- Introduction to Screencasting
- Software Options
- Tips on Screencasting
Introduction to Screencasting
Screencasting is one of the most useful ways to demonstrate how to do anything on your computer and serve it to a wide audience. If you're not familiar with the term, "screencasting" essentially means sharing video captures of events on your screen. Screencasting has been around for over a decade but has only gained popularity in the last few years with broadband becoming standard and smaller video file sizes (thanks to Flash video and H.264). Video captures are very useful in showing intricate processes that are hard to explain or to show full processes rather than depending on several screen shots and long text descriptions. Most software performing video captures also sync video with microphone audio so you can even narrate your screencasts.
You can see a sample screencast I made:
Software Options
There are many different software options available, even at the free or cheap level. The cross platform Jing Project (available for Windows and Mac OS X; v1.6.8, free) is very easy to use and not only allows for photo and video capture but also has built-in sharing, allowing you to share from Jing's Screencast.com, Flickr or save it to your computer so you can share it elsewhere. It outputs to a SWF (Flash) file which makes it more difficult to edit later (so expect to do your screencasts with Jing in one take) but many of the settings are configured for you, great for the novice screencaster. Another cross-platform option is Screencast-O-Matic (runs from internet browser; vBeta, free) which launches a Java applet from your web browser to capture video. Screencast-O-Matic also outputs to Quicktime format, great for Final Cut Pro users but can also be easily converted for other video editing applications.
For the Windows platform, the (cheap) preeminent software is Camstudio (available for Windows; v2.5, beta 1, free). This is different from its $300 half-sibling Camtasia Studio( (available for Windows; v5.1, $299). CamStudio is open source, outputs to a variety of formats (allowing for editing later) and even provides the ability to add text captioning, picture-in-picture and many other options. Linux users have recordMyDesktop (available for Linux; v0.3.7.3, free) at their disposal which outputs to the open source OGV format which also can be easily converted for editing and laying down an audio track using a program like Audacity (available for Windows, Mac OS X and Linux/Unix; 1.2.6 Stable or 1.3.5 Beta, free). Windows and Linux users can also use Wink which also outputs to the SWF format or as a standalone EXE file.
Mac OS X users have a few options available. iShowU (available for Mac OS X; v1.69, $20) lets you control many of the recording options (which audio to use, whether to follow the mouse, hiding the iShowU application, etc) and has many different presets for video compression based on your needs. The demo version records a pretty distracting watermark on your video so, when using this it may be worth shelling out the $20 for a quality capture. Mac users also have Snapz Pro X (available for Max OS X; v2.1.2, $69), possibly the most popular and celebrated video capture program on the market, touting clients like Apple and Adobe. Users say it is the most versatile, fastest-running and intuitive application they have ever used and is certainly worth the price.
Tips on Screencasting
The best tips for screencasts are to keep them short and to keep them interesting. Generally screencasts should stay under 4 minutes in order to keep the file size small and the audience captivated. Anything over four minutes (especially if it approaches the ten minute mark) might be better off broken up into scenes or different screencast videos. Keeping it interesting can include graphics, a conversational tone of voice or just keep it simple so the audience doesn't get caught up in unnecessary detail. Here's a list of helpful links with tips and examples of screencasts:
Are you already a screencaster? What's your process? Leave any suggestions or questions in the comments. And upload your screencasts to the Resource Center!
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