Laptop Video screen capture

[Bill]

Can anyone suggest free or low cost software for grabbing live video with sound off a laptop screen as it is playing? Doesn't have to be spectacular quality. I've used VSDC Free Screen Recorder in the past which works well enough for video, but only offers the internal laptop mic for audio, and appears to apply a huge noise gate to that, making the audio capture virtually useless.

The laptop in question doesn't have a "What you hear" audio recording option and I'm not sure whether that would make a difference or not.

I have been able to use a separate audio capture program simultaneously, but syncing up the two later was a huge hassle.

[Andy Burns]

I you don't have a "stereo mix" driver, you could try adding one

[Bill]

Thanks, Andy. I installed that. I didn't like the 30 day free trial's feature of making the laptop say "Trial" out loud every few minutes and couldn't actually make it work as a virtual audio driver with VSDC without a howl round from the mic/speaker.

Removing this and the BBC iPlayer downloader at the same time seemed to screw up the registry settings for the sound card in a big way. Eventually got it back after several soundcard reinstalls and reboots.

It did make me remember that I have got a licence for "Total Recorder" which also has a selection of different virtual drivers. I've used it extensively in the past and it was always been excellent as a stand alone program or integrated with other audio interfaces, but failed miserably last night. I think there may be some quirk about the audio in this laptop, so I'll have to look into it at leisure. TR is cheaper than the other software, so I'll persevere with that.

Thanks for triggering the thoughts of the virtual audio integration.