*FREE* Screencasting Apps & Utilities [closed]

Answer 1

Jing's quite nice, provided you're only recording short clips. And the nice thing is that it can directly upload a recording or screenshot to screencast.com (you get some free space there if you're a jing user)

Answer 2

OK, as a followup, I got a chance to play with some of the tools suggested.

• Wink looked OK, but just didn't cut the mustard. I think the way it "records" is just really inefficient, audio that is layed over the top is also pretty poor due to the gaps the frames produce.
• CamStudio looks and works pretty damn good! The AVI output is great quality (both audio and video), I don't experience any lag while it is running. However - the flash conversion does not seem to work at all for me? I end up with either a white or bitty flash file? (read "useless") Any suggestions?

Answer 3

I see this asked often (on other sites) and I have some interest in the topic, so I compiled a little list (just added the last two by looking at the Related sidebar of this question...):

• Free Screen Recorder - http://www.nbxsoft.com/screen-recorder.php (Windows, AVI output)
• CamIt - http://camit.sourceforge.net/ (Windows, OSS, command line, WMV output)
• CamStudio - http://camstudio.org/ (Windows, OSS, AVI/Flash output)
• Wink - http://www.debugmode.com/wink/ (Windows/Linux, Flash output)
• Jing - http://www.jingproject.com/ (Mac/Windows, Flash output)
• Taksi - http://taksi.sourceforge.net/ (Windows, games/3D, OSS, AVI output (any codec))
• Fraps - http://www.fraps.com/ (Windows, real-time video capture, payware (free limited version?), WMV output)

Answer 4

There is also Capture Fox which is a Firefox add-on.

Answer 5

And some more things I have tried (and TBH I will probably stick with):

Using CamStudio to record the screencast in AVI, I had a really good quality output, but it was huge. I needed to get things re-encoded with enough quality to be uploaded to the web and actually readable.

So, I started looking for H.264 encoders and came across this great guide. This lead me on to the following:

• x264 - A great H.264 encoder (Command Line).
• SUPER - A awesome free encoder bit of kit. Does pretty much everything!

And the final result? My first ever screencast! (which I uploaded to blip.tv).

Hope this helps!

Answer 6

Only works with Windows and Linux (x86), but give Wink a go. It exports to flash directly so should be easy to integrate with your website.