Configuring CamStudio
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CamStudio is an open-source screencast recorder for Windows - for the Windows platform we prefer this tool over others for making ShowMeDo videos. You can see two videos on configuring and using CamStudio and use this page for reference when you want to make your own videos.
Remember to refer to the Requirements_for_Screencasts page for information on how to prepare the videos. The important points are 800x600 resolution and videos of 5-15 minutes in length forming a series (rather than 1 longer video). Shorter videos are easier to use for reference rather than panning through a longer video.
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Things to remember
If you have followed the instructions below and you're still getting some weird results, then maybe there are some things to try. If you get a large file (200mb for 10 minutes of recording) then check your Frames per Second setting - if it is unconfigured then it'll be closer to 200fps, you want 5 fps. If there are other problems...send me a mail and I'll put together some more advice.
Getting started
This is the opening screen for CamStudio.
Video options
Here you see CamStudio configured with the CamStudio Lossless Codec - this is our preferred codec for CamStudio. You have to download the Lossless Codec from the CamStudio homepage, installing it is a 1 minute operation and It Just Works. This codec is better than the default Microsoft Video Codec v1 as it produces much smaller videos without losing any quality, so sending the videos to us becomes much easier.
Choose to 'Capture Frames Every' 200 milliseconds (which is 5 frames-per-second) by moving the 'Time Lapse' slider to the middle area. If you leave the slider at 'Max Framerate' on the left then we can still use the video, it is just that the resulting file will be much larger (it'll be recording at 200 frames per second) and at our end we will remove the extra frames so they are redundant. Leave the 'Quality' slider (at the top) set to 100.
Audio options
You'll have to set your 'Audio Capture Device' if you have more than one audio source, when this screen-shot was taken the 'default' device was a Bluetooth audio headset and the secondary device was the SoundMAX audio input jack (for a wired microphone which gives a better signal).
The 'Recording Format' should be 22kHz, probably mono (unless you have a stereo microphone). The 'Compression Format' should be PCM (this is lossless). 'Interleave Video and Audio' can be set to every 100 milliseconds, this will improve the synchronisation of audio and video (else your audio might drift out of sync).
Very important - you should enable 'Use MCI Recording' - several people have reported that the audio/video sync is lost over e.g. a 10 minute recording if this isn't enabled.
Don't forget to ENABLE "Record audio from microphone" from CamStuio's Options menu, otherwise you might not record any sound when you make a screencast. You'll have to do this once you've finished configuring this Audio Options dialog.
Using the Pause Feature
There is a caveat - when using CamStudio, the pause feature introduces a small delay in the audio stream, so after several pause/resumes the audio recording goes out of sync with the video. I tend to use the Pause feature only twice in total during a 15 minute recording lest the de-sync become an obvious problem.
Fixing the screen region
Choose a region of the screen to record. You'll want to highlight a region around the window(s) you want to capture. The larger the region, the more data recorded, the more CPU work whilst you record (which might lead to a bad recording) and the larger the final file. Smaller screen regions are better.
We prefer 800x600 as our forthcoming player page will be fixed at this size. Smaller videos will be stretched, which won't be so bad, but larger videos will be visually compressed which might make the text harder to read. CamStudio supports panning, so if you need a region larger than 800x600 then you can always pan around a virtual region.
High-lighting the cursor
Choose the yellow highlight, it'll be super-imposed during recording (but you won't see it around the mouse as you record). It makes it easy for the human viewer to see where the mouse is, it is just a convenience but it is a nice touch.
Keyboard shortcuts
By default you can use F8 to start and pause, and F9 to end a recording. These are handy keys to remember of note on a post-it note on the side of your screen.
