I need a way to record some video with my webcam so I can show it to someone else later. How do you recommend I do this?

I got this question from Sherrilynne earlier today who sounded like she needed to record some video to help with some training she was planning on doing. To tell you the truth, I think my first answer was a bit off the mark. I pointed her at the fact that Facebook and YouTube let you record Video to share publicly or even privately. She tried it out, but it wasn’t really what she was after.

I then found a program that fitted the bill perfectly. It’s a program called Debut which lets you capture video from your webcam or even from your desk top and save it in a number of formats, including avi, mpg, mp4, asf and others. It seems to be pretty easy to use too, though I suspect you won’t really be carrying your laptop around to create a video of one of your Orlando vacations. Still, it seems perfect to create videos with your webcam, or a tutorial of an application you’re using on screen.

Here are some things you can actually use Debut for:

• Produce your own videos with captions and effects from your webcam or other video input device directly to your computer.
• Create “how to” instructional and training videos by capturing screen movements and audio.
• Capture video presentations such as internal company meetings or announcements for archiving.
• Record video memos and email to staff or colleagues.
• Capture instant snapshots from your favorite home videos to save them as jpg files.

And the best thing? It’s totally free, so just download it and give it a try.