How to Use the x264vfw External Codec
oCam supports external codecs (VFW), and here we will look at how to use the x264 codec.
You can download the x264 codec from the site below.
https://sourceforge.net/projects/x264vfw/
Go to the site and click the Download button.
The download will start automatically.
On the installation screens, just keep clicking Next.
Accept the license agreement.
Specify the installation path.
The installation is complete.
Click Finish.
After installing the codec, you must restart oCam before it will appear in the external codec list.
After restarting oCam, click the Codec button in the oCam main window, then click the External Codec menu.
Select the Use External Codec checkbox.
From the list, select x264vfw - H264/MPEG-4 AVC codec.
Then click the Settings button to view the detailed codec settings.
The codec settings window will appear as shown below. Since we need to record the screen in real time rather than perform normal video encoding, select Ultrafast in Preset and check the Zero Latency checkbox so that encoding is performed as quickly as possible, then click the OK button.
( This setting method is useful for real-time recording, and you can adjust it as needed depending on your situation. )
After configuring it this way, your recording will use the x264 codec.
* For game recording, if the game you want to record is 64-bit, you must also install the 64-bit version when installing x264vfw ( by default, it is installed automatically unless you change the installation options ). Then run x264vfw - Configure x264vfw64 from the Start menu and configure it the same way as described above.
* The x264vfw settings Keep/Accept only YUV 4:2:0, Keep/Accept only YUV 4:2:2, and Keep/Accept only YUV 4:4:4 are not supported, and recording will fail if you use those settings.
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How to Record Losslessly Using x264vfw
Before getting started, you must install the x264 codec in advance. If you do not know how to install it, please refer to the Help section.
Click the Codec menu in oCam, then click the External Codec menu item.
Select Use External Codec, choose the x264vfw codec, and then click the Settings button.
Using the default x264vfw settings as a base, change the parts highlighted in the yellow box in the image below as shown.
The following settings need to be changed.
Preset - Ultrafast ( Set this to improve encoding speed. The file size may become larger, but if you choose other options, significant lag may occur. )
Profile - High 4:4:4 ( The default profile may cause quality loss, so change it to High 4:4:4 for lossless encoding. )
Keep input colorspace - Keeps the color space of the internally received input buffer. ( If you use other options, encoding may fail. )
Rate control - Single pass - lossless - Change this for lossless encoding.
Click the OK button to apply the settings.
When recording 64-bit games, the settings are applied to x264vfw64 for 64-bit, so run x264vfw - Configure x264vfw64 from the Start menu and configure it in the same way as shown above.
If you record with the above settings, the video will be recorded losslessly. One important point is that if you want to play back the lossless video without quality loss, you must change the settings in your video player.
Below is how to check a lossless video using PotPlayer.
Run PotPlayer, then click Preferences ( F5 ).
In the Preferences window,
click Video - Color Space/Attributes on the left, then in the Color Space group box on the right, select Convert manually if possible - Default output color space. ( If you do not configure this, even if the recording is lossless, the screen colors may still be altered during playback. )
Click OK, then play the video recorded losslessly.
At this point, press Ctrl + F1 in PotPlayer. As shown below, the output format of the video codec must be displayed as RGB(32 Bits).
Also, in the playback information under the File Information tab, the following properties must match as shown below.
Format profile : High 4:4:4 Predictive@L3
Color space : RGB
Color range : Full
Matrix coefficients : RGB
Please note that Windows Media Player does not play this properly, and preview thumbnails will not be displayed in Windows Explorer.