I have FRAPS and am trying to film a tutorial, but it only captures the render window. How can I force it to capture the full screen? It gets full screen in everything else.

Also, I'm in desperate need of some good editing software as all I have is Windows Movie maker, lol. I don't mind having to pay for it, but I'd prefer to not have to spend a fortune. What is some reasonably priced or even free software that can take clips shot in FRAPS and edit them together, compress to a reasonable size and make ready to upload to the tube? (Fraps files are HUGE!)

Thanks!

For compression, use Handbrake. It's the easiest, fastest compressor there is and 9/10 times you don't even have to screw with the settings.

Note: on my computer, anyway, it always crashes the first time I launch it, then works fine the second time. Other than that, it's great.


As for editing movies, you can try the free version of Lightworks. If you have access to a machine running Linux, I highly recommend the excellent OpenShot.

For recording desktop, Livestream Procaster works really well. I know it's meant to stream to their site, but you can use it just to record too, and it works way better than any free desktop recording program I've used. It also can generate very small filesize movies. For example, the last time I recorded, the video was 5 minutes and the file was less than 100 mb. A 5 minute video made by fraps would be like 20 times that size. It is also as fast or faster than fraps for recording from a 3D window, so the only reason you would want to use fraps is to get lossless recording, but since you're going to compress it anyway I guess you don't care about that. One downside is that the max resolution for the free verison is 1280x720.

Anybody use Camtasia Studio 8 or know much about it? It's not cheap, but definitely not as expensive as Vegas. But it looks like it has some great features, and the reviews I've seen have been very positive.

Fraps can record the windows desktop

EDIT:

It's on the GENERAL tab, it says Monitor Aero Desktop.

Yep, I've got that ticked. Like I said it records everything from GIMP, my browser, file directories and all but the CK. In the CK it ONLY records the render window.

I've never been able to get Fraps to capture it either. It seems it either captures the desktop or th direct draw screen, but never both together. I thought it was just me, but obviously not.

I've got an old version of Camtasia Studio (5.0 IIRC ) just tested and it records the full screen if you want while using the CK -- ran a quick test and in 1920x1080 saved a processed video 2 min 30 seconds long using Flash format with JPG compression @ 85% Quality took 26.2 MB.

I don't use it that much these days but when I got it several years ago I liked it and it is very handy - you might look around and see if you can find an older version for a better price - should be fine for your needs. (also if just for the one project they offer a 30 day free trial IIRC )

Sorry man thought it would work

OK, I just downloaded the free trial of Camtasia Studio 8 and it records the full screen CK. So I'll try it for 30 days and make an evaluation of whether it's worth shelling out $300 at that point. Meanwhile, I'll keep looking at other less expensive options. Thanks guys.

Instead of shelling out $300 look around for an older version -- For Example I'm still using v5 and it works fine I know I've seen some others like v7 for around $80 and since you do not really need the latest version for what you are doing might as well save a few $'s