The Distant Librarian

Lifehacker readers pick the Five Best Screencasting Tools

I'm not sure if these are presented in rank order, but Lifehacker has a post reporting reader picks for the 5 best screencasting tools, which are: Screenflow, Jing, CamStudio, Camtasia Studio, ScreenToaster.  Check the comments for all sorts of additional nuggets too.

Adobe Captivate for Mac in 2010

eQuixotic reports and RJ Jacquez confirms in the comments that Adobe Captivate for Mac is scheduled for release sometime in 2010.

Libraries and Online Video - Free Online Seminar with TechSoup

Techsoup.org is hosting the following videoconference on Wednesday, November 18:

Wouldn't it be great if complicated technology concepts were explained in a simple way that's easy to understand? Imagine how something like this could assist you in training sessions for patrons or staff. Well look no further, Common Craft creates explanatory videos "In Plain English" that cover topics like green, money, society and technology.
 
In this free webinar, Stephanie Gerding from TechSoup will interview Lee LeFever, from Common Craft to learn more about their videos and how they are created. We will also hear how Mary Beth Faccioli from the Colorado State Library and Carolyn Blatchley from Cumberland County Library System in Pennsylvania are using these videos to support the needs of their community.

You can register for this free event here.

1080p HD is coming to YouTube

I don't think it will have any real implications for screencasting in the library world, but the YouTube blog reports that starting the week of November 16 they'll support video resolution up to 1080p.

New site: Mac Screencasting

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!

Screencasting on the Mac - Screenflow 2 vs Camtasia:mac

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.

Incidentally, I also ran across this collection of links on the Screenflow blog of other reviews of Screenflow, including some comparisons with Camtasia.

Screencasting Review: On the subject of Camtasia for Mac and Screenflow

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 :-)

News about Screencasting and Screen Capture on the Mac

Seems to be a pretty newsy day!  Techsmith has released Camtasia:mac (screencasting) AND announced that they're developing a version of Snagit for the Mac (screen capture).  Not to be left out, Telestream has announced (but not yet released) version 2 of their excellent screencasting program, Screenflow.

screencasting, osx

Comparing Online Screen Recorders

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:

Tool	Duration	Dimensions	Webcam /Mic	Video Format	Quality	YouTube HD	Mobile?
Screenr	5 mins	user selected	mic	MP4	Amit's examples	yes	iPhone native
Screen Toaster	< 20MB	user selected	mic + webcam	MOV, SWF	Amit's examples	yes	Flash
Screen Jelly	3 mins	entire screen	mic	can't down- load?	Amit's examples	no	Flash
Screencast-o-matic	15 mins	user selected	mic	MP4, FLV, WMV	Amit's examples	yes	Flash

Use embedr for video/screencast playlists

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:

Build your own custom video playlist at embedr.com

Pretty neat - check it out!

Camtasia coming to the Mac on Aug 25th!

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?

Screencasting Tool comparison chart

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!

Qarbon Stimulus Program

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.

Thank you for using our products.

The Qarbon Team

Screencasting programs for Linux

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.

TechSmith launches an Education Community Blog and Site

TechSmith, makers of Snagit, Camtasia Studio and Jing, has launched a new blog aimed at the education market.  Dave McCollom, Education Evangelist, writes that "The primary goal for this blog is to provide a home for stories and examples of how educators are using TechSmith products." He also points to the new Techsmith Education Community, where you'll find information on using TechSmith products in the classroom (Introduction to screen capture in education, Make a video for when you or students are absent, etc...)  Should prove to be a valuable site as it grows.