Screencast software is, indeed, just a computer program that lets you capture what’s happening on the screen and save it as a specific video format. A simple screen recorder can also be referred to as a screencast software. As many people asked: “What is your favorite screencast software?” Thus, I will share with you my answer in this article: My best screencast software – free screen capture program.
Why would you need a screencast software?
Screencast software helps you create video from recording your computer screen. It is only useful when you want to share your knowledge, your experiences such as making a how-to videos, a software demonstrations or a complicated procedure that you can’t explain it clearly via short text message, email and so on. If you don’t have anything to share, screencast software becomes useless to you. Here are two most common cases that you would need a screencast software from my point of view:
- Software developers/ sellers/ marketers: These people need screencast software to create how-to tutorials, training videos and promotional videos for the software they created. In some cases, it is also used to show off their work too.
- Teachers/ Trainers and Students: Screencast software is mainly used for educational purposes. Screencast software can help this group of users to create training material in video formats for sharing locally or uploading to YouTube, Facebook or other video sharing channels.
Why ActivePresenter? – Is it perfect for screencasting?
Frankly speaking, ActivePresenter is not the “best-for-all” screencast software in my opinion. There are some disadvantages in this program such as there no option to share your screencast directly online or its time consuming video rendering procedure once you finished your recording and some minor issues. However, it is my best screencast software because of its ease of use, rich features, great technical support services and continue upgrade commitment from the developer. Most importantly, it’s completely free to use. If you decided to create screencast videos, ActiverPresenter is perfect for this purpose. Watch below introduction video to learn more about ActivePresenter.
Before you download ActivePresenter, take a look at these useful tutorial videos to know exactly how it works.
How to create a screencast video with ActivePresenter 7
You can start recording screen from the Start Page or from the editor. From the Start Page, simply click Record Video or Record Software Simulation. Or, in the editor, click the ActivePresenter button and click Record Video or Record Software Simulation. Besides, to stop recording, click the Stop button in the Recording Toolbar.
How to record your Webcam with ActivePresenter 7
As you know, ActivePresenter 7 allows recording webcam and screen simultaneously when recording video demonstrations. This feature is turned on by default if your computer has a webcam device connected. If you need to record screen only, you can disable recording webcam easily. Besides, you can record webcam only to save as videos. Those videos are treated as normal video objects, which means you can use many powerful video editing tools to edit them. Note that you cannot record webcam when recording software simulations.
For more tutorial videos, go to YouTube and find ActivePresenter’s official channel. There are useful how-to videos uploaded every week.
Special Notes
ActivePresenter free edition allows you to record video from your computer’s screen with webcam, audio and system sound; edit video with professional features like cut, trim, crop, merge, split videos, and add annotations to videos and so on. All these features are free to use. Your recording will not be watermarked or time limit. You can export the video into MP4, AVI, MKV, WebM for uploading to YouTube, Vimeo or Facebook. There are minor limitations in this edition which is the HTML5 output will be watermarked and you are not able to use your project for commercial purposes. If you usually create how-to tutorials for your YouTube channel, they offer ActivePresenter Standard Edition at $199 lifetime. There is no difference between free and standard edition except the purpose of use, stated in their license terms and conditions.
For commercial use like creating complete e-learning courses, you’ll need to use ActivePresenter Professional Edition which is $399 per lifetime license. This license can be used for all purposes, no watermark, lifetime free update and 1 year upgrade guarantee.
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