The Video Capture category contains software that will allow you to record video from external devices or content on your computer. Capture game footages, webcam feeds, or make video presentations with popular software like Camtasia and Adobe.
OBS Studio By Open Broadcaster Software FREE
Free and open source software for video Recording and live streaming. Features: High performance real time video/audio capturing and mixing, with unlimited scenes you can switch between seamlessly via custom transitions.
Intuitive audio mixer with filter functionality such as noise gate, noise suppression, and gain. Improved and streamlined Settings panel for quickly configuring your broadcasts and recordings. Filters for video sources such as image masking, color correction, chroma/color keying, and more. Powerful and easy to use configuration options. Add new Sources, duplicate existing ones, and adjust their properties effortlessly. Both light and dark themes available to fit your preference.
FlashBack Express By Blueberry Software FREE
If you’d like to be able to whip up short videos and post them online but don’t quite know where to start, Blueberry’s BB Flashback Express might be the tool for you. It records your Screen activity, with sound, and posts finished videos to YouTube and other sites. BB FlashBack Express lets you create instructional videos that record every onscreen step, or narrate a slideshow or series of clips to create your own documentaries and short films. It’s designed to be as easy to use as possible without sacrificing the capabilities you’re looking for. It’s a “best-of” version of Blueberry’s FlashBack Standard and Pro tools, offering basic but most-needed features such as recording screen and Webcam images and computer and microphone sounds and saving flies in AVI or FLV format. BB FlashBack Express is freeware that comes with a 30-day evaluation period and free registration. That’s a bit different, but it lets you try the tool without sharing info. until you’re ready, so we approve.
BB FlashBack Express installed two icons on our desktop; one for BB Flashback Express Player and another for BB FlashBack Express Recorder, a simplified tool for quick recording. The Recorder is fully integrated with the Player but can run simultaneously or separately, as we learned when we opened both. FlashBack Express opened with a browser-style user interface with reassuring toolbar entries like Upload to YouTube and Export, but better still was the Welcome screen with large buttons labeled “Record your screen” and “Open a recordings,” opposite a series of Getting Started tutorials and a link to the program’s Help Manual. The FlashBack Express Recorder is the tool that lets you quickly decide which region of your screen to record and whether to record sound or Webcam activity.
But new users could do a lot worse than simply clicking the Record button and letting the program’s wizards tell you what to do (that’s a wizard’s job, after all). Our quick test video proved the point: Many free screen recorders are more basic than BB FlashBack Express, but very few are so easy to use yet so capable.
TinyTake By MangoApps Inc FREE
TinyTake is a free screen capture & video recording software for Microsoft Windows. With TinyTake, you can capture images and videos of your computer screen, add comments and share them with others in minutes. TinyTake is built by MangoApps and is available for free.
Simple, Free and Feature Rich
- Record a video of your screen (upto 120 minutes)
- Record a video using your web-cam
- Capture a region, a window or entire screen
- Capture an image using your web-cam
- Open, annotate and share an existing image
- Copy to clipboard or save it locally
- Store screenshots & videos in the cloud
- Share a link to the stored screenshot & video
- Zoom in / zoom out
- Assign custom short-cut keys
- Proxy server friendly
XSplit Broadcaster By SplitmediaLabs FREE
A simple yet powerful live streaming and recording software that powers countless live streams and recordings around the world and is the perfect choice for producing rich video content with the video games you love.
XSplit Broadcaster is one of the most popular and widely used applications for live Internet broadcasting, with a user base ranging from hobbyists to prominent professional casters around the world and is available in multiple languages.
XSplit allows users to record or live stream any type of media, while taking advantage of Live TV production features that anyone can learn to master.
Bandicam Screen Recorder By Bandicam FREE TO TRY
Whether you’re an old pro at screen recordings or this is your first time out, Bandicam makes it easy to set up and start recording anything on your screen. Less experienced users will like that the default settings mean you can basically start recording in only a couple clicks.
PROS
Capture options: You can choose to share your whole screen or only a specific portion, and it’s easy to resize the window so that it shows only what you want it to. You can record in AVI or MP4 format, and there are presets that let you quickly adjust to a specific width or adjust for a YouTube-friendly recording. It will include any sounds that are playing while you record, too, so you can play your own soundtrack or capture the full sound effects if you’re recording a game you’re playing. There’s also an option to capture straight screenshots, with four output options, including BMP, PNG, and JPG.
Easy to use: While there are advanced options and settings, if you don’t want to mess around with these, Bandicam is preset to record in AVI format at 30 frames per second. It also detects your primary sound device and webcam (if you have one). When we went this route, the recording was of good quality, but it was also good when we made some minor tweaks of our own and changed to MP4 instead of AVI.
CONS
Some features not available: We were happy to see a button to edit the recordings we’d made, but it turns out that that just leads to an option to purchase the publisher’s editing tool, Bandicut. Some tools offer these as part of the package. In addition, the option to play the recordings just opened our default media player.
BOTTOM LINE
If you need to record your screen with a minimum of fuss, Bandicam makes the process easy and creates good quality recordings or screenshots. It’s not free, but the trial version will let you know if the price is right for your needs.
Editors’ note: This is a review of the trial version of Bandicam 2.1.2.740.
Camtasia 2019 By TechSmith FREE TO TRY
Camtasia Studio gives you the tools to record your computer screen and then turn those recordings into professional-grade videos. And once you’ve edited and polished your creation, you can share it directly from the app to YouTube, Google Drive, and Screencast.com.
PROS
Smooth functioning: Camtasia provides a lot of nice features in a fluid interface that makes creating screen capture videos and processing them a breeze. You can set the program to record either the screen or a PowerPoint presentation. You can also choose to record your entire screen or only a portion of it that you preset before recording begins. The recordings, themselves, are clear and crisp, providing you with an excellent framework on which to put all the finishing touches and effects you want.
Finishing tools: Once you have your screen capture recording the way you want it, you can utilize the various tools included in the program to make your video complete. These include multiple Transition Options, Voice Narration, a Zoom and Pan effect, Cursor Effects, Captions, Quizzing, and more. You can also use built-in tools to enhance and improve the audio quality of your voice recording.
CONS
Crashing and errors: This program did crash once during testing. We also periodically received an error message stating that the program couldn’t initiate recording for an unknown reason. But we were always able to remedy these situations by closing the app and then opening it again to start fresh.
BOTTOM LINE
Camtasia Studio is a comprehensive program for creating instructional or other videos using screen capture. The interface is accessible to all users at all levels, from novice on up, and the finished product you can create with this app will have a truly professional feel. You can test out Camtasia Studio for free for 30 days. After that the full purchase price is $299.
Editors’ note: This is a review of the trial version of Camtasia Studio 8.4.2.1768.
