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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?)

CamStudio

CamStudio v.2.5 beta 1 screenshot

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.
  • Windows only

FFmpeg

Diagram showing different applications (VDR, MPlayer, Xine and VideoLAN) using FFmpeg

Free, open source software that can run on any platform. It works from the command-line.

Pros
  • Free to use
  • Supports ogg .ogv format
  • Cross-platform support
  • Produces high quality video and audio
Cons
  • Difficult to use
See also
  • XVidCap (GUI program, built upon FFmpeg libraries)

HyperCam

Pros
  • Free to use
Cons
  • Windows only
  • Saves only to AVI

Jing

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

Pixetell

Pros
  • Nice easy video editing interface
  • Cool interface
  • Count down before start of recording
  • Can export in .ogv format, which is like .ogg. It may not play correctly after uploaded to commons.
Cons
  • Requires .Net 2.0 (23 MB)
  • Bit of a resource hog, maybe
  • Requires registration

Quicktime

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?
No, as it is only included in QuickTime X, which is only included in Mac OSX Snow Leopard. THENEWMONO 04:05, 5 October 2010 (UTC)[reply]

RecordMyDesktop

Screenshot of RecordMyDesktop

Free, open source software that runs on Linux. It has command line tools, along with a GUI (gtk-recordMyDesktop).

Pros
  • Free to use
  • Easy to use
  • Produces ogg .ogv files
Cons
  • No built-in editing capabilities (though, can use PiTiVi or other program to do editing)
  • Not sure about quality of the results, in terms of quality
Questions
  • Does the Windows version have this feature as well?

Sequencer on Wikimedia Commons

Sequencer screenshot

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.

Shooter

This add-on for Mozilla Firefox could be useful for getting screenshots to incorporate into screencasts.

Shooter

Snapz Pro X

Pros
  • Very user-friendly
Cons
  • Mac only
  • Costs about $70

XVidCap

XVidCap in action
Pros
  • Produces MPEG (higher quality, but non-free format) and AVI format videos
  • Uses FFmpeg libraries
  • Free, open source
  • Easy to use
Cons
  • Inactive development

Works on Linux

Audio software

Audacity

Screenshot of Audacity

Audacity is a free software, cross-platform digital audio editor and recording application.

Pros
  • free and open-source.
  • available for Windows, Mac OS X, Linux and BSD.
Notes

Storyboard software

Celtx

Free, open source (though there are paid add-ons)

Pros
  • free, open source
  • available for Windows, Mac OS X & Linux


Video editing software

  • Windows Video Maker
  • PowerPoint

Conversion and uploading software, web sites

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 an example of 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 Kiwifruit video).

Video editing software iMovie HD, iMovie 8 (Apple) Microsoft Movie Maker (Windows) Adobe Premiere (Pro CS 5 is current) (Mac, Windows) Final Cut Studio (Apple) Pinnacle (Formerly Avid) Studio (Windows)

See also

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