Direct Stream Recorder is a screen-recording utility. It allows you to record anything that you see on your screen. Many applications tap into other programs' streams to record them, but Direct Stream Recorder takes a different approach: allows you to define a rectangle on your screen to record everything that happens inside that area.
There are both advantages and disadvantages to this method. On the surface, it allows you to record pretty much any video or any images displayed on your screen. However, it restricts you to a static rectangle on your screen and the quality of recorded video using this approach can never match the original quality of the content; especially for high-definition content. Still, if you want to record a video chat conversation or a flash movie in a quick fashion and don't care about output quality, this program can do the trick.
It also allows for audio recording. Both audio and video recordings are done with your system's codecs, so if you have advanced codecs you should be able to record without any issues. The default ones include Microsoft video, H.261 and H.263 for video. There are basic options for each codec, and you can also change the frames rate of the output movie.
Direct Stream Recorder doesn't allow you to preview your videos, but it has a convenient "Show videos" button that takes you to your recordings.
