liteCAM 2.2
Reviewed: Geetesh Bajaj
Date Created: March 12th 2008
Last Updated: February 23rd 2009
Introduction
About liteCAM
Download and Installation
Using liteCAM
Pricing and Support
Conclusion
Introduction
Recording onscreen computer activity is so much easier nowadays -- however, with the dozens of product options available, each product has to provide a compelling advantage and improved options than other similar applications.
Our review product, liteCAM does have some features that are unique to the program. Let us explore further.
About liteCAM
liteCAM is from innoheim, a company based in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. You can learn more about these products, and download a trial version of liteCAM here...
liteCAM is a screen recorder program that records whatever you see on your screen as video with audio. These include:
- Webcams and chat conversations including online/offline lectures.
- Streaming videos from YouTube, SingingFish, Google Videos, and similar sites. You can thus download streaming video sample.
- Flash and Quicktime videos
- Your desktop activity
Here is a listing of features found in liteCAM:
- Compatible with Windows Vista.
- The audio wizard automatically detects your sound card for recording.
- Recording quality - liteCAM claims to provide a mirror image of the original movies.
- Timed recording.
- Various recording modes such as custom size, window frame, and full screen.
- The output file is an AVI file.
- The recorded movies can be played on computers, MP3 player with video capabilities, personal media players, and PDAs.
The liteCAM site has an online tutorial on how you can install and use the application.
My contact at innoheim for this review was Calvin Moon - thank you, Calvin.
Download and Installation
Download the installer, run the setup routine and follow the instructions. You'll end up with a innoheim program group in your Windows Start menu (see Figure 1 below).
Figure 1: innoheim group in the Start menu
Using liteCAM
Follow this steps to use liteCAM:
- Go to your Windows Start menu and choose All Programs | innoheim | liteCAM | liteCAM (see Figure 1 above)
- This opens Automatic Hardware Acceleration dialog box as shown in Figure 2
Figure 2: Automatic Hardware Acceleration
Click Yes, let the application do hardware acceleration automatically.
- This brings up an audio recording dialog box (see Figure 3), click yes to proceed.
Figure 3: Audio recording setting
- This opens the liteCAM interface, as shown in Figure 4.
Figure 4: liteCAM interface
On the left side of the interface you can find three different recording sizes, which are explained below:
- Custom Size allows to select custom recording area.
- Window Frame option allows you to select an area within a program's interface -- such as only the play area within Windows Media Player.
- Full Screen allows you to record in full screen mode.
The right side of the interface has Video Setting, Audio Setting and Timer Recording setup.
- After selecting the recording area, click the Record button to start recording (refer to Figure 4 above). You will be prompted to choose a name and location for your output file immediately after clicking the Record button.
- Thereafter, you see the AVI Files Option dialog box as shown in Figure 5. Here you can choose compression program (codec).
Figure 5: AVI Files Option
Microsoft MPEG-4 Video Codec V3 Codec with default values is recommended for standard recording.
- Once you click OK, you are presented with a message box (see Figure 6) -- click OK again to start recording.
Figure 6: Start Recording
- When the recording begins, you will see a small Pause and Stop indicator at the bottom right side of the screen, as shown in Figure 7.
Figure 7: Pause and Stop indicators
When done with the recording, press the Stop button.
- This brings up the message box that you can see in Figure 8 -- to inform that the recording has been completed.
Figure 8: Recording completed
Click OK to get back to the liteCAM interface shown last in Figure 4 -- now the play icon will no longer be grayed out -- click the play icon to view your recording.
Pricing and Support
liteCAM costs $19 for a single user license, and is available as a multiple user license product as well.
Support is through email, online FAQ , forum, and web tutorials.
Conclusion
liteCAM is a simple and effective application that lets you create recordings of onscreen activity without getting into any technical details -- the price is right too -- but there are a few quirks like spelling mistakes in the program interface -- for instance "Starting point" is "Srarting point"!
liteCAM is also available as a "green version" that retails for $1 more -- innoheim donates a certain percentage of the profit to WWF to save polar bears and Arctic ecosystems. Based on their sales, innoheim has already adopted 2 bears since the program’s launch in 2007.
