How to record PC sessions for Tutorial purposes?

[lorax26]

I haven't really done any research on this but have been curious lately. What is some good software to use that records your desktop sessions for training and/or tutorials?

 

[hkgonra]

Keeping my eye on this thread , I would like to know as well.

 

[grumperfish]

Camstudio works well for this purpose and is free.

 

[VinnyTAMU]

Keeping my eye on this thread , I would like to know as well.

Subscribed as well

 

[SiLeNtCovenant]

Same here! Wow... I'm surprised no one knows

 

[mage_x]

Camtasia Screen Recorder, or CamStudio which is free (as grumper posted).

 

[Atomic Dawg]

Here's what I use:

• CamStudio
• MSU Screen Capture Lossless Codec
• VirtualDub
• Sizer

All this software is free. The two big commercial packages are Camtasia and HyperCAM. You can easily get equal or better results using the free software I listed.

Here's the basic workflow:

1. Set Windows to 256 color and turn off hardware video accelaration. You can encode with a high color depth, but you'll end up with bigger files.
2. Use Sizer to pefectly postion the applications you want to record.
3. Configure CamStudio and record.
4. Trancode using VirtualDub and MSU Screen Capture Lossless Codec.

The downside to using the MSU Screen Capture Lossless Codec is the computer viewing the tutorial has to load this codec on their machine. The upside is that is produces files that are unbelievably small.

Check out this video on YouTube. The guy goes over configuring CamStudio and transcoding with VirtualDub and MSU Screen Capture Lossless Codec.

I should try to make a video tutorial of making a video tutorial. I wonder if I can run two instances of CamStudio? If I get the energy, I'll give it a try.

 

[Atomic Dawg]

OK...here ya go!

Atomic Dawg's Video Capture Tutorial.zip​

You need to download and install the MSU Screen Capture Lossless Codec to view it. If your monitor runs in 1280x1024, you can use Media Player in Full Screen mode to view it. If you run a higher resolution, you should view it using a player that doesn't scale and plays it at 100%. Camstudio includes two very small players that do not scale the video. If your resolution is less than 1280x1024, the video will look messed up. This is another good reason why you should record your tutorials at 800x600 using the Fixed Region option in Camstudio. Even if you run less than 1280x1024, you can still listen to the audio and make out what's going on.

The audio and video got a little out of sync. I'm not sure why but no big deal for the purpose of this video. I welcome comments, questions and suggestions.

Lastly, NO LAUGHING!

 

[Atomic Dawg]

The outline in my tutorial has a mistake. Under necessary programs, it lists the MSU Lossless Video Codec. That should be the MSU Screen Capture Lossless Codec.

Also, I fixed the sync problem. Under VirtualDub, go to Video/Frame Rate... and under "Source rate adjustment", click "Change so video and audio durations match". Next, go to Audio and select "Full Processing mode". Click Audio again and select "Compression...". Choose "MPEG Layer-3" and choose "24 kBit/s, 22,050 Hz, Mono".

Not only did this fix the sync problem, the file size went from 16.1MBs to 12.3MBs! I'm just going to replace the file "linked to" in my previous post with this new, smaller file that plays in sync.

 

[eaglescouter]

Fraps

 

[Elif Tymes]

Our company uses GoToMeeting for training purposes over the interwebs.