Capturing desktop to video

[LC1104]

Is there a program that can capture what is on the desktop to video? I want to film a video where IM windows are shown and to show typing, I would rather not capture every letter typed as a screenshot. THanks!

jason

[Brian Ellis]

Yes, there are plenty of them varying in price from zero to bloody expensive. All you have to do to find them is to Google "screen capture video". Some of them will convert to AVI but some will use an incompatible home-brew file type/codec. At least one has the latter but a converter to AVI, as well. Many of the paying ones have free trial versions, either time-bombed or with a text across it.

HOWEVER, and it is a HUGEhowever, I haven't found one which is really satisfactory if you have objects moving on the screen. I tried to convert a slide show with various transitions, animations and video clips into video. They were all worse than hopeless (I tried four before my patience ran out). They may be OK just to capture slow typing, though, but don't expect the timing to be regular.

[Duty]

My girlfriend has been playing with Camtasia. It seems to be focused on helping teachers create tutorials in using computers. I think it is free as well.

http://www.techsmith.com

Jeff

[Brian Ellis]

Camtasia was one of the four I tried. NBG for what I wanted it to do.

[Duty]

Oh, sorry.

Jeff

[Brian Ellis]

No need to be sorry, Jeff. I think one of the basic problems is that these proggies usually capture at an unfixed rate, say between 10 and 15 fps. If the screen refresh is, say, 75, it means there are anything between 5 and 7.5 screens between two consecutive captures, according to the length of time to complete a capture. At the best, this gives the appearance as jerky.