Name for a good screen cast capture program?

[lionheart]

Hey all,

I would like to try 'making' some tutorials with a screen capture program like Arno uses. I have a large screen Apple iMac, coupled with a 42 inch LCD TV. I tried Screencast, and it put the system to its knees. I was wondering if someone might know of a good one, that runs fast, that has the neat little mouse options (not important but would be nice), and if affordable.



Many thanks,



Bill

 

[Jeff Smith]

Bill,

You might try Camasta... Don't know if it works with Mac though.

 

[lionheart]

Thanks Jeff,

I'll check that out.


On the iMac, I run in both Windows and OSX modes, so if it can run on WinXP, I am good to go.



Bill oh

 

[hairyspin]

Hello Bill,

I use HyperSnap - full screen, active window, selected region, cursor included or not, lots of options. Can also capture drop-down lists, which is how I get gmax hierarchies in bitmap format. Simply brilliant imo!

http://www.hyperionics.com

Should also say I got it for free - have a look at the "TrialPay" purchase option: I also got WinZip this way.

 

[lionheart]

Thanks Tom. I'll try that.

I tried the Demo of Camtasia and that is one brilliant program! Recorded in FS9 nicely. Some jitter, but far better then Jingo did. Jingo was a slide show... Grim..



Bill

 

[lionheart]

Ahh.. Tom, I think yours is only for screenshots. I need to go video, recording things in FS.

That is an excellent screenshot program. Tons of cool tools in it. For me, I use Screenshot Manager and Photoshop.


Looks like it may be Camtasia. Nice frame rates. Kind of expensive, but a very nice piece of software.



Bill

 

[PakMac]

For video and screenshots in FS I find Fraps to be the best. For video tutorials in MAX/GMAX then Camtasia is the tool to use.

David

 

[Georg Aubele]

CamStudio is freeware

 

[hairyspin]

Oh dear. My bad, I believe. The same outfit are doing HyperCam 2 for free - might be worth a look?

 

[lionheart]

Thanks guys. I'll check them out right now.


Bill

 

[littleMax]

For the recording of DirectX-Windows i still think fraps is the best. For the rest i also would an use Camtasia

 

[arno]

Hi,

I am using CamStudio for the latest videos I put on YouTube. When recording those videos I usually lower my screen resolution, else the text and mouse pointer are hard to see in the downsized sizes that YouTube shows by default.

 

[lionheart]

Well, I did some experimenting. I downloaded the CamStudio, found that it saved in movies (I thought it was just screencaptures).

I loaded it onto my secondary HD, so it could burn footage on a diff HD sort of like SLI. I do that with Fraps. I had refresh rates on Gmax getting real slow, so I lowered my resolutions till they recorded right in the movies (squashed in some), and then experimented on how to compress the AVI. So far, m4V (version of MPEG) is the best yet, a version from Apple/Quicktime. Its RICH in resolution, and the file size isnt too bad. WMV was grim, unreadable. MOV was a little better then that, but M4V was best. Apple TV setting, which also plays on devices.

The yellow 'surround' on the Cursor option totally stops the cursor, frame rates are like 0.005, lol.. Cant use that option.

I also downloaded the newest beta, which I think was Build 2.64.


Thanks Arno.

And its free! I cant believe it...




Bill

 

[lionheart]

Arno,

What do you compile your movies to when you finish recording in AVI format? What do you use to convert the AVI into the new format?




Bill

 

[arno]

Hi Bill,

I don't. I just record them as AVI and then I upload them to YouTube. YouTube then does some conversion for me.

 

[lionheart]

Ahh.. Roger. They do a good job as your videos are always crisp. I'll do that.


Arrigatto.

 

[Tejal Bernardo]

I've made a bunch flight videos and have used Fraps, for video is a little frame rate killer, but with Fsx what not, but for uploading (important), I've seen that wmv (windows movie maker) was my best option on behalve of quality/weight of the video in Mb, but the before version not the later "windows live movie maker", I had to search the entire internet to found the earlier version , .

 

[lionheart]

I did an entire tutorial on ULE today. Flawless! Went to compile it... Failed. arrgh. I think it was a bit too long.

 

[Tejal Bernardo]

Welcome to the filmmaker world ¡, what is ULE?

 

[arno]

Hi Bill,

For your info, a typical size for the video tutorials I make in AVI format is 100 to 150 MB. Most of them are 3 to 5 minutes in length, at a resolution of 1296x736 pixels. So that means uploading them to YouTube takes a few minutes, but I am indeed quite happy with the quality of them.