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Introduction
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These utilities are normally used for effectively making movies of computer screens. Such utilities are really useful in tech support, product documentation, presentations, or simply showing someone how to do something. |
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Discussion
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Product suggestions include Wink, Windows Media Encoder, AVI Screen Classic, iCord, and Krut Computer Recorder. Note that iCord is still in beta, and appears to have been abandoned as it has not been updated since 2003, and has the odd requirement of needing to change your screen resolution to 800x600. Jing, which is made by the same people who make CamStudio (but is presently free), puts a little icon on the top of your screen and allows you to take screen snapshots and make screen recordings that record to .swf format. The result can then be saved to your local machine, an FTP server, or put on screencast.com (100 meg free). I've started using this at work and it is amazing! Allows for audio while you record too. I tried each and they all work fine. I liked Wink most because of its ease of use, great flexibility, and powerful annotation features. Wink also allows audio to be embedded in the presentation, allowing you to narrate the viewer through a series of steps. It only produces movies in Flash or executable file formats, though. Wink is freeware for Windows 98 and later. If you need AVI format then Windows Media Encoder V9 will do the job elegantly. |
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Related Products and Links
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2.0 build 1050 
Unrestricted Freeware 
Windows 98 – Vista or various Linux distributions
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Editor
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This software category is in need of an editor. If you are interested in taking it over, please email Elizabeth, our editorial co-ordinator with a little bit about your background and in particular, whether you have any commercial affiliation with products in this category. If you are currently logged in, you can contact Elizabeth directly by clicking here, if not then click here. |
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Tags
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screen recording, free screen recording, free session recorder, screen session recorder, screen record software, freeware |
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the best one i've found is Debut Video Capture. saves in many formats, and you can record sound. it is very easy to use with a great interface.
http://www.nchsoftware.com/capture/index.html
I use freescreenrecorder for web chats, it captures the vid and saves in a few formats, including avi. Doesn't detect the sound though. OLption to capture or hide mouse cursor. Saved files can be quite big if they run over two minutes, but that may just be down to my AV filetype inexperience.
website:
http://www.nbxsoft.com/screen-recorder.php
G
BB Flashback Express 2 is now free:
http://www.bbsoftware.co.uk/bbflashbackexpress/home.aspx
http://www.bbsoftware.co.uk/BBFlashBack_FreePlayer.aspx
Would be nice to know which ones can produce a proper video of your screen, including cursor movement, plus voiceover, as a rolling film - like Camtasia.
Some don't, you only get still shots and have to stitch it. You can make a vid from that but it takes time stitching 200 stills then doing a voiceover. A one-shot app does the whole take in two minutes. But it is necessary to know which is which.
chris.p
Broadcaster Studio Pro is my favorite freeware for capturing video and converting to just about any format.
Yeah but - that isn't a screen capture app is it?
chris.p
Hi
It would be useful to add the dependencies of the various software you're recommending.
For example KRUT requires JAVA to be installed.
JING requires DOTNET FRAMEWORK 3.0
I was looking for something for a media centre machine with an intentionally slim install - I think this information is relevant as not everyone wants to download additional software in order to run a small app like a session recorder.
The product summaries for those products (at end of review) do state that under
"Additional Software Required"
I'm wondering if a program such as this exists: To any other program, it looks like a web/video cam and, as such, it can be used as a video input for Skype or anything else that wants to consume a video feed from a camera. But what it does - instead of using a camera - is grab the screen video and feed it back to whatever program is consuming the feed. So it would be like pointing a web cam at your screen, but it would be done internally via software, thereby accomplishing the same thing without a camera. Hope that explains it well enough. Does such an app exist?
we use wink in software QA to document bugs involving gui interaction and share videos between testers and developers. it is a great little utility program for what it does and very easy to use. . Highly recommended if you are working on win xp
The maximum record time on Jing is five minutes.
The authors say that anything longer is a tutorial and Camtasia is more appropriate. Interesting discussion on their website.
I actually am making tutorials but I am having audio problems with Wink.
Wink would be great but the audio quality is choppy. When I searched for solutions, I found that the Wink forum is out of service. Too bad because it seems like a great product otherwise.
Windows Media Encoder does not support Vista. They offer a fix to try and help, but it doesn't stay running for long. I tested it on my machine and it worked once, and then crashed and never recorded another session. After that, I restored my disk image to rid my system of the cancer of instability.
1. Camstudio
2. AVI Screen Classic
Although Wink is brilliantly easy to use and very flexible in itself the shortcoming it has for me is that I have been unable to convert its output swf files to anything that youtube can accept. I've tried using both Super and ffmpeg. There might be a 'magic' combination of settings for one or both of the programs that produces the results I need; I can't find it.
For games screen session I recommend Wegame as a great free alternative to FRAPS.