Screencasting Software?

Mark

I'm working on the new getvanilla.com homepage for the forthcoming release, and one of the things I want to do is have sample "screen casts" of various tasks being performed in Vanilla. I've downloaded a couple of screencasting programs (programs that simply capture what I'm doing on my screen and save in video format), but none of them allow me to save my videos in .mov (quicktime) format. I know I can get a video converter. But I also know that a lot of people seem to be kicking out .mov videos. I'm wondering what program they use to get their screencasts saved? Anyone have any experience with this type of thing?

AmbitiousLemon

SnapzProX is the gold standard in creating movies like that. Its expensive shareware though. There are others but no good free ones.

Mark

Hmmm. Anyone know of a good one for Windows?

ithcy

i've used camtasia studio. it's pretty good and i'm sure it supports quicktime.
but have you thought about exporting flash video instead of quicktime?

NickE

There's Windows Media Encoder

Mark

I've tried windows media encoder and even at max quality, it still looks like utter crapola, and it doesn't export .mov as far as I know.

I've tried another piece of software that exports flash, but I didn't like the result of that either.

I dunno. I reckon in these days of itunes and ipods, everyone and their dog has quicktime, so that's why I wanted to go with it. Also, quicktime loads in-browser without any extra work and displays at the resolution the video was saved. If I used avi format, it would load in windows media player and play at the size of the window, not the intended size. I could, of course, put all of these videos into their own screen and set the size myself, but then I'm depending on the browser supporting avi playback, which I've *always* had a hard time getting to work in *my* installation of Firefox.

Meh. I guess I'll just figure this one out on my own as per usual. I was just hoping there was some kickass software out there that I didn't know about and all of you grapevine-savvy dudes did

Minisweeper

just for the record, i hate quicktime. Equally though, i *very* rarely watch video in a browser window. I'll either download it and play it locally or just not bother.

Hory

Why not just make them into flash with a tool such as Wink? http://www.debugmode.com/wink/

NickE

Just googling around I've found HyperCam, but that's shareware...

EDIT: Also found these, if they're of any interest...
http://www.softforall.com/Multimedia/Screencapture/Easy_Screen_Capture_Video07090031.htm
http://www.capture-screen.com/
http://www.phelios.net/emc.html

ithcy

that Wink looks pretty cool

soverysilly

Personally i use BB FlashBack lite. http://www.bbsoftware.co.uk/ Here is a good run down of screencasters http://www.donationcoder.com/Reviews/Archive/ScreenCasting/index.html One i didn't see on their list http://www.screenvirtuoso.com/ Not to plug but if you join their site (donate) you can get a 50% discount on BB FlashBack,i wish i would've got the full version,the lite version has little editing features but encodes to flash(automatic html embed of flash too)and to video-whatever codec you have installed. Imho,Techsmith's Camtasia Studio is the best,but it's also expensive,like 300 bucks.

lech

Mark, I think as long as it outputs in .avi you can easily import it into QT and output it to .mov format? no? Personally, with the latest versions of quicktime, I've been wanting to stab the developers responsible because every other QT movie seems to crash the browser without warning. I've grown quite fond of .flv lately as a result.

Adward

Personally I use DemoCreator, 7 video outputs.
http://www.sameshow.com/demo-creator.html

I prefer you to generate your screencast as .MP4 (for YouTube) or .SWF(directly embed in html on your site). They are more popular and acceptable than .MOV

Bughead

How about http://screenr.com/?