Is it easier to screen record Prime Video on Mac or Windows? (lemmy.cafe)

submitted 10 hours ago by froth@lemmy.cafe to c/piracy@lemmy.dbzer0.com

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I’m currently using windows but my Prime streams stutter a lot and are all jittery. it’s really annoying. So I’m wondering if getting a mac mini or something a bit more powerful than my PC would help.

Obviously there are DRM issues, those can be fixed on windows by turning off Hardware Acceleration in my browser. Is it easy to get around DRM on Mac?

Anyone have any experience or know where I can go to get help/talk about it with people?

System Specs: Intel Core i5 10400 GTX 1050 TI 16gb Ram 500gb SSD (for OS) and another 1tb SSD for recordings

I use Bandicam to record my Edge browser. Prime is a bit smoother when I make sure my PC is not running on efficiency mode, but still stutters a bit.

Netflix and Apple TV only run in 720p or worse, can't get them to get to 1080p which is my target. I have to use a 4k monitor to get Prime to play at 1080p.

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[-] gonzo-rand19@moist.catsweat.com 6 points 4 hours ago

Why bother with screen recording Prime when you could torrent it? I feel like I'm missing something.

[-] Xanza@lemm.ee 11 points 5 hours ago

Probably just easier to nix the Prime subscription and just download scene releases... Most of them are h265 these days and are released same day as on Prime.

I just checked a list of "new to prime" and my tracker and they were all there. No reason to give money to Amazon.

[-] otto@sh.itjust.works 2 points 5 hours ago

There is an app called playon which allows you to record shows from streaming services. It has both a Mac and a Windows version.

[-] Ebby@lemmy.ssba.com 5 points 9 hours ago

That PC should be able to play a stream just fine. I'd check if there background apps hogging resources and make sure hardware acceleration is active. Scale the resolution down (no point of upscaling 1080p content) and record to a lower resource intensive format, perhaps h.264 vs h 265/HEVC.

[-] froth@lemmy.cafe 2 points 9 hours ago

I actually only use the PC for recording content so no other tasks are active aside from Bandicam which is recording the stream.

If I enable Hardware Acceleration then Bandicam records a "black box" the content streaming from Prime Video is protected and I can't capture it. So that has to be turned off in order for this to work. Although it does seem to help the stuttering... I am using h.264 as well with NVENC from the GTX 1050 TI.

Do you know of another way to get around DRM and be able to screen record content from sites like Amazon Prime Video?

[-] thanksforallthefish@literature.cafe 5 points 6 hours ago

Try using OBS for the screen capture, it should work with hardware acceleration on. Install on yr existing windows system.

If not try downloading a linux mint iso and burning that to a usb (instructions on the mint homepage). It's a "live" boot you can just boot off it and try without installing. I'm fairly sure you can boot it, install OBS on it and then test a screen capture (ie open a browser, start prime, open obs and start a screen capture). Be aware you've made a bottleneck on the USB (slow throughput compared to ssd) so you won't go long before it chokes through not being able to write fast enough. Proof of concept.

However if it works then look at installing a dual boot mint next to windows a full install will use the hard drive and not bottleneck

Basically, it's free and it won't break anything to try the live disk. If it works it'll be a lot cheaper than buying a whole extra Mac

[-] froth@lemmy.cafe 2 points 6 hours ago

That's an interesting idea, I will give it a try and see if it works and report back here.

[-] Ebby@lemmy.ssba.com 2 points 9 hours ago

Ah bummer. That's most of my software tricks. I'd break out my hardware equipment next step, but that's pricy.

[-] froth@lemmy.cafe 1 points 9 hours ago

All good, bummer it's so difficult.

By hardware equipment do you mean just a stronger CPU / GPU?

[-] Ebby@lemmy.ssba.com 3 points 8 hours ago* (last edited 8 hours ago)

Since you can't use GPU for rendering or recording, a faster CPU couldn't hurt and is probably your best bet, but it isn't really thaaaat old. (There being no other hardware bottlenecks of course)

There are, cough cough I think, ways to decrypt and record HDCP protected streams but I'd imagine you'd have to have a render unit and recording unit in your setup. Sort of complicated.

[-] froth@lemmy.cafe 1 points 7 hours ago

If anyone knows if it's easy to get around HDCP protected streams and record them on a Mac that would be awesome to know. I'm considering purchasing a mac mini and trying it on MacOS...