Screen Casting

Can somebody please recommend a useful screen casting widget? I've never made a screen cast before; but, I want to do so now. Preferably, I'd like a free one.

Thanks.

Tags: screencasting

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Permalink Reply by Tom Woodward on April 11, 2007 at 5:31pm

Are you mac or pc?

I use snapzpro on the mac but it's not free. It's about $70 at http://www.ambrosiasw.com/utilities/snapzprox/.

The other main mac option I hear about is ishowU at http://shinywhitebox.com/home/home.html for $20. It seems a pretty good deal but I haven't used it enough to testify.

If you're a PC guy I think Camastasia is the one our PC people use. It's not free either. I'm not to experienced with PC options anymore maybe someone else can do better.

Good luck,

Tom

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Permalink Reply by Elizabeth Davis on June 3, 2007 at 6:28pm

I used to use snapzpro and recently switched to iShowU. It is so much better. Where SnapzPro can take 30 minutes to render the video, iShowU takes seconds and it works just as well and is much cheaper. I highly reccomend it. I just posted some screencasts on setting up a google reader account. I used iShowU. You can see them here.

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Permalink Reply by Marielle Lange on October 27, 2007 at 8:16am

I use IShowU (Mac only). Great tool (independently of price). Tends to produce somewhat big mov files when presentations are more than a few minutes long. You have options, however, to choose different compression/quality options.

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Permalink Reply by Tom Woodward on April 11, 2007 at 5:36pm

what do you know? I found a free pc option in a comment on CR 2.0 moments later. Check out wink http://www.debugmode.com/wink/.

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Permalink Reply by Steve Dickie on April 11, 2007 at 5:54pm

I've played with Wink and it doesn't compare with a program like Camtasia. Wink can do some video capture of the desktop, but it doesn't do it very well. What is does well is takes screen shots and allow you to stich them together with a voice over. It will animate the cursor so it appears to be captured video. You can add clickable buttons as well. You can save the whole thing as a flash presentation or a standalone exe. It's worth a look, but is a little limited and there is a bit of a learning curve.

Camtasia works pretty well, but it's also pretty pricey. On the free side you can also try Windows Media Encoder, which is free. http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/forpros/encoder/defau...

I've used iShowU on my MacBook and I like it. I've only done a few captures, but it's worked like a charm. The cool thing is no matter how long I capture for the video file is available instantly on the desktop, no waiting for it to render.

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Permalink Reply by Sue R. on April 11, 2007 at 6:27pm

Teacher Tube has a short video demonstrating how to use CamStudio, a Free program, for screencapturing and making in flash or avi videos. I use a pc, and I am new at this, but did install it and use it to make a video (to demonstrate to a committee how to unpack an encrypted email attachment), and it was pretty cool. Check out the video tutorial at http://www.teachertube.com/

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Permalink Reply by Shamblesguru (Chris Smith) on April 11, 2007 at 10:21pm

Have a look at the list at
http://www.shambles.net/pages/staff/screencast/

I use Camsasia... but is expensive ... but worth the money compared to cheaper options I've tried.

I did try the free
Windows Media Encoder 9 Series
http://tinyurl.com/jv9yx

But had some problems ... suspect, though, it was a "User Interface Error"

Have fun

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Permalink Reply by Andrew Pass on April 12, 2007 at 5:16am

Thanks for the input. I'm a PC user. Last night I downloaded the month trial period for Camtasia. I'm looking forward to using it.

I think it's great that this site (classroom2.0) exists. It gives us a place to ask questions like this.

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Permalink Reply by Tom Woodward on June 3, 2007 at 2:14pm

I've got a good answer for you now PC or Mac and FREE! http://www.screencast-o-matic.com/

Pretty neat. First I've heard of anything like this.

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Permalink Reply by SusanTsairi on June 19, 2007 at 6:24am

Thanks Tom, I tried out screencast-o-matic, it was surprisingly easy to use - resolution is not 100% but clear enough.

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Permalink Reply by Ken Pruitt on June 3, 2007 at 4:11pm

I use camtasia, but I have also just taken screen shots and uploaded them to a site like SplashCastMedia. Quick, easy, free, and best of all, the splashcast player has a selection feature that lets the viewer choose between any of your movies.
http://www.splashcastmedia.com/

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Permalink Reply by Steve Dickie on June 18, 2007 at 6:11am

I discovered another PC resource for capturing video called CamStudio. It's free and not too bad. To test it out I captured a trip down the Grand Canyon in Google Earth. It did far better than I'd expected.

http://www.camstudio.org/