CamStudio

CamStudio is a tool that enables you to record a SWF or AVI video of your computer's screen.

The program has a simple and easy to use interface. From the toolbar, you can start, pause or stop recording, toggle the view (normal, compact, buttons), the display of screen annotations dialogue and the recording mode (to AVI or SWF).

From the main menu, you can select which region you want to record (manually selected, region, window or full screen), use screen and video annotations, as well as add effects (system time stamp, Xnote time stamp, caption, watermark).

In Video Options you can select the compressor, adjust quality and time lapse. Cursor Options will allow you to hide or show the cursor, highlight it and enable visual click feedback. The audio options can be set for the microphone, speakers and also for audio and video synchronization.

You can convert AVI to SWF, disable audio recordings, set auto pan speed, assign keyboard shortcuts, as well as set CamStudio to stop recording automatically and delete the intermediate AVI file upon completion, to ask you to rename the output video file and play the AVI file once the task is completed.

The program uses a low amount of system resources, and the audio and video quality of the output files is excellent. Unfortunately, it doesn't have an available help file, so first-time users would have a hard time understanding its functions.