I’m a big advocate of Open Source Software, and today I’d like to show you a little tool I’ve been using for quite some time, CamStudio by RenderSoft. CamStudio is a simple, no frills screen recording program supporting AVI and SWF formats all at a price you can’t beat, Free!
CamStudio lets you record screen activity and sound from either your Sound Card or Microphone. In addition to recording, you can also annotate your recordings with text captions and call outs. Video recording quality is pretty decent, and you have the option of using a few different built-in encoders depending on the quality you expect to get. If all you need is basic screen recording, this is the tool for you!
RenderSoft CamStudio was bought out by eHelp’s RoboDemo, which was then acquired by Macromedia. CamStudio is still available under the GPL and can be downloaded here.