Cam Studio

What is CamStudio?

CamStudio is an open-source screen casting  program for Microsoft Windows released as free software. It is able to record all screen and audio activity on your computer and create industry-standard Audio Video Interleaved (AVI) video files and using its built-in Small Web Format (SWF) Producer can turn those AVIs into lean, mean, bandwidth-friendly Streaming Flash videos (SWFs). CamStudio is written in C++. The program previously distributed malware and harmful viruses via the installer.

Though there is software called Camtasia Studio similar to Cam Studio. Camtasia Studio is one of the most popular screen-capture recording applications; however, it costs around $299. No doubt, Camtasia Studio a robust platform to record online video and includes a lot of functionality, but not everyone can afford it at that price. Therefore, CamStudio is a great alternative for creating online vids, especially for those who are just venturing out into the world of online video creation.

A Brief History of CamStudio

The original CamStudio 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 SourceForge.

In 2003, the company was acquired by eHelp Corporation who owned a competing product called RoboDemo (now called Adobe Captivate). eHelp Corporation released an updated version as CamStudio 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 CamStudio 2.0 (the last open-source version) was resumed and released as free software again in September 2007 with the CamStudio 2.5 Beta 1 release. Accordingly, it was re-branded as CamStudio Open Source. CamStudio 3 is a complete rewrite of the project in the pre-alpha stages of development as of April 19, 2010

Here are just a few ways you can use this software:

• You can use it to create demonstration videos for any software program
• Or how about creating a set of videos answering your most frequently asked questions?
• You can create video tutorials for school or college class
• You can use it to record a recurring problem with your computer so you can show technical support people
• You can use it to create video-based information products you can sell
• You can even use it to record new tricks and techniques you discover on your favourite software program, before you forget them

CamStudio Key Features

With CamStudio you can record a particular region of your computer screen or the entire screen. Both CamStudio and CamtasiaStudio work well, however, you have to determine which ones suits best depending on the type of your video recording project.

With the Screen and Video annotations feature in this software, you can either do voice-over type vids or one with text annotations. You can mainly do presentation type screen capture recording with your voice narrations in the background. You can record audio from the mic or speakers.

You can record 1280 x 720 HD quality video, however, the quality of the output will depend on the type of computer you use. The video output files are in AVI (Audio Video Interleaved) and SWF (Shockwave Flash) formats. You can generally save the raw file in AVI format and then covert it to WMV format (using Windows Movie Make) to upload it to YouTube.

You can customize the Frame Rate (under \Options\Video Options), however ensure that “Capture Frame Every” times “Playback Rate” equals 1,000 (milliseconds) in order to maintain audio/video sync.

CamStudio comes with several Codecs (COmpressor/DECompressor) which helps to reduce the size of the video output file. If you’re going to use the application mainly to capture video game recordings, I would suggest using the Jawor’s Xvid which is great for high-motion video.

Other useful features that come with CamStudio are a variety of cursor options including various shapes, sizes, and cursor highlight. Also, the auto pan feature can be useful when using “Region” video recording. The auto pan feature allows the mouse to follow the area on the screen when using the “Region” option.

So where can I get it and how much does it cost?

You can download and use it completely free - yep - completely 100% free for your personal and commercial projects as CamStudio and the Codec are released under the GPL (for more details on this license, click here.). There are no royalties or any monies to pay - although if you do use it for a commercial product, I wouldn't say no to a copy of whatever you produce.

Issues with CamStudio

There have been ongoing reports about malicious code contained in some binaries of the software. In January 2014, the binary on the webpage camstudio.org was reported to be infected with the trojan, Artemis!0FEA2B12900D

This edit from Nick Smith, the "caretaker" of CamStudio, "to finance future development. CamStudio has chosen to use an ad-supported installer offering other free software during the installation process. Regardless of what AV software is reporting, CamStudio unequivocally is *not* infected with a trojan or any other malicious software. It is possible that software offered via the installer could be triggering the alert, but CamStudio and the installer are both clean."

In 2013, Google-run website Virustotal declared that CamStudio contains malicious software, where most anti-virus programs detected Artemis Trojan in CamStudio installer file. Virus scanshows malicious software in CamStudio

At the beginning of 2015, CamStudio installation was still distributing a malicious software, though the prior uninfected installers could be obtained from SourceForge. The installer used by CamStudio also appeared to violate the conditions set forth in the first offer, not only changing all search engines and homepages to Yahoo - the stated actions - but installing a batch script to ensure that the homepages and search providers could never be set back.

As of March 2016, the ad wrapper in the CamStudio installer has been removed, and it no longer offers third-party software alongside CamStudio. Downloading the program will no longer install malware without the user's permission

CamStudio Frequently Asked Questions

The website links provided below will help you with questions you may have with regards to using CamStudio. It includes information on frequently asked questions on various aspects of this screen capture application like video, audio, frame rate settings, issues with stability and performance, and much more. You can also join the online support forum.

General CamStudio FAQs: The website link above includes answers to many commonly asked questions about CamStudio. You will find information about video, audio, and performance using this application.

CamStudio Support Forum: The website link above will take you to the CamStudio Support Forum which is an active community of fellow users. If you can't find an answer to a specific question in the FAQs section, you can visit this support forum to get help with your questions.

CamStudio 2.0 Version Download: The website link above is the download link to the older version of CamStudio (version 2.0). I prefer the older version compared to new 2.7 version mainly because of overall performance.

Issues with CamStudio 2.7 Version: The website link above will direct you to the user forum. This specific thread deals with issues being faced with the latest version of CamStudio version 2.7.

Here are a few pros and cons of using CamStudio;

A few pros include;

• It’s free of charge and easy to use.

• You can add high quality screen captions with no jagged edges to your recording in seconds.

• You can record for a longer time than some other devices.

• It also has a built in help file.

• You can choose whether to record audio or not

A few of the cons include;

• It is only available to windows users.

• Annotation tools are said to be awkward.

• There is no movie editing capabilities.

• It can only capture audio from microphone or speakers, not both at the same time.

• It lacks some features that are available within other screen capture programs.   

• If you are into games then you will notice that it lacks certain game-related features such as monitoring frames-per-second within the game which other capture tools contain

Over all if all you want to do is create 'How to ' videos, CamStudio is a handy little tool to help you do that. The best part is it’s free so you can try it out without hurting your pockets.

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