HOW TO: Screen Cap for Windows XP, Vista, and 7

So, I honestly spent a year dabbling with different software for different OSes and this seems to be, by far, the best combination for recording webcam stuff like Skype, Camfrog, Stickam, etc. I'm traditionally a Mac user, but the method I'm about to detail works so well (and is open-source/free) that I use BootCamp to load up Windows just for my screen capturing. Without further ado:

1) Download CamStudio http://camstudio.org/ and install it.
2) Download the Xvid codec http://www.xvid.org/ and install it.
3) Load up CamStudio and go into the video preferences. Change the codec to "xvid" and leave everything else on default/automatic
4) Under the recording settings menu, choose "Fixed Region" and enter a traditional (divisible by 2) size: 640x480, 800x600, etc.
5) Click record and drag the mouse to the area you want to grab. It helps to turn on the blinking guide to see if you're grabbing what you want.

NOTE: You can also use the "Region" option and drag over what you want to record, but you MUST make sure the size is an even number for both width and height or else you'll get an error where it asks to use the "default codec." Click "No" and try again.

The reason this combo (CamSudio + Xvid) works so well is that is because:
A) They're both free.
B) They're minimalistic both in features and file size. They record just what you want and the filesizes are small (1/2 hour is about 200 megs).
C) The requirements are low. I do my recording on a dual-core 2.4 ghz machine with 2 GB of RAM and an IDE hard drive.
D) The quality is amazing. Check out my vids to see how good they can record:
http://whatboyswant.com/showmovie/67602/1/Melissa_Dildo_Suck.html and http://whatboyswant.com/showmovie/67444/1/Stephie_s_Huge_Tit_Flash.html

Good luck!

We had one of these threads a while ago. It's not really something that comes up often here, but I can make this a sticky for this forum. Once your links are out of the greylist, I can add it, if you like.

Yeah, I found my first tutorial on here, but the software they used was a bit more complicated and is now out-dated. If you want to sticky this, I think it'd help. A lot of the clips in the movies section would benefit. I can also add some screenshots of the correct things to click and how to do sound, later if people want.

That would be a pretty decent idea. People like pictures. The less tech-savvy the person, the more they will depend on the pictues. If you wanted to screen cap how to...screen cap, I'm all for it.

Thank youuuuuu i have camstudio but never played around with the settings too much as i found what i did play with made it worse