| User review:
|
I've used version 2.0 for a long time, but I decided to give the new version a try.
I didn't like the "adware" concept, so I went to the forum on the developer's site to see what types of comments had been made.
I then came across the fact that there's a recent build (2.7.2 r316, whereas the newest is 326) which is available in zip format, and I went for it right away. You can get it here.
http://screencasttutorial.org/Release_r316.zip
There was no adware at all. The quick test I did worked OK. It was about 50 seconds and saved in avi format. I got some stuff off my desktop, but then I went to YouTube and was actually able to record the video with no trouble at all. I set CamStudio to record from my mike, and the end quality was really pretty good.
The only "problem" was that the output file was HUGE! -> over 1gb for 50 seconds!!!! However, I then converted it to mp4 with WinFF, and it got it down to about 2mb - what a difference. There must be a ton of redundancy in the avi movie because the subjective impression of the mp4 version looked every bit as good as the giant avi version.
Then, just for the heck of it, I decided to take a look at the very latest version (build r326). To make a long story short, the only "extra" it asked to install was - I think - Opera, but it was clearly marked, and I simply clicked "no thanks" or whatever it said.
The installation worked fine on my 32-bit win XP machine. The brief test I did didn't work, though. I basically attempted to do what I had described above, but I used the mp4 option. For some reason, it didn't work; I got the error message that the conversion module couldn't be launched. To be honest, I didn't care to find out why not and simply uninstalled the program - a process that was both fast and, as far as I can see, clean. I haven't run CCleaner yet, but I'll be interested to see if any junk was left.
Final verdict: I'm going to keep the 316 build on my computer and plan to try it on my 64-bit Win 7 machine, too.
I don't use screen capture very often, but this tool seems handy to have. The old 2.0 works OK, but the quality of the video in the newer version was better. As for the internal mp4 capability, I don't really need it. There are enough conversion tools around. |
