How can I record what's on my PC screen?

Factual Questions
1

I’m currently producing a PowerPoint presentation and I want to record it as an .avi file so I can burn it to CD.
I had the brainwave of connecting the S-Video out of my graphics card (64 MB GeForce2) to the S-Video in on my TV card (Hauppage WinTV), but the capture programme I use did not display anything as coming in from the S-Video. I also tried going from the yellow video connector to the S-Video via an adaptor but that heralded the same results.
Do I need to change a setting somewhere to get my graphics card to display out of the S-Video?
Is there an easier way to do this?

2

Um, if you “pack and go” from PowerPoint, all that other rigmarole is unnecessary; it will create a self-sufficient file that you can easily burn to a disc.

3

Let me get this straight: you want to make a video of a PP presentation?!?

<Boggle>

4

Try
CamStudio 2.1
Free from download.com

With the Video Annotation feature, you can also personalize your movie by including a Webcam movie of yourself into the AVI.

I’d like to see PP do that itself :slight_smile:

5

I want to hand out the CD so people can watch it on DVD players that can play video CDs.

6

You can “pack and go” it onto a disc; why is this not adequate to your needs?

7

Because people with dvd players don’t necessarily have computers.

Have you tried using 2 separate computers, one for the playback, one for the record? Even though you’re using two different cards, there may be some funky stuff going on there.

8

Regarding video-out modes: yes, you may have to change display settings. If you’re using Windows, right-click on the desktop and click properties (or click on Display in the control panel). Go to the Settings tab and click Advanced. If there’s a software answer to your problem, it’s most likely in there somewhere.

9

Camtasia by TechSmith is a good product for doing just that, and they offer a free trial version. I used it while conducting a usability study on the intranet of the company I was interning for last summer, got 45 minute videos of what users had onscreen during the tests. Definitely got the results I needed. I think I had the company (it’s a large Fortune 500 corporation) purchase me a copy of the full version, so I don’t remember if the free version is complete or not.