Cheaper Alternative To Camtasia?

Jing, its made by the same folks as camtasia. It just has a few limitations.

I just had a client call me about this last week. He had found some cheap/free alternatives and couldnt figure out how to get them to work.

Camtasia is the industry standard for a reason. It's worth every penny.

If you don't need to record more than 5 minutes or so of video, try Jing.

Try here.

CamStudio - Free Screen Recording Software

Ken

I have Camtasia, but I also like to try other alternatives just to discover something that may perform certain tasks easily or quicker.

I have been playing with Jing. There is a very good free version and I think it has a lot of possibilities when putting together a quick video. Jing comes from Techsmith (who wrote Camtasia).

Here's a free alternative that doesn't have the 5 minute time limitation that Jing has, and is easier to use than Camstudio - http://www.bbsoftware.co.uk/BBFlashBack_FreePlayer.aspx

Camstudio is free, and is a fine piece of software that just plain works. I have no use for Camtasia whatsoever, Camstudio does everything I need.

Camstudio is FREE and I got it, but still prefer camtasia. Wish some one would jump in. Camtasia is so expensive. Perhaps we can convince a big player like micro soft to make an inexpensive cam program.

Here's a tutorial I found about using VirtualDub + and a free plugin to do you're videos. All of this is free and if that's not cheap, I don't know what is.

Real-Time Screen capture/recording easily done with VirtualDub and VHScrCap!

Enjoy!

Jing no longer offers the Pro Upgrade. They are steering people towards SnagIt as an alternative. Google "Jing Pro Retirement" for details.

Cost effective alternatives: CamStudioPro from Dave Guidon; AVS video converter and Windows movie maker. There are no time limitations and you can piece together screen shots with live shots of yourself.

Did some more research on this today. Blueberry Software has a paid version that looks pretty good for the pc but is $199 for the fully editable version. Std version is $99 but no editing. You can use the Sony Vegas mentioned above for the editing if you want to cut costs. Check it out at bbsoftware.co.uk

A good paid product I found for the Mac was one called ScreenFlow 3 from telestream.net. Been around since 1998. Looks pretty comprehensive, easy to use and is only $99.

For those looking for free which can be used through a browser there is a Firefox plugin called Capture Fox which saves your screen as an WMV and uploads to YouTube.

Another free version for the pc is Freeseer which is an Open Source project whose tagline is "conference and presentation software made easy". Seemed pretty comprehensive and is available at freeseer.github.com Was developed out of their need to cut conferencing costs and is being developed into a full featured presentation software over time. Watch the online video for details.

A free alternative is to use Google Hangout with Screen share, and record the session live. I just learned how to do this and was able to put a few videos on Youtube directly (you don't have to save it to your harddrive). But I don't know if you can edit it, as it is a live Hangout session. Here's a sample of my video on youtube so you can see the quality:

This was all free, good if you just want to post on youtube, although not very professional looking due to no editing. But in my case, it's what I wanted, to show that an average person can do what I do, so it doesn't have to be "perfect."

I always use Wondershare demo creator.
But CamStudio is also good and free

Screencast-o-matic is another option.

A few limitations on the free version including a watermark on the video or it's $15 a year to remove those limits.

Doesn't do as much as Camtasia but then if you're like most people I know you'll only be using it to record the screen or your webcam and Screencast-o-matic does that fine.

You can check out these free options:

1. Camstudio
2. Snagit
3. Jing
4. HyperCam
5. Ezvid

- Nizam

1) Jing
2) Debut Screen Recorder
3) Movie Maker (Editing)
4) Ezvid
5) PowToon (Online Animated Video Creation)
6) Screen-O-Matic

What do you actually want Camtasia for, beyond basic screen video/audio recording?

Do you wish to edit the results as well, export to YouTube etc.?

The latest version is probably overkill for what you want I expect, so if you find a suitable alternative please let us know.


Cheers,

Richard

my vote is for Jing and screencast

EZVId, FFsplit , Jing, PicPick, Kazam, Screenr, Screencast-O-Matic... All for FREE or OpenSouce

Not sure why we're posting on a four year old thread, but OBS (Open Broadcasting Software) is by far the best free screen recording software – and it doesn't take up a ton of resources.

I have used Screencast-o-matic and been very pleased with it. Simple and cheap.

Yeah Screencast-o-matic is a good, cheaper alternative...

However I would still recommend Camtasia over it for its quality.

Test out some of the following:

1) Screen-O-Matic
2) Wideo
3) Fraps
4) Jing
5) Screenr

Hope this helps

Oh, I almost forgot about my favourite..

Screen-Recording, Audio-Recording, Etc Software

Check out Debut Video Capture

Great software, costs less than $25

You can go for either Camstudio or SRecorder. Both are handy and free.Thanks.

Some great alternatives to camstasia would be:

Camstudio
Ezvid
Expression Encoder
Jing
Screenshot-O-Matic

and...

Webinaria

I have tried a few programs in the past before buying Camtasia. Trust me you don't want to be presented with a pop up that says "file format not supported" or something like that when you try to upload on Vimeo or YT after spending a few hours recording your stuff flawlessly.

Camtasia is THE best option and we've even had luck editing short white board animation videos there (even though not the best option). Save up and invest in it - its really the best.

Maybe some people will accept the high price of Camtasia for its powerful functions. But for a user like me who only needs simple recording functions. After looking for a list of free alternatives to Camtasia, I found free online screen recorder is the best one. It lets me to edit the screen during recording and quick share my videos to YouTube. If you also like this application, you can try it for free here.

Camtasia is the best of the paid softwares.

About the Free software Jing, Camstudio and recently I'm using it Google Hangout with pretty good results.

Now I just purchased Video Motion Pro and has some cool features but it doesn't beat Camstasia

Camstudio or Screenflow are a couple of options?

Bandicam is free and i use it for my 5 min video's. Its a cool tool too cause space wise it automatically converts or squeezes the video files when creating.

Why don't you use Quick Time? It's free on the MAC.

Here are the steps how if you don't know how:
How to Use the Screen Recorder on a Mac | OSXDaily

I have been using the Camtasia's free version for a long time without any problem. You can use the free version also. beside the Camtasia I used the Camstudio. It is also used for screen recording. Camtasia has the Video editing features also. If you want to use the Video editing features, you can use the Windows built in software "Windows Movie Maker/ Windows DVD maker" even you can use the Ulead video studio also. Thanks a lot.

Same company built camtasia, go for Snagit..

I use Movavi for creating my videos it is cheaper than Camtasia I think you can spend like $50 on the basic license, but if you looking for a free alternative you can try screencast.com (they watermark your videos) or use camstudio (contains a lot of ads while installing the software).

OBS (open broadcasting software) It is open source and what the top gamers use to record games. It is more powerful than any screen recorder out there, including camtasia studio

Jim

You can try bandicam

Acethinker screen grabber pro is a good alternative to camtasia, only $30. It can record screen and do some basic video editing. You can also use it to share the recorded video to YouTube directly.

Screencast-O-Matic. Free and simple to use. Many benefits from the paid version which last time I checked was only $15 for 1 year. Free version allows 15 minute recordings.

im very happy with AVS video editor

AVS Video Editor - easy video editing software for Windows.

-Ike Paz

@ Tony, yes you do have editing capabilities: http://screencast-o-matic.com/screen...5326-55968.png

That said, if you're looking for Premiere Pro or After Effects levels of editing, that obviously isn't it. But for $15 a year for most it would be good enough.