Review
on CAM STUDIO:
The original CAM STUDIO 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 Source-Forge.
In 2003, the
company was acquired by eHelp Corporation who owned a competing product called Robo Demo now called “Adobe Captivate” eHelp Corporation
released an updated version as CAM STUDIO 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 CAM
STUDIO 2.0 (the last open-source version) was resumed and released as free
software again in September 2007 with the CAM STUDIO 2.5 Beta 1 release.
Accordingly, it was re-branded as CAM STUDIO Open Source.
CAM STUDIO 3 is
a total rewrite
of the project in the pre-alpha stages of development as of April 19, 2010[and
is seeking developers.]
There have been
ongoing reports about malicious code contained in some binaries of the software. In January 2014,
the binary on the webpage |
www.CAM STUDIO.org was reported to be infected with the
trojan Artemis! 0FEA2B12900D
This edit from
Nick Smith, the "caretaker" of CAM STUDIO, "to finance future
development, CAM STUDIO has chosen to use an ad-supported installer offering
other free software during the installation process.
Regardless of what AV software is reporting, CAM STUDIO unequivocally is *not*
infected with a trojan or any other malicious software. It is possible that
software offered through via the installer could be triggering the alert, but CAM STUDIO and the
installer are both clean."
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.
A screencast is a narrated explanation of
activity on a computer screen, usually to explain how to perform a
particular task in a computer program or on a website. You can create
screencasts with many different software tools and Web services. This article
will share some tips from my own experiences teaching screen casting using
CamStudio Open Source, a free Windows program.
Screen casting
is an art. When done right, it's a thing of beauty. Let me start off sharing a
screencast created by two graduate students, Ms. Shuer and Ms. Johnston, in an
educational technology class at American University, in Washington
DC. These screencast makers are high school math teachers in the District of
Columbia public schools. The screencast they created for my class, the first
screencast they ever made, is exemplary. They used CamStudio to create it.
You can
view this six minute screencast directly from the Internet Archive, where it
is hosted for free. Click anywhere on the screencast's opening screen to start
the screencast. Turn up the volume on your computer, too.
Not only
does this screencast provide value to students at the school where these
teachers teach, it provides value to students anywhere in the world with an
Internet connection. This screencast also reveals just how smart these teachers
are. Both teachers know Excel inside and out, and have an uncanny ability to
share that knowledge. Want to try your hand at using CamStudio? These instructions
by Philip Cosper are
excellent. Scroll down to the PDF file for CamStudio instructions.
Here are
some useful tips for creating screencasts using CamStudio. Under video settings, choose the AVI video format. The SWF
file format results in screencasts of small file size, but far too blurred to
my eye. The AVI file size will be much larger than the SWF file size, but large
files are no longer a drawback these days.
YouTube lets you upload files as large as 2
gigabytes, and YouTube will compress the video down to a manageable file size.
The Graphing in Excel screencast was a total of 330 megabytes when originally
created in AVI format., after first converting the file with an easy-to-use Windows
video conversion program called Prism Video
Converter.
After I
compressed the AVI file, the resulting screencast was about 30 megabytes in
file size, with almost no discernable loss of clarity of video in the file. My
grad students used a regular analogue headset with a mini microphone jack to
plug into the Dell desktop
computer they used to create their screencast. Better quality audio can be
obtained using a USB microphone such as that on the Logitech Clear-Chat USB
headset.
One of the best microphones for screen casting is the Samson C03U. You
can hear the very high sound quality of the Samson C03U half
way through this YouTube video. These days
my favorite microphone for screen casting is the Blue Snowball, which gives
rather clear audio at an affordable price. I created this Amazon
video book review with my Blue
Snowball microphone.
Incidentally,
did you notice how the Graphing in Excel screencast above was planned, but not
overly rehearsed? Having spontaneity in your screencast can make
it more interesting to watch. Here is one of my own screencasts,
about Google Sketch-Up, where I planned the general screencast, but
improvised quite a bit, too.
It's important to note that CamStudio does not
record your microphone audio as a default setting. You need to turn on this
setting for your voice to be recorded. To do that, simply choose that setting
and you'll see the check mark appear.
Start off
creating some short screencasts so that you can get a hang of the process.
Remember to switch off the ringer on your cell phone before starting to record. And find a
nice quiet location, where you won't be interrupted. If you live in a house
with young kids, late at night is an ideal time to create your screencasts. If
you're recording a screencast at a noisy school, one quiet place may be a
parked car in the parking lot.
An easy
first-screen casting project is to record your voice narrating a PowerPoint or
OpenOffice presentation, as in this CamStudio experiment I did using OpenOffice
Presenter. All kinds
of digital storytelling are possible when you master these skills. Check out
this short YouTube
video I created using CamStudio, back in 2007.
Looking for
clip art to use in your screencasts? Your first stop should be the public
domain clip art at the Open Clip
Art Library.
You can also legally use Creative-Commons
images that you find on Flickr. Search for a photo topic on Flickr, and then
use Advanced Search to narrow down the search to Creative Commons images.
Once you've created your
education-related screencast, you'll want to share it with educators in your
area as well as educators on the Internet. One of the best ways of doing so is
by tweeting about your screencast and using the Twitter hashtag #screencast.
People in other states and countries who monitor that hashtag will be able to
enjoy the fruits of your labor. And who knows, they might get inspired to
create a screencast that is valuable to your own students.
If you'd like to document your
experience creating your screencast, you can do so on a blog or wiki, including
a link to the screencast or embedding the screencast into your blog by copying
and pasting the embed code.
Lastly, if
you'd like learn all there is to know about screen casting, the newly created
guidebook called The Screen casting Handbook, by Ian
Oswald, is the most complete work in this field. Ian is the cofounder of the “Show Me Do screen casting website”, where you can
find screencasts on many topics.
This review is for the 2.0 , and like I said it can be
obtained at the CamStudio site
I tested the 2.0 in XP , Vista , and Windows 7-64bit , and it works perfectly in every one of my machines .
First of all if you want a very good video you need to also install CamStudios lossless codec (available at their site).
I think that was the gripe of a lot of users , but with this codec the picture really sharpens up.
This Codec will install in XP and Vista but not Windows 7 , but no problem because I'll tell you what to use in 7 also.
I tested the 2.0 in XP , Vista , and Windows 7-64bit , and it works perfectly in every one of my machines .
First of all if you want a very good video you need to also install CamStudios lossless codec (available at their site).
I think that was the gripe of a lot of users , but with this codec the picture really sharpens up.
This Codec will install in XP and Vista but not Windows 7 , but no problem because I'll tell you what to use in 7 also.
Cons
NONE if we're talking CamStudio 2.0 , this new beta is
for the birds.
Summary
OK I ran out of space up there so I'll spell out what to
use in each OS.
First : This comes with several codecs already installed ,and I would never use the Microsoft video 1 codec , and the reason being is that it creates a Huge file .
On XP and Vista = Use the lossless codec if you want a better quality video but a slightly bigger file, of if you'd like a smaller file with a decent picture use the Cinepak codec by radius (also pre-installed in 2.0 )
On Windows 7 64bit = I stick with the Cinepak codec ,it does a pretty good job and the file isn't huge.
You can use the Microsoft video 1 codec but it will be a much larger file.
The reason I don't use the lossless codec here is because it won't install in Windows7 64bit.
Now here's the best news of all, and partially why I say CamStudio is the Best to use.
CamStudio WILL NOT install a Toolbar or try to highjack your home page , and if you read my other reviews here about a couple of the more popular video recorders you'll see what a pain in the butt they are and the massive problems one in particular causes.
I won't mention the names here but my reviews are available to see here at C/Net.
Cam Studio 2.0 is Safe , it's hassle free , and the company won't disrespect you by highjacking your friggin home page or by installing a hated and un needed tool bar.
And one more thing , in a few reviews about other Video recorders it made it sound like all you had to do was click no and they wouldn't install. BS
First : This comes with several codecs already installed ,and I would never use the Microsoft video 1 codec , and the reason being is that it creates a Huge file .
On XP and Vista = Use the lossless codec if you want a better quality video but a slightly bigger file, of if you'd like a smaller file with a decent picture use the Cinepak codec by radius (also pre-installed in 2.0 )
On Windows 7 64bit = I stick with the Cinepak codec ,it does a pretty good job and the file isn't huge.
You can use the Microsoft video 1 codec but it will be a much larger file.
The reason I don't use the lossless codec here is because it won't install in Windows7 64bit.
Now here's the best news of all, and partially why I say CamStudio is the Best to use.
CamStudio WILL NOT install a Toolbar or try to highjack your home page , and if you read my other reviews here about a couple of the more popular video recorders you'll see what a pain in the butt they are and the massive problems one in particular causes.
I won't mention the names here but my reviews are available to see here at C/Net.
Cam Studio 2.0 is Safe , it's hassle free , and the company won't disrespect you by highjacking your friggin home page or by installing a hated and un needed tool bar.
And one more thing , in a few reviews about other Video recorders it made it sound like all you had to do was click no and they wouldn't install. BS
We'll give it to you straight. You won't find a zoom feature, a
huge variety of compressors or file types, or a video editor in the free
CamStudio 2.5 (beta). What you will find is a small, sturdy screencast app that
faithfully records your PC in AVI and SWF (Flash) formats. There are many fine
features in the intuitive, open source app to recommend it, including an option
to highlight the cursor path during a recording session, automatically pan, and
record with sound. A brand-new effects menu scoops on the ability to annotate
and append videos with comments, a time stamp, and a territorial watermark.
Just don't get too crazy all at once.
There's clearly a long way to go for CamStudio
to catch up with commercial rivals--most grumble-worthy is the lack of file
type support outside AVI and SWF files and the absent editor for trimming,
splicing, and optimizing a video. If those aren't strong concerns, this
freebie, with its steady playback and modicum of audio and video settings
options, will provide the necessary tools for creating quick demos and
screencasts.
Submit your web
