Recording

The Administrative Account User can click on the Edit button to view and/or edit any of these configuration options in the Recording subsection.

Use the Recordings tab of the General Settings Properties window to specify the following parameters:

The directory where the PC-Duo RAS server saves Host recordings.
When a checkpoint is generated during a recording.
The limits for how large, long, and old a recorded session can be.
Screen capture preferences for Gateway-based connections can over-ride the Host Settings if desired

To specify the location where the PC-Duo RAS server saves recorded sessions, type a full path in the Recording File Directory text box. The default is the Data\Recordings subdirectory of the installation directory. In the Master Playback window, when you position the slider forward or backward within a recording, the playback must resume from the nearest checkpoint, which provides a complete picture of the Host screen. The more checkpoints you have within a recording, the quicker it is to locate a particular point within the recording. However, adding too many checkpoints can drastically increase network traffic and cause the recording files to become very large.

To set the Automatic Checkpoint Generation, type a value for the following settings:

The Minimum data size (KB) before criteria checked field specifies how much screen data must be generated in a recording before the PC-Duo Gateway will begin to check the other two Automatic Checkpoint criteria.
The Maximum data size (KB) after minimum field specifies the largest amount of data than can be recorded before the next checkpoint must be generated.
The Maximum duration (seconds) after minimum field specifies the longest amount of time that a recording can go before the next checkpoint must be generated.

To set the Limits for a recorded session, type a value for the following settings:

The Maximum recorded session size (KB) field specifies the largest file size for a recording.
The Maximum recorded session duration (hours) field specifies the longest amount of time that a recording can last.
The Automatically delete sessions older than (hours) field specifies how old a recording can be before it is deleted. Recordings which exceed this limit are deleted according to the schedule you specify in the Schedule tab. Valid values are 0, to disable the automatic deletion of recordings, or a number between 1 and 87600 (10 years in hours).

To set Screen Capture Preferences, choose one of the following settings:

By default, the Gateway will defer to the screen capture preferences selected by the Host, so the option Use Host settings for screen capture preferences will be set (see Screen tab in PC-Duo Host Guide for more information).
If you prefer to override the Host preferences, select Override Host settings as follows: and choose one of the following two options:

- Prefer kernel mode, but use this profile for user mode will attempt to use kernel mode drivers to capture screen data on Host, as long as kernel mode drivers are available.

- Prefer user mode, and use this profile will use user mode code to capture screen data on Host and will use the bandwidth throttling settings according to the "user mode profile" that can be accessed by pressing Configure... The description for the currently selected user mode profile will appear as a text field next to the Configure... button (for example, "High Quality/High Bandwidth").

Bandwidth throttling

The user-mode screen capture technology has the ability to "throttle" itself to a restricted amount of bandwidth. This may be preferable when responsiveness and throughput are more important than screen quality, particularly over low-bandwidth connections. The amount of throttling is controlled by parameters set in a "user mode profile". The “Configure…” button on the Screen tab brings up a dialog that allows the end-user to select a hard-coded, predefined configuration, or to specify a custom configuration.

Each "user mode profile” consists of the following information:

Description string
Image type (enumeration, current default is JPEG)
Color depth (numeric value 6-24 bits per pixel (bpp) for Hextile; percentage of highest quality for JPEG)
Polling frequencies (three values -- Capture, Foreground, and Background, in milliseconds). Note however that the UI will display these values on a scale of 1 to 10, with 1 being the least aggressive (longest time), and 10 being the most aggressive (shortest time). The underlying API and settings storage will have the raw millisecond values.
Bandwidth limit (numeric value 20 KB/sec to unlimited)

The Host settings are preconfigured with the following four profiles:

Profile Setting	High Quality & Bandwidth	Medium	Medium Low	Low
Description	High Quality	Medium	Medium Low (for screen recording)	Low (for screen recording)
Image Type	Hextile	Hextile	JPEG	JPEG
Color Depth	24 bpp	15 bpp	85%	75%
Capture Rate	8	8	8	8
Foreground	10	8	6	4
Background	6	4	2	1
Bandwidth Limit	Unlimited	100 KB/sec	60 Kbyte/sec	30 Kbyte/sec

The Medium-Low and Low profiles are appropriate for high volume screen recording environments, when screen quality can be traded off for lower screen capture rates and smaller screen recording file sizes. You can create your own custom user mode profile by selecting [Custom] from the dropdown list and specifying your desired parameters.