This forum software has now been archived into static HTML page (i.e. it does not function as a working forum anymore, so you cannot login.)
In due course a new forum will be available to help support newer CamStudio versions.
Sorry for the inconvenience and thank you for your patience.
In due course a new forum will be available to help support newer CamStudio versions.
Sorry for the inconvenience and thank you for your patience.
Terry's CamStudio Review at our Sourceforge page
(Found at https://sourceforge.net/projects/camstudio/reviews/ - this also appears at http://screencasttutorial.org/45/terrys-camstudio-review-372)
I love this program so much, I've volunteered to help in the forums and added several of the answers to my own blog at http://screencasttutorial.org where I try to compile the best stuff.
There are work-arounds for the "Record From Speakers" failure on several machines - most notably using the "Record from Microphone" settings, and then changing the default input device in one's audio control panel. YouTube has vids on this for XP, Vista and Win 7, so look around.
There are beta versions for this program that add nice features, though not all codecs appear for every version, for some strange reason. (as of r294).
The latest "hot find" is that the Lagarith Lossless Codec (http://lags.leetcode.net/codec.html) seems to record game-play and animated Google Earth tours well - it is the only codec that accomplishes these feats this well in CamStudio. Be forewarned, however, that this is not a video file-size saver -- with 32-bit display video, you'll reach the AVI 2 gigabyte limit in only 575 seconds (9.5 minutes). In 16-bit display video, you'll get 667 seconds (11 minutes). I'd suggest setting the "Options/Automatically Stop Recording" setting accordingly to avoid creating a useless recording effort!
People can use tools such as Microsoft's free "ZoomIt" for zoom - one feature missing in the program itself (http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb897434). I like to use "Sizer" (http://www.brianapps.net/sizer/) for window-size presets, as the beta versions permit recording a window. The early betas had a one-pixel-over measurement error you'll have to work around (2.5 had this first). CamStudio has no problem recording 1280X720HD video on a fast enough machine, but slower machines should settle for 854X480 with auto-pan turned on to get decent fps rates while recording.
Amazing program for recording Microsoft Powerpoint, Open Office Impress or Google Presentation slides, Web-browser activity and program operations for either demos or instruction, as well as being useful for creating sales videos for Internet Marketing purposes.
Audio is the big size-bloater that can quickly cause over-running the AVI spec's built-in 2-gigabyte size limit - choose a mono mode sampling at less than 44.1KHz (22KHz sounds fine). Keep "Capture Frame Every" multiplied times "Playback Rate" summed to 1000ms (1 sec) to keep audio sync intact. If possible, record at 16-bit or 24-bit video display depth to save some file size, and prepare via tests to discover your maximum available time at the settings you choose - 2 Gigabytes is a pretty hard limit due to the AVI Spec, but we've seen some over-runs fixed by VirtualDub in "Direct Streaming Copy" video mode (http://www.virtualdub.org/index.html).
I've been limiting my recordings to 15-minute segments for YouTube anyway. Anyone trying to record whole 3-hour webinars without occasionally stopping/saving/restarting WILL get burned, just so you know... try running two instances of 2.0 (or 2.0 and a beta version) concurrently so you can record overlapping takes.
Terry
I love this program so much, I've volunteered to help in the forums and added several of the answers to my own blog at http://screencasttutorial.org where I try to compile the best stuff.
There are work-arounds for the "Record From Speakers" failure on several machines - most notably using the "Record from Microphone" settings, and then changing the default input device in one's audio control panel. YouTube has vids on this for XP, Vista and Win 7, so look around.
There are beta versions for this program that add nice features, though not all codecs appear for every version, for some strange reason. (as of r294).
The latest "hot find" is that the Lagarith Lossless Codec (http://lags.leetcode.net/codec.html) seems to record game-play and animated Google Earth tours well - it is the only codec that accomplishes these feats this well in CamStudio. Be forewarned, however, that this is not a video file-size saver -- with 32-bit display video, you'll reach the AVI 2 gigabyte limit in only 575 seconds (9.5 minutes). In 16-bit display video, you'll get 667 seconds (11 minutes). I'd suggest setting the "Options/Automatically Stop Recording" setting accordingly to avoid creating a useless recording effort!
People can use tools such as Microsoft's free "ZoomIt" for zoom - one feature missing in the program itself (http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb897434). I like to use "Sizer" (http://www.brianapps.net/sizer/) for window-size presets, as the beta versions permit recording a window. The early betas had a one-pixel-over measurement error you'll have to work around (2.5 had this first). CamStudio has no problem recording 1280X720HD video on a fast enough machine, but slower machines should settle for 854X480 with auto-pan turned on to get decent fps rates while recording.
Amazing program for recording Microsoft Powerpoint, Open Office Impress or Google Presentation slides, Web-browser activity and program operations for either demos or instruction, as well as being useful for creating sales videos for Internet Marketing purposes.
Audio is the big size-bloater that can quickly cause over-running the AVI spec's built-in 2-gigabyte size limit - choose a mono mode sampling at less than 44.1KHz (22KHz sounds fine). Keep "Capture Frame Every" multiplied times "Playback Rate" summed to 1000ms (1 sec) to keep audio sync intact. If possible, record at 16-bit or 24-bit video display depth to save some file size, and prepare via tests to discover your maximum available time at the settings you choose - 2 Gigabytes is a pretty hard limit due to the AVI Spec, but we've seen some over-runs fixed by VirtualDub in "Direct Streaming Copy" video mode (http://www.virtualdub.org/index.html).
I've been limiting my recordings to 15-minute segments for YouTube anyway. Anyone trying to record whole 3-hour webinars without occasionally stopping/saving/restarting WILL get burned, just so you know... try running two instances of 2.0 (or 2.0 and a beta version) concurrently so you can record overlapping takes.
Terry