A new site all about Mac Screencasting launched today. Not a whole lot of content up yet, but what's there is solid and professional; it's going to be an excellent resource for all screencasters, and Mac screencasters in particular. Be sure to check out the link to the whitepaper over on the right. Looking forward to great things Scott!
Screenflow 2.0 came out earlier this week, so I now have production copies of it and Camtasia:mac. I hadn't planned to do a head-to-head, but the opportunity arose today, so I took it. Below you'll find copies of the same screencast I did to introduce Summon to our community. The first was done in Screenflow, the second in Camtasia:mac. Overall verdict? Tie. Screenflow got 1 point because it had easy mouse focus (dimming the background), but Camtasia's Smart Focus, while it needed a little tweaking, made the zooms easier to throw in. Had I spent a few extra minutes I could've made the timing on the Camtasia zooms a little more uniform. I understand Screenflow has a few audio extra features, but I didn't do anything with audio processing for this one. Both were really quite simple to edit, chop out dead space, and add the closing text. I don't think you'll go wrong with either one.
Screenflow
Camtasia:mac
Screenflow did do a better job with the automatic upload to YouTube; it asked if I wanted to upload as HD, while Camtasia didn't, and the result with Camtasia's upload was quite a bit fuzzier. I went back and used Camtasia's advanced export feature to export at 1024x720 H264, then uploaded manually to YouTub and the results were much better. I also didn't do an equal job on the cropping and zooming, so they won't be identical in dimension.
While I have copies of Camtasia:Mac and iShowU HD and a demo copy of Screenflow, I haven't made the time to do a comparison of them. John Basile at Scrast.net has taken a fairly comprehensive look at Camtasia:Mac and Screenflow though. No clear winner is the ultimate conclusion (except maybe for the end-user :-)
Another week, another online screen recording program; this time it's Screenr. Amit
at Digital
Inspiration has a post comparing this newcomer to Screen
Toaster, Screen Jelly and Screencast-o-matic. While he uses a
narrative style, I'd prefer a chart, so I put one together:
A couple of months ago my colleague Carmen pointed me to Embedr, "a free service that lets anyone create a custom playlist of videos from the top video sites on the web." Finally had a chance to take a look at it and quite like it. Basically you can feed it the URLs of videos across the following video sharing sites: Atom Films, Blip.TV, Bragster, Break.com, College Humor, Dailymotion, DivShare, Edublogs.tv, Metacafe, TeacherTube, Google Video, MySpace Video, Vimeo, YouTube, or you can build a smart playlist from YouTube only that will automatically update based on keywords, categories, regions, YouTube usernames, etc. That would be a really quick way to keep a current list of all your library's screencasts in one spot on your library's site!
Here's an example I grabbed from the public area of the Embedr site:
They've finally got a date! Techsmith has announced that they're shipping Camtasia for the Mac on August 25th. "Camtasia for Mac will have a special introductory special price of $99, through the end of 2009. After that, the MSRP will be $149." That's an interesting price point - way cheaper than Camtasia Studio for Windows, initially the same price as Screenflow, which appears to be the industry leader on OS X right now, but then a fair amount more expensive starting in 2010.
Hey Techsmith, will you have an educational price point as well, and if so will public libraries be included in it?
Dr. Stephen Ransom has a great chart loaded on Scribd comparing a large number of screencasting tools. There are some screen capture tools listed as well that I wouldn't have put on a screencasting chart, but it's a nice simple overview indicating whether the tool is online or "local", which OS, cost, formats, shareability, and general notes. Nice work!
I received the following email from Qarbon, the folks who first introduced me to screencasting with their ViewletBuilder product oh so long ago.
To help both new and existing customers during the economic recovery, Qarbon has created its own Stimulus Package that will begin on July 15th, 2009 and run through August 15th, 2009. This package gives everyone $100 to spend on any product and/or service in our online store. To qualify for this program, simply spend $199 or more.
Would you like to upgrade your current version? What about brushing up on your creation skills by taking a Workshop? Whether you'd like to use it towards a new product, service or even support plan like Platinum Membership - it's your $100 and it's up to you!
To redeem your Stimulus, simply enter this coupon code during checkout [stim100] and $100 will come off your total. If you have any questions or comments, please send them to sales@qarbon.com.
Tux Radar posts today with mid-length reviews of a half-dozen screencasting programs for Linux: Group test: screencasting apps. They like DemoRecorder the best.
How you know you're not ready for Linux? The post concludes with a suggestion that if none of these meet your needs, you could "roll your own. Almost all GUI apps on Linux are just a wrapper around some powerful command-line scripts. Screencasting tools are no different." :-)
Oddly, there are no links to the reviewed products in the post.
Amit at Digital Inspiration points out that you can now download your YouTube videos legally. But the emphasis is on YOUR videos. The best tool I know for being able to download all YouTube videos, and in the format of your choice, is KickYouTube.
Gina Trapani at Smarterware has a great post where she's chopped out the highlights of an 80-minute presentation showcasing Google Wave. Now you can see what's particularly cool with this future tool in less than 8 minutes.
And from much earlier this year, Library Journal netConnect has a two-post series from Melissa Rethlefsen on screencasting tools (free and fee), with a particular focus on how they can be used in libraries:
Over on Tame the Web, Mick Jacobsen describes how he decided to produce his screencasts not from the librarian point of view, but from the Patron Point of View (PPOV).
Which video do you think would be viewed more: Learn How to Search LegalForms or Find a Customizable Contract for Your Business? I think the latter. The shift from a sage on the stage librarian teaching databases to the PPOV has changed everything in regards to my idea of screencasting. Try it, I think you will find it liberating.
