Free Video Screen Capture Using CamStudio

I have tried many free video screen capture software products and believe CamStudio is one of the best ones if not THE best one. The things I like most about CamStudio as my free video screen capture tool is that it is free and it is open source. In this article I will share with you 5 things that I really like about CamStudio.

1. Different video formats.

There are several video formats to choose from with CamStudio. MPEG and DivX are just 2 of at least 8 different formats. Another thing that CamStudio has that I don't see very often with other free video screen capture tools is that CamStudio allows you to record sound. Basically whatever the sound is being played on the computer OR through the microphone will get recorded!

2. Add screen/video annotations.

With CamStudio, you can add writing that will display pretty much anywhere on the recorded region. There are pre-defined templates for the annotations you can used to show writing in your captured video.

3. Specify custom region to record.

One thing that I really don't like about other free video screen capture products is their inability to specify the region of the computer screen you would like to capture. CamStudio lets you use a pre-defined region, a dynamic region you can select before recording, or the full screen. With a dynamic region selector, once you hit record, an icon will appear which you can drag to make a rectangle which will be the area of your computer screen that gets recorded.

4. Record as .avi or .swf.

With CamStudio, you can record the video as .avi or .swf output. I usually use .swf because those are very easy to embed in web pages. There is also a built-in SWF Producer in CamStudio that will convert any .avi file to a .swf file! I have found the .avi file size to be much larger than the .swf file size so if you are looking to record the screen and put it on a web page, I would use the .swf producer or record directly as an .swf file.

5. Assign shortcut keys to different operations.

The fact that CamStudio allows you to assign shortcut keys to different actions is just icing on the cake. I know of many other free video screen capture tools that require you to click on a button to record/pause/stop the capture. That usually required additional editing if you don't want that action to get recorded in the screen capture.

There are many reasons CamStudio is my free video screen capture tool of choice. If you are looking for a free tool to record your screen, I would highly suggest CamStudio.

You can download this free video screen capture tool from the official CamStudio site: http://camstudio.org/