Screencast-O-Matic (https://screencast-o-matic.com) is a great piece of software to easily lets you record the action happening on your computer screen or a section of your computer screen.  Recently I upgraded all of my PC’s to Windows 10 and I have discovered a great little feature built in to the Operating System that works wonderfully, and accomplishes similar tasks to Screen-Cast-O-Matic. The Windows Game Bar is part of the XBOX features built into Windows 10, and while it was built to help record gaming footage, it works at any time for any application.  With a simple tap of the Windows Key + G, the Windows Game Bar pops up and allows you to record audio and video of everything on your screen.  After you have finished recording, you have to enter the XBOX app (which is totally strange) and find all your recorded videos.  You can easily upload to YouTube, or my personal favorite video hosting site, Vimeo.com.  Since this is recorded in a standard MOV file you have free range to edit, post, quickshare, or do whatever you may want with the recorded footage.

The Game Bar is a fantastic Windows 10 feature and I wish it was not tucked away as part of the XBOX app.  I feel if this was just part of the standar OSand not associated with the Game Bar, it would used more often.  Either way, if you have Windows 10, this is a fantastic way to record your screen for any and all screencasting sessions.

Another notable application is Camstudio (Camstudio.org).

CamStudio is able to record all screen and audio activity on your computer and create industry-standard AVI video files and using its built-in SWF Producer can turn those AVIs into lean, mean, bandwidth-friendly Streaming Flash videos (SWFs).  Camstudio is Free!  From the website:

So where can I get it and how much does it cost?

You can download and use it completely free – yep – completely 100% free for your personal and commercial projects as CamStudio and the Codec are released under the GPL (for more details on this license, click here.)

There are no royalties or any monies to pay – although if you do use it for a commercial product, I wouldn’t say no to a copy of whatever you produce.