Record the activity on your screen with CamStudio

For different reasons, it can be that we need to do an animated capture of the screen. To do it, we can use a very simple program like CamStudio, which will easily let us achieve our goal.

Before starting the recording, we’ll define the area to record, how we want the mouse pointer to be viewed and if we’ll incorporate sound or not to the CamStudio capture.

To determine the area we need to click on the “Region” menu and 3 options will appear. We select the one we prefer to use, “Region” will let us define it right before starting the recording, “Fixed Region” establishes a fixed recording area, and “Full Screen” records the whole screen. To make the area move with the mouse pointer while we are recording, we access to the “Options” menu and we select the option “Enable Autospan”. By going to Options>Autospan Speed, we can define the reaction speed to the CamStudio movement.

Then we’ll configure how the mouse will look like during the recording. To do it, we access to the “Options” menu and we click on “Cursor Options”. On the emerging window we’ll select if we want the cursor to be seen, its style and if we want it to be highlighted with any geometrical form.

To define CamStudio’s audio recording parameters, we need to go to the “Options” menu and there will be 3 options. To be on mute we need to select “Do not record audio”, to record from the microphone “Record audio microphone” and to record what comes out from the speakers “Record from Speakers”.

Once we’ve done all this, we need to click on the button with the red circle to start recording. During it, we’ll be able to stop it, make changes and continue if we stop it using the pause button. We need to pay special attention to the fact that we have to pause, because by pressing “Stop”, CamStudio saves the file and we won’t be able to edit it.

To add explanatory sheets during the recording, we need to pause in the moment we want to insert it. Once paused, we can act with freedom. We click on the “Tools” menu and access to “Screen Annotations”. On the window that opens up, we’ll define on the “Shapes” eyelash, the shape of the text sheet to be included by double clicking it. Once it’s created, we’ll be able to edit its content doing a click with the right button. We place it where we want and we reload the recording pressing the red button. When we don’t need the sheet anymore, we pause again and right click, and select “Close”.

When we finish the recording, we need to press the blue button to end, getting a window which asks if we want to record. We click on “Yes” and indicate CamStudio the location of the AVI file. Then we’ll be able to visualize the capture on any of the video players that supports this format.

CamStudio: a great tool to do screen captures on video

When we need to do a report of all our activities on screen, being it for control or for an explanatory video, a good program that can help us is CamStudio. This complete application allows us to record image as well as sound, and even incorporating explanatory sheets to our works.

Once the program is open, we’ll see that it opens on a little window where we’ll find the menu bar and a series of buttons. To be able to record, we need to press the button with the red circle, the one next to it pauses the recording and the one which is a blue square will end the recording.

However, before starting recording, it would be good if we take a look at the multiple options and possibilities that this program offers. As regard the area of the screen that we want to capture, we can define it from the menu “Region”.

CamStudio allows us to take the “Full Screen”, a “Fixed Region” or an area to be defined at the moment of initiating the capture (“Region”). Moreover, if we select the option on the menu “Options>Enable Autopan”, the defined area will move following the mouse pointer, being able to define the segment speed from “Options>Autopan Speed”.

An interesting option with which CamStudio counts, especially if we’ll use it to perform control activities, is that we can define the time that goes by between frames, being able to separate them up to one minute from one another. This configuration option can be found in “Options>Video Options”.

CamStudio also lets us incorporate audio to our captures. This can be done through a microphone (selecting the option “Options>Record audio from microphone”) or the sound recorded from our speakers (selecting the option “Options>Record audio from speakers”). We can also cancel this function selecting “Options>Do not record audio”.

To create educational or explicative videos, CamStudio counts with a series of very useful tolls. For example, by accessing “Options>Cursor Options”, we’ll be able to define if we want the cursor to be hidden, change it for a different one or even have a geometrical form highlighting it. On the other hand, we’ll be able to generate sheets and insert them during the capture. We access the menu “Tools>Screen Annotations” and there we select the predefined forms and then the required content, saving them clicking on “Next Layout”, what will allow having them available during the creation of the capture, accessing to them from the same menu but from the eyelash “Layout” or with the key shortcuts. This useful program also allows us to insert comments taken with our webcam from “Tools>Video Annotations”.

Finally, an important option that CamStudio brings is being able to define key shortcuts (we can have access to this from “Options>Keyboard Shortcuts”). This is very useful as it will allow us to quickly pause the recording, insert a sheet, and continue without the need to go each time to CamStudio panel.

This program, without a doubt, is an excellent assistant when doing animated screen captures, counting with a lot of options that will save us hours of post-edition and to which we can access very easily and fast.