What are some things people new to this program should do?

SabresMania

I am new to this program and I wonder if there is some things that should be set from the start. For example, what is the best video setting in terms of frames per millisecond if I want to record a video game? What mic settings (Hz, Kbs) should I set it to? Thank you for your help!

TerryBritton

Watch the videos. http://camstudio.org/forum/discussion/630/how-to-use-camstudio-video-tutorials-now-available-at-youtube#Item_2 (also see all the sticky posts up top.)

Terry

SabresMania

Okay, I watched them and they were of big help. Thanks!

DanYHKim

When I use CamStudio to make a software instructional video for streaming, I find that limiting my recording frame size to 800 x 600 gives me a good size that people can easily view. Recording the entire screen, then streaming to a small video frame, like the standard playback size on YouTube, makes the view much too small to see any details.

You may want to alter the aspect ratio for a wider frame, since that is now standard on YouTube, but still, the 600 dot height is a good rule of thumb.

I also find it useful to familiarize myself with the Windows PowerToy called ZoomIt. This is a program that zooms in to your screen, and is good to use if you need to show some particular detail. There's a similar program called Virtual Magnifying Glass that is also good for this. It may be easier to use than ZoomIt for a screencast (ZoomIt is better for in-classroom presentations).

TerryBritton

640X360 is still a good choice for the same reasons, DanYHKim.

And you can turn on the auto-pan feature so that your window follows your cursor around the screen, and set its pan speed.

Zoomit is a great tool, indeed, agreed!

Terry

acfalk

Dear Terry,
Why does CamStudio partition the video from the audio when the file size becomes a certain size? Do I have to necessarily manage this, or is there a setting I am missing?
AC Falk
Stans, Switzerland

TerryBritton

CamStudio was written using (and still uses) the AVI-1 specification, which limits file size to 2 gigabytes maximum or the program will crash and leave two files that have not been merged (and are very difficult in most cases to recover). Someday we will get enough donations to hire a programmer to tear into it and bring it up to the AVI-2 spec so we don't have that limitation any longer, but for now you must be careful. I like the Xvid video codec because I've never had that problem since I started using it.

Terry