We all know that a screen shot is a static capture of what’s on the screen. A moving capture of what’s on the screen is called a screencast, screen recording or screen session recording. When you think of this you generally think of one word — Camtasia. This is the standard for creating video tutorials and presentations directly via screencast. There’s a Mac and a PC version. There are two components to it, one is a recorder and the other is an editor. The Camtasia Recorder captures screen audio and video. The only catch is the price tag. The full version is $300. There are lesser versions starting at about $50.

There’s a free competitor called CamStudio. It lacks many of the bells and whistles of Camtasia. There’s no editor, no zooming, limited file types – just AVI and SWF (Flash). There is no Mac version. But it does the job you expect it to.

Despite many positives I cannot recommend CamStudio at this time. Apparently many of the download sites have been offering a version of this software that is infected with malware. According to users there, even CNET has an infected version. CNET did give a very positive review of this program, but they have not updated it. So read all the user reviews before you download this program. If you need a screencast program now, stick with Camtasia.

We are looking for other free screencast recorders. If you have a reputable one, please let us know.