Wikipedia:WikiProject Screencast/Software
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One of the principal purposes of WikiProject Screencast is to provide an overview of available software and best practices for producing screencasts.
We should evaluate software on several criteria:
- Ease of use (recording)
- Ease of use (editing)
- Does it produce OGG or OGV? (i.e., video that may be easily uploaded to Wikimedia Commons)
- …
We should also clearly indicate:
- Cost to use
- What platform it runs on (Mac? Linux? Windows? Does it rely on certain software/libraries/hardware?)
This screencasting program for Microsoft Windows renders videos in an Audio Video Interleave (AVI) format. It can also convert these AVIs into Flash Video format, embedded in SWF files. CamStudio is written in Microsoft Visual C++.
- Pros
- It's open source, and licensed under the GPL
- It's small, about 1.3 MB
- Simple to use
- Cons
- Doesn't allow adding annotations or any other editing after the video has been made.
Launched in 2007 as Jing Project by the TechSmith Corporation, this software was released in January 2009 and is free to download and use. The software takes a picture or video of the user's computer screen and uploads it to the Web, FTP, computer or clipboard. A Uniform Resource Locator (URL) is automatically created and can be shared with others to view or access the uploaded file. Users are required to sign up for an account before using the software.
- Pros
- Easy to use
- Cons
- Requires .Net 3.5 (53 MB)
- No editing of videos
- Saves only in .swf (flash) format. Need Jing Pro to do mpg4
- Pros
- Nice easy video editing interface
- Cool interface
- Count down before start of recording
- Can export in .ogv format, which is like .ogg
- Cons
- Requires .Net 2.0 (23 MB)
- Bit of a resource hog, maybe
- Requires registration
- Pros
- Very user-friendly
- Cons
- Mac only
- Costs about $70
Apple's Quicktime player permits recording screencasts.
- Pros
- Free to use
- Cons
- Produces large files
- No built-in editing capabilities
- Questions
- Does the Windows version have this feature as well?
This online tool, sponsored by Kaltura in partnership with Wikimedia, is in early development. It's very promising for collaborative editing and remixing. It makes it possible to create movies out of images and movies on Wikimedia Commons, and add a voice-over.
- Pros
- Platform independent
- Produces OGG video (free format, very compatible with Wikimedia tools)
- Cons
- Early development, may be a bit buggy
- Not a completely refined user experience, requires some familiarity with how Commons works
- May not work with Google Chrome.
Available software overviews
- External lists and reviews
- thescreencastinghandbook.com
- dreamwebdesigns.com
- indoition.com, notes for many commercial apps, free software listed near the end.
See also selection criteria suggestions.
Additional Software Functions
The software listed above, including Jing and Snapz are great for capture, but not for editing.
It is not clear whether the community will favor the "writing ahead of time" model, in which the "how-to" is scripted then screencast, or the "editing afterward" model, in which the capture is completed and then edited. If the editing model is favored, or even popular, an additional software program will be needed. iMovie HD is a great and easy-to-use program but there are a lot of programs out there to edit mov, mpeg-4, avi and other movie file types.
This brings up the file type issue. For the purposes of this first round we shouldn't get bogged down with this requirement, but editing software is significant in the long term, for several reasons.
1. The need to edit videos while making them prior to posting on Wikipedia. 2. The need to edit videos after they are made and published. (help/correction). 3. The need to edit videos after they are made and published and out-of-date (in the case where the Chinese Gooseberry video needs to be updated to the Kiwi video).