How to record your computer screen?

Factual Questions
1

I was wondering: is it possible to record straight from your computer screen?

Of course I could point a videocamera at it or use the video out to tape it and send that back but it sounds cumbersome.
I can take a shot of my desktop with the printscreen button, I can record any audio playing on my computer, so I thought: why can’t I record a few minutes of video in a similar way?
Is this at all possible? Thanks for any help!

2

Yes, it’s possible, but it’s much more demanding than a screenshot. It’s like the difference between a single picture and a roll of motion film. Anyway, this ain’t about the technical differences :slight_smile:

There are two different ways to do this:

  1. Record an actual video (.AVI, QuickTime, Windows Media Video, DivX, etc.). This will provide you with the most faithful representation, but the resulting files will be humongous (we’re talking like several dozen megabytes every second) unless you use proper compression. This is rarely a good method, but if you want to try it, HyperCam can do it for regular Windows programs and Fraps can do it for 3D games. Both are shareware.

  2. A smarter way that some programs do it is by watching your mouse and keyboard movements and taking screenshots at appropriate intervals. It then kinda cheats and re-animates your cursor after the fact to give a similar, but not exact, performance. This is fine for most non-animated Windows programs, but it won’t work for anything with animated graphics (that you care about) or 3D games.

An example of this kind of software is the free and excellent Wink. Instead of making actual movie files, it creates a small and portable Flash animation.

3

Oh, and I should mention that actual videos (like DVDs or downloaded movies) are a special case. If you want to make a recording of a video you already have on your computer, Fraps can do the job in a pinch, but it’s usually better to find the file that you already have – if you can see it on your computer, it’s already in digital form and it usually doesn’t make sense to manually capture it again.

4

Don’t know what the OP has in mind but could be online streaming video. I believe there are also tools to capture that but I haven’t used any so can’t recommend one.

5

I wasn’t sure what the OP meant either. Recording streaming video is doable, but the process varies in complexity and difficulty depending on the format used.

Tell us more, OP!

6

There is software that will record what you’re doing on the computer and save it in various formats. I use Camtasia Studio, but there are others.

7

Obviously, we’re going to need a better description of what you want to do. I read the question as “how do you make a videotape recording of the computer screen”–perhaps for a training video?

That’s a piece of cake. I have a notebook computer with NTSC video output. Adapters are available to convert various flavors of VGA to NTSC. Take anything of this sort and run it into your VCR and presto – screen video.

8

Thanks for those tips!

Well, it was about an old computer game featuring a video. The game was “The Quest for the Holy Grail” and it featured a video only available in that game. It is an extra scene for The Holy Grail the movie, with most of the original cast reunited.

So I was hoping to get to the point where the video is about to start, switch window and turn it on, get back to the game, see the sketch, and stop recording.

As far as I know no-one ever tried capturing this before. The sketch itself is not very funny - that’s why it wasn’t filmed for the original movie at all, it isn’t even a deleted scene. (The computer game is brilliant though.) But funny or not I want it.

So the cursor movement is irrelevant. I will try my luck with the hypercam thing. Your advice is very helpful. Don’t hesitate if you have other tips.

9

Was it a full-screen video that played back during the game? If so, the game is probably just playing the video from its directory. Check the game’s directory for the existence of any movie files or folders. If you can find it, you won’t have to record it again.

Common movie extensions (for games) include: .AVI, .WMV, .BNK, .SMK, .MPG, .MOV. See if you can find any of those inside the game’s folders.

And if you do have to record it again, I think Fraps would be a better choice than Hypercam in this case.

10

No, it wasn’t simply a file on the disc, if only it were that simple. Will give it a try.

11

:smack:

Thanks.