OT: Screen Capture Software

michaelshive wrote on 8/13/2007, 10:18 AM
It's been awhile since I investigated this so I'd like to know what the forum's thoughts are on the best screen capture software currently out there. I need to put together a training video that will be almost entirely made up of captured screen video. I've seen some great quality screen captures that are on the web or delivered via CD in flash format but wasn't sure what was used for the capture. I've heard Camtasia is the best but haven't used it yet. Any thoughts or suggestions?

Comments

Per1 wrote on 8/13/2007, 10:23 AM
What I've seen Camtasia is very good. It costs however.
Some folks are very reluctant to buy software and spend hours to find a free one, perhaps equally as good. Myself, I value my time... ;)

On my "to do list" for this autumn: write a review on Camtasia/Vegas - if time permits. It seems to be a popular question... Must finish a 600-page software book first.
michaelshive wrote on 8/13/2007, 10:47 AM
I just realized that this software needs to run on Linux. I'm sure that greatly narrows the field. With that being said, if there is no decent screen capture software packages for Linux, what are some suggestions for how to shoot it? Set up a dual-screen with mirroring and just film the 2nd screen (I assume mirroring works in Linux)?
RBartlett wrote on 8/13/2007, 1:09 PM
If you own or are prepared to demo VMWare Workstation then you can record the contents of a windowed or full screen Linux Guest OS running inside your windows environment. There is a codec that comes with VMWare that is optimised for this task.

Otherwise you could convert the source machine with a DVI port into HDMI and capture on a PC with a BMD Intensity card.....

Is the Linux application based on XWindows (a GUI desktop), OpenGL (a game / 3D ray tracing environment / presentation) or both together (windowed game or 3D app / presentation software)?
Per1 wrote on 8/13/2007, 2:07 PM
Just Google "screen capture linux movie" and you get some 2M hits.