Movie recorder - mkv option?

Feature request (might not be reasonable, niche use or not needed)

Would it be possible for the movie recorder to save the prores files in a mkv container?
Based on using obs - it seems like mkv files are a bit friendlier to crashes / random unexpected stops to recordings.

I’ve been using the movie recorder to record sets - vs a live sampling workflow - and been having a bunch of random crashes since going from os x 10.15.5? to 10.15.7 which is leaving me with 100+gb files that kinda open but are corrupt. Luckily I have an old machine with qt7 that will reexport to something useful.


Hi cmatts,

Any chance you’ve considered using an external recorder? We have a bit of a discussion going about them here: Video capture devices thread

If you are using an external monitor (projector, screen) or not, you can send out to an HDMI device and capture smaller H.264 or H.265 mp4s with the push of a button and taking the burden off your mac.

I have, but at $800+, would be better if i could figure out what is causing vdmx to crash.

I def did something that is causing vdmx to crash - before that everything was rock solid and i was able to use the build in movie recorder.

Have mkv would be good backup against crashes. Lost about 2hrs of recordings last night.

What are the specs of your system?

2019 16"mbp i9, AMD Radeon Pro 5500M 8 GB

still crashing constantly, and losing recordings.

Hi cmatts,

Two things to try.

  1. Can you use Syphon Recorder? Does it still crash.
  2. If you run EtreCheck, what major and minor problems is it declaring?

https://etrecheck.com/

The only thing it was complaining about was all the tools I need for work.
corporate vpn, corporate antivirus, Facllis terrablock client, Adobe

I also rand hardware check w apple’s built in diagnostics. And again found no issues. Thought the paid version of EtreCheck had hardware check but doesn’t seem to do anything but show me what is in my machine.

Seems like i need to go back to the os9 style and set up a separate boot partition to get rid of all the extra stuff. Started to look to see if a separate user would do the same, but still has all the adobe stuff.

Syphon Recorder is working (based on limited testing). Seems like better option than the built in recorder.

Are you still having the same recording issue with syphon recorder? Also are you saving to an external drive or your internal SSD. How much space is left on your internal SSD (for example SSDs slow down considerably if more than 75% of their space is used, add that to performance, playback, and capture, and you’re in a whole other world of read/write bandwidth issues. Same problem.

I’ll also say that .mkv is a container, not a codec. So the issue you are having with on your system is the codec that VDMX is writing to. If that’s ProRes, then you can have a .mkv prores file. Same performance.

i have not tried recording w syphon recorder more than a few mins.

the issue isnt space on my drive, the issue is when vdmx crashes - which it has been doing about 2 or 3 times a session - it’s recorder doesn’t finish writing the file, so i end up w what should be several hours of recording - 150gb file - that only has about 15m footage.

I understand that mkv is a container, but i guess its different with h274/mp4s - with obs if you crash with an mkv file you have a usable file, if you crash with a mp4, the whole thing is corrupt and not useable.

You can use OBS studio to capture a syphon output from VDMX if you prefer the h.264 mkv. There’s a good chance you can repair the “corrupt” .mp4s if there’s an OBS crash. (As long as the data is there). The .mkv may just play around these issues.

I personally would not want VDMX or another application hogging up CPU to compress .mp4s on the fly (that’s what I have a $100 external h.264 recorder for).

If you are expecting a 150GB file and you have a 1TB ssd, well that’s 15% of of your over all SSD space.

In the past others have had issues with the built in VDMX video recorder and switching to syphon recorder worked without performance issues. Additionally, if you use Syphon Recorder and VDMX crashes – Syphon recorder should still be running as a separate app. So I’d say it is worth a try.

If VDMX crashing is the problem, then maybe a stack trace and crash log to email support could help solve that problem.

i am sending vdmx to via syphon to obs to stream. and using the intel hardware h264 encoder.

I am able to record the obs encode as a file, but is h264 vs proress and has additional overlays etc. I like having a clean recording to cut or use otherwise.

Last time contacting support i was told to recomposes all my files. which clearly has not solved the issue.

vdmx support talks about running a stack trace with no directions how to do it.

Looking in my console i do not see a vdmx crash log. Vdmx also do not always ask to send crash report.

These are the instructions I have. Worked for me and others:

  • A ‘Stack Trace’: You can get one of these by opening Activity Monitor, then launching VDMX, and then when it hangs, use the ‘Sample Application’ option in Activity Monitor, and save that to send to us.

  • The ‘Console Logs’: You can find these by using the ‘Go To Folder’ option in the Finder, and going to “~/Library/Logs/VDMX5”, and send us any recent logs that seem like they correspond to the hang.

The last person who had an issue, also sent their EtreCheck log over, which you can also post in the forums. Surprisingly to most, there’s a lot of useful data in the logs that go beyond bad battery life.