Screen Recorder.

Reducing the AVI file size : The most important factor is the codec (compression) you use. Only the change to a better codec will provide a significant decrease in file size. For instance; DivX or XviD codecs will provide smaller file size and high quality. The second important factor is video dimension. In full screen recordings, you can use Video Dimension function in Configure->Video Tab (in the old version : Configuration->Page I). For instance, set the ratio to 70%. This will shrink video to its 70% in size and will provide a smaller file size. Another factor is the audio quality. Increasing audio quality will also increase the file size.

You can use ‘Adviser' of BSR from Configure->Options tab->Run Adviser (in the old version Configuration->Page III->Run Adviser) to reduce file sizes.

You can also reduce the file size after your recording by opening the recorded file in Movie Lab :

- Click ‘Make Movie' and set your new codec (such as DivX, XviD), new video dimension and reconstruct the video to a lower fps rate.

It will produce a new video file according to your settings.

What are the settings for better quality?

For better quality you can configure BSR as follows :

- Select DivX or XviD codec for recording which will provide better quality and smaller file size (if DivX is not installed on your computer, you can download it from its web site). Or you can use the Full Frames (uncompressed) option in the codecs. This will provide a better quality too but the file size will be high.

Codecs can be selected from Configure->Video Tab->Video Compression->Configure (in the old version : Configuration->Page II->Video Compression->Select Compression)

- Check ‘Disable Video Accelaration When Recording' option in Configure->Video tab (in the old version: Configuration->Page I) (except on Windows Vista). This will prevent blank recording.

- If the region you select on desktop for recording is large or you selected full desktop for recording, set video dimension to 70% (or less) of the original size from Configure->Video tab->Video Dimensions (in the old version Configuration->Page I->Video Dimension). This will increase the capture performance.

Audio Settings :

Right-click on the microphone icon on the BSR main interface. All settings below will be done in that menu :

- Check recording volumes from Recording Volume Setup. ¼ volume level should be enough. Volume level can also be configured during recording.

- For the best audio synchronization and audio quality, select High Level of audio synchronization from “Audio Synchronization”.

- Click "Audio Quality Settings". Audio quality is set to 22,050 kHz, 8 bit, mono by default. If necessary, you can change this to 22,050 kHz, 16 bit to increase the audio quality (increases file size).

I have version 3 of BSR Screen Recorder, how can I upgrade it to version 4 ? or how can I try the new version?

Install the shareware version 4 into a different directory on your computer from the following links :

BSR Screen Recorder Full Version for Windows Me/NT/2000/2003/XP :

http://www.bsrsoft.com/download.asp?id=1

BSR Screen Recorder Full Version for Windows VISTA :

(You should install this version if your operating system is Windows Vista)

http://www.bsrsoft.com/download.asp?id=21

After you try the new version, if you decide to purchase the upgrade, click on ‘Purchase' button in Configure->About tab (in the old version Configuration->Page III). You will see the ‘Upgrade' option there.

For upgrading to version 4, full version 3 must be installed in your computer. Upgrading version 3 to version 4 is $10.

Doesn't save video as WMV / doesn't convert to WMV

You should try to install Windows Media Encoder on your computer from :

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/forpros/encoder/default.mspx

How can I select a video file to play back?

Right-click to Play button (it is the button with the black triangle icon on the main panel) to select the media file you want to play.

How can I close/disable tooltip balloons?

You can enable/disable tooltip balloons from Configure->Options tab->Disable Help Balloons (in the old version : Configuration->Page III->Other Settings->Disable help balloons).

Error message on Windows Vista :

Runing BSR Screen Recorder with Administrator rights should fix the problem :

- Right-click on the ‘BSR Screen Recorder 4' (that you click to launch BSR) in the Start Menu

- Click to ‘Properties'

- Click ‘Compatibility' tab

- At the bottom, enable ‘Run this program as an administrator' option.

- Click OK.

- Launch BSR by clicking on the ‘BSR Screen Recorder 4' in the Start Menu

Vista will ask you to use the administrator account. Click ‘Allow'. Now it should work properly.

I have Windows Vista installed on my computer and BSR doesn't run on it:

BSR Screen Recorder has a seperate installation for Windows Vista which you can download from the following link :

Download BSR Screen Recorder for Windows Vista