CamStudio Review

Cam Studio Review

You must have seen lot of videos on net giving information about their software or products specially for students who are doing some online course, where  they explain each and everything what’s  going on their screen to you. You must be wondering how they must have done that or how that video must have been created. Well , now you can also do it sitting at home by downloading CamStudio software. It is easily available on net free of cost.

Background:

The original CamStudio was released as an open source product by RenderSoft software in October 2001. The source code license was converted to the GNU General Public License in December 2002 with release 1.8.The Source code of versions 1.0, 1.4 and 2.0 are still available at SourceForge.

In 2003, the company was acquired by eHelp Corporation who owned a competing product called RoboDemo (now called Adobe Captivate). eHelp Corporation released an updated version as CamStudio 2.1 under a proprietary software license only and removed the ability to create SWFs. A succession of acquisitions led to the company being owned by Adobe.

Development of CamStudio 2.0 (the last open-source version) was resumed and released as free software again in September 2007 with the CamStudio 2.5 Beta 1 release. Accordingly, it was re-branded as CamStudio Open Source.

CamStudio 3 is a complete rewrite of the project in the pre-alpha stages of development as of April 19, 2010 and is seeking developers.

CamStudio is a screencasting program for Microsoft Windows released as free software. The software renders videos in an AVI format. It can also convert these AVIs into Flash Video format, embedded in SWF files. CamStudio is written in C++, but CamStudio 3 will be developed in C#.

It  is a great tool to create quick demos and screencasts on your computer in AVI and, if you wish, you can convert them into Flash format. CamStudio's features include options to highlight the cursor path during a recording session, automatic panning, and the ability to record with sound. An effects menu lets you annotate and append videos with comments, plus add a time stamp or watermark. CamStudio also captures screenshots if you set the frame rate, drag the mouse over the area for capture, and tap on the coordinates. While CamStudio doesn’t contain any fancy compressors, file types, or even a video editor, we found it easy to convert AVI files into MP4s, for example, using other free software. Overall, CamStudio is a great way to take advantage of open source software to produce both instructional videos and screen captures and share them with the world! 

CamStudio at a Glance

CamStudio is a compact little program with some nice features tucked away to maximize its allure. Installation is a breeze. However, when you launch CamStudio, a private product upgrade is offered that has not been verified by SourceForge. You’ll have to decide if you want to take a chance on CamStudio’s private upgrade or not. Yet, once you launch CamStudio, you’ll find several helpful features to make your screen recording journey quite enjoyable. For example, controls to record an entire screen or a portion of it, sound options, and the ability to add comments to videos and screen captures. CamStudio and its codec are released under GPL license.

Sometimes you need more than a still image from a screen. For cases where you need to show on-screen actions—for example, showing a tech-support specialist a sequence of actions that results in an error—you can turn to one of these inexpensive screen recorders.

CamStudio 2.0 (free) uses AVI format, but you can also convert movies to Flash (SWF) files without spending a penny! Like some of the other best things in life, CamStudio gives you flexibility. It lets you choose from a number of codecs and offers an auto-adjust setting for the frame rate; you can also set it to capture frames every 5 milliseconds up to once per minute. By either entering coordinates or dragging the mouse, you can select a region of the screen to be captured or just choose to capture the whole screen. CamStudio also offers sound recording with interleave capability, and an auto-pan feature makes video recording follow the mouse cursor. Abundant text annotation options round out this full-featured package.

There are many features of CamStudio. Some of them are listed as below:

·        Records your screen and audio to AVI files

It lets you capture your PC desktop activities into standard AVI video files. This advanced screen capturing software can capture anything you see on the computer screen, including the entire desktop, windows, menus, cursors, and even video with sound. Screen Movie Studio is able to record all these movements allowing you to save them and play them back.

·        Converts AVI into Flash

The flash video format is a video format defined by Adobe systems. Flash Video has been accepted as the default online video format by many sites. Notable users of it include Youtube, Hulu, VEVO,Yahoo! Video, metacafe, Reuters.com, and many other news providers. Flash video is viewable on most operating systems except iOS,via the Adome Flash Player and web browser plugin or one of several third-party programs.

Some files need to be conerted from AVI to flash which is accepted by all the above metioned sites and CamStudio is the best for it.

·        Highlights your cursor path for clarity

·        Automatically pans

Autopan will allow you to select a small region of your screen as the recording area, then the record region will scroll following your mouse to keep what's under your mouse visible.
We can do the second thing using time-lapse, but not normal recording because of the 2-gigabyte file size limit imposed by the AVI-1 specification that CamStudio presently still uses.

·        Records with sound

From the main menu, choose Options->Record audio from microphone.

When enabled, CamStudio will record your voice input from the microphone while it is capturing video. You need a sound card with an attached microphone to use this option.

·        Lets you add text comments to videos

Here are a few advantage  and disadvantages of using Camstudio;

A few advantages include:

• Its free of charge and easy to use. Just download from internet.

• You can add high quality screen captions with no jagged edges to your recording in seconds.

• You can record for a longer time than some other devices.

• It also has a built in help file.

• You can choose whether to record audio or not

A few of the disadvantages include:

• It is only available to windows users.

• Annotation tools are said to be awkward.

• There is no movie editing capabilities.

• It can only capture audio from microphone or speakers, not both at the same time.

• It lacks some features that are available within other screen capture programs.   

• If you are into games then you will notice that it lacks certain game-related features such as monitoring frames-per-second within the game which other capture tools contain

Over all if all you want to do is create 'How to ' videos, CamStudio is a handy little tool to help you do that.

How to generate income from CamStudio?

• If you are selling some software, you can make your own videos demonstrating that software .
• Suppose you have built a website selling things, you can make a video answering frequently asked questions.
• Video tutorials for schools  , colleges , companies can be made.
• You can use it to record a recurring problem with your computer so you can show technical support people
• You can use it to create video-based information products you can sell
• You can become attractive marketer online with more and more traffic.

GeneralQuestions: 

The website link above includes answers to many commonly asked questions about CamStudio. 

You will find information about video, audio, and performance using this application. 

Support: 

The website link above will take you to the CamStudio Support Forum which is an active community of fellow users.  

You can download different versions by clicking Version 2.7 Download 

Version 2.7 issues  will direct you to user forum

How to Speed Up Videos in CamStudio

You can record nearly anything that is displayed on your computer screen with the open source software from CamStudio. This includes movie streaming for playback later or recording keystrokes for use in creating training videos. Unfortunately, sometimes, recording or playback issues may occur. It is possible to adjust your software and hardware settings so that you can record and playback seamlessly. 

Instructions

o   Launch "CamStudio." Click "Options" from the CamStudio main menu, and then click "Program Options."

o   Click the box next to "Save Settings on Exit" to disable it.

o   Close CamStudio and then reopen the software.

o   Click "Options" from the CamStudio main menu, and then click "Program Options."

o   Click the box next to "Save Settings on Exit" to re-enable it. Although no changes were made, you are resetting the "Save Settings on Exit" option. You are verifying that there was not a glitch in the system. If CamStudio does not work as expected, go to the next step.

o   Click "Options" from the CamStudio main menu, and then click "Video Options."

o   Check the "Auto Adjust" box. Move the slider all the way to "Max Framerate" on the far left. Click  "OK." If CamStudio does not work as expected, go to the next step to lower the hardware acceleration.

o   Click the "Start" button on your computer and click "Control Panel."

Click "Appearance and Personalization," then "Adjust screen resolution," and then click "Advanced   Settings."

o   Click the "Troubleshoot" tab, then "Change settings," and then click "Continue."

o   Drag the "Hardware Acceleration" slider to "None." Click "OK."

Tips & Warnings

Verify if other program options are enabled or disabled if you continue to have problems. Start CamStudio, click "Options," and then click "Program Options." Check the boxes next to the features you want to enable. Remove the checks in boxes next to the features you want to disable. Note that "Capture translucent/layered windows" and "Record Thread Priority" are just a few of the features that may be enabled or disabled.

For more information, watch  the above video.

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