Comments on: Screencasting Software

Question: Screencasting Software

kaizen — Fri, 06 Jul 2007 08:32:04 -0800

What is the best software to create 'screencasts'. I need to create training videos for software my company has created. Users would access these videos over the net and see the software in action as I narrate. I would prefer that the output files are flash / youtube style and not wma / mpeg.

By: jeffxl

jeffxl — Fri, 06 Jul 2007 08:37:56 -0800

For Mac or PC?

For Mac, Snapz Pro does a good job. It'll only save to Quicktime, so you'll have to convert to Flash after that, but that's not such a big deal.

I've also heard good things about iShowU.

By: Mikey-San

Mikey-San — Fri, 06 Jul 2007 08:47:58 -0800

Don't look for something that goes directly to Flash video. Convert it after it's recorded in a more malleable format.

By: burr1545

burr1545 — Fri, 06 Jul 2007 09:00:25 -0800

wink , does SWF files

By: unixrat

unixrat — Fri, 06 Jul 2007 09:00:59 -0800

Snapz Pro

By: Merdryn

Merdryn — Fri, 06 Jul 2007 09:06:58 -0800

For PC, I am a HUGE fan of Demo Builder. It creates screencasts by getting screen shots as you click and type, and allows you to re-arrange screens, replace bad shots, change mouse movements and cursors, and add text / voiceovers / animations as well. It's far and away the winner of this competition, before I even see the full list of competitors. Just try the demo.

The files it creates are just SWF files and NOT videos. Full fidelity screen images, it just looks wonderful. Run, don't walk, to try it out.

By: fallenposters

fallenposters — Fri, 06 Jul 2007 09:42:41 -0800

Camtasia Studio works well for these purposes.

By: donovan

donovan — Fri, 06 Jul 2007 09:46:03 -0800

Seconding Camtastia . . .

By: toomuchpete

toomuchpete — Fri, 06 Jul 2007 09:56:21 -0800

I love Camtasia.

By: bleucube

bleucube — Fri, 06 Jul 2007 10:19:33 -0800

Fourth Camtastia, plus all my friends work there :) Techsmith rules.

By: cmdnc0

cmdnc0 — Fri, 06 Jul 2007 10:20:36 -0800

Camstudio:

http://www.camstudio.org/

Free is good. Creates AVI files and can convert them to SWF if you want.

By: ijoyner

ijoyner — Fri, 06 Jul 2007 11:15:48 -0800

Seconding camstudio. I've used it before and it is great. Real easy to write to flash.

By: plinth

plinth — Fri, 06 Jul 2007 11:32:53 -0800

Camtasia was very straightforward. I've done several webcasts based on it.

By: ejaned8

ejaned8 — Fri, 06 Jul 2007 11:40:54 -0800

Adobe Captivate also does screencasts. It and Camtasia have different strengths, so you may want to look at a review of both products.

By: chunking express

chunking express — Fri, 06 Jul 2007 12:13:52 -0800

The dude that writes TextMate just wrote about how he does his screen casts. He uses SnapzPro.

By: wheat

wheat — Fri, 06 Jul 2007 13:13:28 -0800

I do quite a bit of these for work and I prefer Adobe Captivate, but TechSmith Camtasia Studio is also good and a bit easier to use if you've never done any of this sort of thing before.

By: iheartcanada

iheartcanada — Fri, 06 Jul 2007 14:21:23 -0800

Camtasia Studio is quite probably your best bet on Windows side. But there's an excellent more affordable alternative called Demo Charge for all the fellow dime-pinchers out there. It is widely used by smaller software development houses to demonstrate as well as train their clients.

On the other side of the coin: if you are also in need of a foolproof way of making textual manuals that exports to HTML, do please consider CityDesk by FogCreek. One of the finer desktop publishing solutions for such needs.

Hope this helps!

Best personal regards,

By: NailsTheCat

NailsTheCat — Fri, 06 Jul 2007 19:31:26 -0800

I was very impressed with BBSoftware's Flashback. When I was searching for one I found this the best combination of power and ease of use (although it was a couple of years ago). There's a free demo.

You can narrate easily, add callouts, edit out as required, and it does little highlighter circle things so you see where / when the mouse was clicked. Filesize (for flash) is small too so it works well over the web.

By: anildash

anildash — Fri, 06 Jul 2007 20:20:45 -0800

Joining the Camtasia chorus -- it's a super-intuitive tool made by good people.

By: Merdryn

Merdryn — Sat, 07 Jul 2007 12:54:31 -0800

Before you do Camtasia, please understand: Even if it creates flash files, the files are still VIDEO. Video which must be compressed, streamed, and suck up bandwidth.

Give Demo Builder a fair shake, trust me on this.

By: wheat

wheat — Mon, 09 Jul 2007 14:00:21 -0800

One of the things I like about Captivate is Flash (SWF) is the native format. So file sizes are fairly small by default. Render times are also a good bit quicker.