On Windows: What is the best (free) way to convert running graphic applications to youtube videos

Question

I have java based windows applications that I want to convert to youtube videos. What is the best approach with good quality.

Answer 1

Free and quite good quality (depending on codes/compression): http://camstudio.org/

Answer 2

There are actually lots of them. Try:
http://www.nchsoftware.com/capture/

Answer 3

If you want to record the software's usage, you may be interested in Wink.

Wink is a Tutorial and Presentation creation software, primarily aimed at creating tutorials on how to use software (like a tutor for MS-Word/Excel etc). Using Wink you can capture screenshots, add explanations boxes, buttons, titles etc and generate a highly effective tutorial for your users. Wink is able to generate SWF (Flash), PDF, HTML (web page), and EXE files.

Answer 4

Though a bit expensive, Adobe Captivate is really good, at least at the authoring. Publishing to anything but SWF is tricky, but as far as capturing the screen-shots and annotating them, Captivate rocks.

I just used Captivate for the first time,and I made a 6 minute tutorial in less half a day. In the past, using Snagit or CamStudio, even short videos took days. And I'm getting compliments on how well my recent project turned turned out.