Best *free* screen recording software

[brikis98]

For work, I need to create several video tutorials where I record my computer screen as I narrate. From using the demo, I've found that Camtasia is an excellent piece of software, but I don't want to spend $300+ on a license for it.

I've tried the following alternatives so far:

* Wink: decent, but in my experience, a bit buggy, esp. when dealing with larger videos
* CamStudio: clunky interface, issues with flash output, big file sizes, and so on.

Anyone know of better, free, screen recording software?

 

[Drakkon]

Bulent Screen recorder is what i have used
http://www.thesilver.net/

 

[Tegeril]

Adobe Captivate maybe.

edit: wait, not free.

 

[mundane]

<a target=_blank class=ftalternatingbarlinklarge href="http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/forpros/encoder/default.m
px">Windows Media Encoder</a> will.

 

[microAmp]

Another vote for Windows Media Encoder, though there is a slight loss in image quality from what I've noticed. 🙁

 

[brikis98]

thanks for the advice folks. I tried Bullet Screen recorder, but it won't recognize my Plantronics headset, so I can't get any audio. Windows Media Encoder, however, had lots of loss in image quality, and since I'm showing text, that's totally unacceptable. Finally, my preferred output format is Flash video, which neither of these can do. I know I'm asking a lot from a free solution, but Wink is pretty damn close, so maybe there's something else out there I haven't seen...

Any other suggestions?

 

[gneGne]

FRAPS? Gamecam?

 

[Acanthus]

Fraps full is $35 for a lifetime with unlimited updates, i bought it over 4 years ago.

Its not free, but its about as close as youre going to get for quality software on the cheap.

 

[mechBgon]

I get very good text with Windows Media Encoder, generally. Record at a low-enough screen resolution that the movie won't need to be shrunk to display on the end-user's monitor. For example, I record at 800x600, and the display is quite crisp and readable when played back on a 1024x768 or higher monitor resolution. If you were trying to record at your monitor's native resolution, either reduce resolution or window the app you're trying to record in a smaller window.

 

[steelio]

Anyway to find one that does it in the background so know one knows that it is working? That is what I am wanting to do. I want to see if someone is logging into my computer and downloading things.
Thanks!

 

[cmcmurphy79]

As far as free screen recorders, I like sentryWorks Abra the best.
For that matter it has features that rival the best paid products (Camtasia and Captivate) and it outperforms them when it comes to performance. It also has an easy to use interface (although it does take a little getting used to at first), records WAV audio and allows you to export audio and the screen capture to SWF format. The playback is really fantastic and it is impossible to detect that it is running when it is recording. There is a systray icon, but other than that you would never know it is running when it records the performance is that good (even on larger files with a lot of screen drawing). The free version does limit you to 2 minutes of recording time. You can pay $99 (still cheaper than Camtasia, Captivate and a lot of others) and it will remove this limitation. For my needs the 2 min time is perfect.

You can get it at www.sentryworks.com