Software suggestion for screen recording

I have been asked to convert some video tutorials done for Photoshop, into Paintshop. That is easy. However, i am not sure what (reasonable) program is really available for me to record those.

I downloaded Camtasia, and it seems ok but it is $300. The free trial will expired before i get used to the program and finish the videos.

I found Adobe Captivate, but that is $800 (ouch!)

I know of CamStudio. That is free so i started using it. The problem i am facing is that it saves in avi format, then requires conversion to swf. But then, for a 3 minutes video, i am getting a file that is over 50MB. I cannot imagine the size of a 15-20 minutes tutorial. With the Adobe Cativate (hubby downloaded the trial version), he got a 2 minute video online (at least it had an html extension) that was less than 20Kb. I am not sure what the difference is.

So, all in all, i would like to find a program (as inexpensive as can be) that can generate a small enough swf file to upload.

Any suggestion?

You might want to try this website. It's dedicated to video and should have what you need. I use it a lot as do other members here:

http://forum.videohelp.com/video-streaming-f51.html

I haven't tried it, but it's free.

http://www.screentoaster.com/

Thanks for your suggestions. I still have not finalised my choice because i still have some challenges with each software i tried so far. However, one other program that is promising is Jing. But i cannot install it as it requires Microsoft .NET Framework 3.0 and as often as i try to install it, it always fails. No explanation as to what is the error, but i get it over and over. I get a window suggesting to install it manually, but that does exactly the same thing. I am a bit at loss.

Any suggestion?

Are you installing from an admin acc't? Is there a previous version of net framework on the pc?

Yes i am installing from an admin account since there is only one account. I did have a version 1.1 that i uninstalled, exactly for that reason. But it still does not work.

try using microsoft installer cleanup utility then try again...

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/290301

Only remove any installers for net framework. Removing others could cause problems.

Just 5 minutes ago, i just installed Net 3.5 instead of the 3.0 version and it worked fine. No idea why, but it works!

Thanks for the help and the links. I am now looking at using Jing, which is a "child version" of Camtasia (which would be $300 to buy), but is free.

Jing seems to have potential to do just what i want, but i am running in another problem: when i run jing to record, whatever program i am using becomes sluggish, and the cursor just blinks too slowly which makes it nearly impossible to use. Someone suggested i get more RAMs as i have "only" 1.5Gb but that is likely not the problem since the program works fine on my work computer, which has only 512Mb RAM. So, what else should i look at? What else could be the culprit?

PS. using the trial version of Camtasia gives me the exact same problem.

Have a look in taskmanager and see what other programs are using CPU (or tons of memory) for a clue as to what to shut down (if possible)

Ok, i compared information i have from home and work computers.

home computer: 2.80GHz, and using currently 247 Mb in CPU usage (in programs that MIGHT be closed as they are open ones i am using). At the bottom it says
Processes: 51 CPU Usage 11% Commit Charge: 545M/3669M

on Work computer: 1.70GHz and using currently 326 Mb in CPU usage (in program that MIGHT be closed). At the bottom it says:
Processes: 63 CPU Usage 1% Commit Charge: 925M/1297M

Yet on work computer, it still runs smoothly while on home computer it is totally useless to move the mouse, even to just close a program. Do you still think that CPU is the problem???

Quote:

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Do you still think that CPU is the problem???

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No, I just wanted you to see which other programs were using up CPU cycles in case there was another program(s) on the PC that were causing the slowdown. But if total CPU useage on the home PC while that program is running is only 11% it's some other issue and probably not memory since you have a fair bit.

Do you have another drive to save the image to while it's being recorded? I'd try that next if possible.
Also, although I'm not familiar with those programs are they both (on both PC's) set up with the same parameters? I'm wondering if the home PC is saving a video with a much higher bitrate (requiring more work to be done)

As for extra partition, i dont think that Jing has any way to set those. It is a pretty basic program. Also, they are both set to the same way on both computer as far as i know since i just installed it as default (and again, Jing does not seem to have much as far as settings are concerned). Maybe the graphic card could do that??? If so, i would somewhat be surprised since the work laptop is definitely not high end, and not meant to do graphic intensive work so if the graphic card was much better than the home one, it would be just a matter of luck!

I don't know at this point. Maybe someone else can add some ideas?

What Anti Virus programs are on each one?

Have you disabled anything in msconfig on the home computer?