Video capture and edit tools

The following are some programs for capturing and editing video game footage. The Nexus also has a dedicated forum related to video software.

Video Capture

CamStudio (FREE) 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)

Fraps ($37.00 or free trial as cripleware) - You can also get the software bundle on the Nexus: Fraps Shoestring Edition

Game Cam ($30.00 or FREE Version) - The free version does not record audio.

PxKeystrokesForScreencasts (FREE) is a tool for recording both printable and non-printable keystrokes such as mouse-clicks or "state modifier keys" (Control, Alt, etc.) and displaying them in an overlay window on top of a streaming broadcast.

QiPress ($30 or FREE Version) is a tool for recording both printable and non-printable keystrokes such as mouse-clicks or "state modifier keys" (Control, Alt, etc.) and displaying them in an overlay window on top of a streaming broadcast.

Taksi (FREE) is a video capture/screen capture tool for recording 3D graphics applications (such as games). It can capture almost any windows application using DirectX, OpenGL, or GDI and create an AVI file using any installed VFW codec or still frames in PNG. It does not record audio.

Xfire (FREE) is an application that combines multiple gaming tools into one powerful tool to alleviate the need to run multiple different gaming related programs. For instance, Xfire allows you to chat with your friends, see what games they are playing, what servers they are playing on and join them instantly with one click. Xfire also allows you to show off your gaming skills by capturing screenshots and videos and uploading them to your Profile page on the Xfire website.

ZD Soft Game Recorder ($39.00 or free trial) (Mirrors: Cnet.com, Softonic.com)

Video Editing

AVS Video Editor ($39.00 or free trial) helps you create Hollywood-like home videos with little prior computer video experience. Creating great video productions is now a hassle-free task with AVS Video Editor even for beginners. Supports virtually all video formats. The free evaluation version of AVS Video Editor has no time outs or feature limits. The video editing software is fully functional and only shows a text message on the output video so you’ll get a great idea of how to use all of its features.

Cyberlink PowerDirector ($70.00)

Sony Vegas ($45.00 - $125.00)

VirtualDub (FREE) is a video capture/processing utility for 32-bit and 64-bit Windows platforms (98/ME/NT/2000/XP/Vista/7), licensed under the GNU General Public License (GPL). It lacks the editing power of a general-purpose editor such as Adobe Premiere, but is streamlined for fast linear operations over video. It has batch-processing capabilities for processing large numbers of files and can be extended with third-party video filters. VirtualDub is mainly geared toward processing AVI files, although it can read (not write) MPEG-1 and also handle sets of BMP images.

Windows Movie Maker allows you to create, edit and share your movies using an easy-to-navigate interface. It is also handy for creating titles, credits and transitions for your movie clips.

Encoders

FormatFactory (FREE) is a fully-featured, converter that enables you to convert audio, video, and even images, between the most popular formats. These include WMV, AVI, MPG, MP3, WMA, AAC, JPG, PNG, GIF, and many more. Better still, FormatFactory supports media formats used by most major portable devices, including PSP and iPhone.

Handbrake (FREE) is a multi-platform, multi-threaded video transcoder.

The RAD Video Tools (FREE) are a set of utilities for processing video, animation, and sound data. They feature both of our video codecs: Bink Video, latest 24-bit true-color codec, and Smacker and 8-bit 256-color codec. It gives you everything you need to create, use, and distribute Bink and Smacker video files. They include the compressors, sound mixers, players, and general graphics and sound converters. It can even compile Bink or Smacker files into EXE files for self-running stand-alone videos (the player is bundled into the EXE file, so the user does not need to download anything else).