Adobe CaptivateĪt $1,099 for a full license (or $29.99 per month with a 12-month contract), Adobe Captivate does not come cheap. If you’re just looking to throw together a few quick screencasts, they are definitely not the apps for you. These are all fully featured options for creating serious online courses. Each of these apps costs at least a hundred dollars (or has an expensive subscription model).
If it’s your career, consider investing in some professional software. If you’re just starting out (or only need to do a few quick videos), try a free open source app to make sure screen recording is for you. While price isn’t necessarily correlated with quality, it does correlate with how much development time can go into new features and how much support you can expect from the developers. Some are free and open source, others are professional suites costing hundreds of dollars. There’s a wide variety of prices for screen capture software. Similarly, if you want to live stream on YouTube, you will need an app that supports live streaming. For example, if you want to stream on Twitch, having an app that posts directly to Twitch is going to make your life a lot easier, than using some workaround. All screen recording apps offer a way to save your captures out as a video you can do what you like with, but if you know exactly where you’re going to publish your screencasts, it might be worth looking for an app that integrates with your preferred service.
On the other hand, if you are planning on streaming live or just posting up raw videos, you might not need them. If you’re planning to edit your screencasts so they flow better, then you might want to think about getting one with a decent editor. The better editors have screen capture specific features, like the ability to highlight the cursor or follow it around the screen, that regular video editors don’t have. This means you can use the one app to capture and edit your screen recordings.
A lot of screen capture software comes with basic (or not so basic) editing features as well. Do you need to be able to only capture a small section of the screen? Do you need to be able to record footage from your web cam at the same time? Do you need to be able to record from multiple monitors? What about from your mobile devices? These are all different features to think about. With that said, there is some variation in how much control screen capture software will give you over what’s recorded. If it can’t, you’re looking at the wrong app. Every screen recording app has to be able to record what’s happening on your screen. The best screen recorders will have some combination of them, so pick the one that works for you.
Rather than try to claim that X, Y, and Z features are essential, I’m instead going to list some of the features that you may want. If you’re a professional, making money from what you capture on your screen, then the features you require and the amount of money you’re prepared are going to be very different to someone who wants to do one or two quick tutorials for a YouTube channel. What makes a good screen capture app depends on what features you care most about (and what your budget is). What Makes the Best Screen Capture Software? Capturing one and sharing it online will almost certainly not be. In some cases, capturing a live broadcast for your own use will be permissible. This kind of use can often be illegal so, if you’re going to do it, check beforehand that you’re legally allowed capture a live stream. While they’re superficially doing the same thing, they also need slightly different features to successfully broadcast their gaming.įinally, there are also some people who use screen recorders to capture live broadcasts. There are also game streamers who post on services like Twitch, either for fun or profit. You could even sell them to make money online, or just send them on to the person you made them for. You can then publish that video on a platform like YouTube. What these screen recording apps do is record everything you do on screen (or on a section of your screen) so you can save it as a video.
Whether you’re recording professional tutorials or just want a few quick video clips you can leave on your parents’ computer so they have a simple reminder how to do basic tasks like send email, you need screen capture software to make them.