Rating and comments for CamStudio

Looked at Camtasia (too costly), Captivate (weak at audio) and now I finally find CamStudio. Yes, it doesn't have all the extras that Captivate has but it does the key features really well (full screen capture with little ghosting when moving about). It also auto pans as you move the mouse - brilliant. Haven't tested the audio yet. Conversion to SWF works but with some noticeable loss of quality (especially in panning). Upping to 32bit conversion don't help. More worringly though is file size. 3 minutes takes 8mb SWF and 46Mb AVI. This doesn't scale well for my needs.
Still this is free and great for the money!

At first:
This is a very great program, like John Kelleher describes, but like also mentioned, it records in too large filesizes.
However, this might because you have the standard codec (Microsoft Video 1), try a different one, for example Techsmith Screen Capture Codec, and reduce the framerate (lesser quality).

My conclusion:
CamStudio is a very, very good screenrecording program.
There can be some little bugs, but I ain't saw them yet, meaning that if you just want to record (with a smaller filesize), and above all: free, CamStudio is the program which can't be not on your hard drive.
I use it happily for a while now.

Seems to have a slower capture rate (FPS wise) than other programs. If you just want to demo a desktop application though, it works fine.

It gets the job done.

My generated AVI files didn't work. Flash generation is rather slow. But since it is free I rate it with 3 stars.

Hi I think it's a great tool. there are bugs, but I guess, if we the community pays a donation of USD 10 per year we will be able to support the movement and overcome the minor bugs that there are.

Its a good alternative to camtasia

Having big problems. I am turning the recording on and off as part of recording some lesson plans demonstrating the use of an embedded system development environment. I end up generating some longish recording.

Seems to do the AVI record okay (but not yet checked), but when converting to SWF, then the last part of the file is just RED screen, so I presume something is being overwritten.

I have also got messages about needing to string the .swf together as the avi file is too big -- how that does not seem to work

Am changing the options so that keeps the .avi file after conversion and will see if I can convert the file a different way.

Trouble is, don't know how much is recorded satisfactorily, so am wasting a fair amount of time having to do the lesson again.

Very nice tool compared to the hefty priced Camtasia!!!

The longer the video (up to 4:30, 5:00 minutes) the crappier the sound quality gets

I was looking for the tool that will help me preparing video manuals. Howeve, captions cannot bi added or deleted once video is finished. So, your screenplay better be right from the start, or else you will have t redo whole video.

Not only was the recording sub-par, but this program installed about 5 other random junkware programs onto my computer, changed the homepage on all of my browsers, and then installed toolbars and extensions onto them.