Basic Settings for CamStudio

Okay, so today we’re going to learn some basic settings for CamStudio. After reading this post you’ll be ready to start recording your screen.  I promise it’s nothing over the top, just the most basic settings for CamStudio.

And go to my previous post – Step-by-Step CamStudio Installation (Free Video Screen Capture software) to learn how to install CamStudio.

First thing to do is open up CamStudio. You will find it wherever you saved it when you installed it. At the time of writing this post the interface of the newest version looks like this:

Let’s go through each of the settings step-by-step on the menu bar. The first one is the FILE menu and it’s the most self-explanatory one of all. “Record” is to start recording, “Pause” is to pause your recording, “Stop” is to stop your recording, and “Exit” is to exit CamStudio.

The next part of the menu bar is the REGION menu. Before you start recording you will need to decide on the type of region you want to record on your screen. There are four region options (“Region”, “Fixed Region”, “Window”, and “Full Screen”)

Region – Select any portion of the screen or the entire desktop for recording. For example, if you only want to record the top upper-left of your computer screen you can set it to record only that part. (Note: Go to Options on the menu bar and be sure that “Enable Autopan” is UNchecked. You will learn what the “Autopan” feature is for down below in this post.)

Fixed Region – This basically works the same way as “Region” except you can preset the the size of the area you want to record. Set the width and height. If you want to enable the autopan feature, go to Options on the menu bar and check “Enable Autopan”.

Window – To record only what is inside of a window on a page, select”Window”. For example, if you are on a webpage and you don’t want the menu options (the top part of the webpage) to be a part of your recording, or if you are on a word document but don’t want the menu options of the word doc to be recorded (you only want the actual word doc page), select this region option.

Full Screen – This is straight forward. If you want to record the entire screen, from corner to corner choose this.

On to OPTIONS, “Video Options…” (first image below). In this section you will need to install CamStudio Lossless Codec v1.5 (or whatever the latest version is -at the time of writing this post the version is v1.5).

The codec is an audio compression program that compresses the audio portion of your video into a smaller size so it doesn’t create a large movie file. Go to http://camstudio.org/blog/camstudio-lossless-codec-v14-released to install the Camstudio Lossless Codec. Scroll down the page until you see CamStudio 1.4 Codec – EXE Installer.

After you click on that, click “Save File” and then follow through until you see the “Finish” portion of the install. ====(It’s a similar install process as the the install for CamStudio itself if you remember.) Go back to the previous post here to see the install process.

==== On the second image below it shows that I set the Compressor to “CamStudio Lossless Codec v1.5″. Note that by default (that means if you do not have the codec installed) you will see the settings on “Microsoft Video 1″.

Once you install the codec, you will have it as an option on the drop-down menu just as you see in the second image right below here. Staying with the second image, notice the settings as the following numbers:

Set Key Frames Every 200 Frames Capture Frames Every 5 milliseconds Playback rate 200 frames/second

Next we’ll look at cursor options. Go to OPTIONS > “Cursor Options” (see first image below). Play around with the settings here. Have fun! It’s straight forward and clear. One thing you must do in order to select the cursor shape and color is to tick the box that says “Highlight Cursor”. (See second image below.)

Let’s go to OPTIONS > “Audio Options”.  Whether you plan on recording the audio portion of your videos via microphone or through the audio speakers of your computer, here is where you go to make adjustments on those options.

An “Audio Options for Microphone/Speakers” will pop up. Make your audio adjustments there. (I personally use and recommend recording your screen capture videos with a microphone. It produces for better clarity on the audio. I bought a Platronics Audio 626 DSP headset with mic that was inexpensive – around $30.

When you need to record ONLY the screen (no audio), select “Do not record audio” under OPTIONS. This means that you will not be recording the sounds in your surroundings (people talking, music in the background, etc. ONLY the screen will be recorded).

To record what you are saying through your microphone, select “Record audio from microphone”. If you want to record sounds coming from your speakers, choose “Record audio from speakers” found under OPTIONS.

There is a feature called “Autopan” which enables you to record wherever your mouse cursor moves. Some people find this feature irritating since the screen being recorded moves anywhere the mouse cursor moves.

Staying with the OPTIONS menu, slide down to “Program Options” and you will see the first that the first 3 options are as follows:

Minimize program on start recording – Selecting this means that when you start your recording, the CamStudio interface will hide. If you do not select this, the entire interface will be displayed on your screen and will be part of what’s being recorded. You decide if you want to choose the interface to be displayed or not.

Hide flashing rectangle during recording – When you hit the record button, you will have the option to see a flashing rectangle around what is being recorded. This rectangle is a guide of what’s being recorded on your screen. Do not select this if you do not want it to show.

Save settings on exit – When you make a change on the settings, you can have those settings saved if you select this option.

You can view the interface as “NormalView”, “Compact View”, or “Buttons View” under the VIEW menu. OR you can simply click on the toggle button (see the icon circled in the image below).

And of course, if you need any help with using CamStudio, go the the HELP menu and you will see that you can visit the “CamStudio Homepage”, “CamStudio Blog”, or go to the “CamStudio FAQ”.

Alrighty, that’s it! I hope you learned some basic settings for CamStudio. Time to set yours up and start recording. If you still need your questions answered I always read my comments so go ahead and leave them in the comment box below.

And as always, if you found this post helpful, pass it along to your friends or share it with your social media followers. The Facebook and Twitter buttons are at the top of this post.

Here’s to Your Successful Video Marketing,