Camtasia, one of the best screencasting applications for Windows, just got a highly-anticipated Mac release. Camtasia can easily record audio and video from multiple sources at once, so it's easy to talk someone through what's happening onscreen.

The recording of your screen, your Mac's audio output, sound from your microphone, and video from your iSight can all be easily arranged in the timeline along with any other elements you might want to import. Combine that with a nice effects library and easy sharing, and you've got a winning screencast app.

It's also currently discounted from $150 to $99.

Mac users have been salivating over Camtasia for a couple of years now, mainly because it tops other Mac screen recording software in terms of post-production and editing. The Mac version of Camtasia isn't exactly the same as the PC version, however.

Aside from the Mac-like UI design, it also has more options for editing the size, position and rotation of your video than its Windows counterpart. The Camtasia team has used their own software to record a screencast of Camtasia, and that's a good place to start getting familiar with the features. Check it out on their homepage, or sneak a peek at a YouTube walkthrough after the break.

Launching a new CMS these days is a tough proposition. It's a crowded field, and distinguishing your product takes some ingenuity. Well, FireRift is one publishing platform that knows how to take a marketing concept way, way over the top. The video commercial for FireRift is like something out of a campy Ronnie James Dio video from the '80s, with a meteor, glowing eyes, and a couple of wizardly guys charging into each other on a sand dune. It's totally stylized and totally absurd, but you're not going to ask, "Oh, which one is FireRift, again?" after seeing it.

I'd like to think our readers want a little more in a CMS than a commercial with some cheeseball special effects, though, so I should also mention that there's a screencast of FireRift available, so you can see the app in action. It runs through setting up an image/video gallery in FireRift, and the process actually looks well-designed and pretty simple to do.

Screenjelly is a quick and easy screencasting tool that works totally in the browser. It records what's on your screen, plus the audio from your computer mic so you can explain what you're doing as you do it. Recordings are limited to 3 minutes, and the service lets you share your recordings via Twitter. It's a lot like Twitpic or Yfrog, but for screencasts instead of photos.

Screenjelly fills the gap between screenshots and full-on scheduled videoconferences. If you're having a computer problem, or fixing one for a friend, sometimes a screenshot can't fully explain the unusual behavior you're trying to deal with. A short video can do the trick. Similarly, if you want to show off a cool move in game you're playing - and there are TONS of videos like this under three minutes on YouTube - you can have it blasted out to Twitter within moments of recording it.

ScreenCastle is a Java-based tool for recording screencasts from your web browser. If you've got Java installed on your computer all you have to do is visit ScreenCastle and click the big red record button. A window will pop up asking you to select the area of your desktop that you want to record and decide whether you want to capture audio from your microphone.

That's pretty much it for the settings. Click OK and you can start capturing a video of anything happening on your desktop. Scroll your mouse over the red line around the border of your screen to pause or finish the recording.

The image quality is pretty good, but the video frame rate wasn't that impressive in my tests. What is impressive was the number of options that ScreenCastle gives you once your recording is over. The service automatically generates a download link where you can grab an FLV file, a web site where you can watch the screencast online, and HDML or BBCode that you can use to embed the file on various web sites. There are even links to large and small thumbnail previews.

While ScreenCastle isn't going to replace full features screencast software like Camtasia Studio, it definitely gets the job done if you just need to make a simple recording in a hurry.

[via WebWare]

Last month Grant, Christina and I checked out a couple of screencasts from Pragmatic Programmers' Bill Dudney. Specifically, we watched "Coding in Objective-C 2.0." We took a look at part one mostly, which is an introduction to the Objective-C syntax and structure, culminating in a basic application. Part two covers memory management in depth. Since then they've added a part 3 on debugging, and the plan is to continue adding more. Part one covers classes, objects and messages and, like the other portions in the series, costs $5. One thing I love about Pragmatic Programmers is that they offer a wide choice of formats, including versions tuned for iPhone viewing and Theora Ogg format.

It's important to note that while Objective-C is the language you'll use for iPhone development, these screencasts alone won't make you an iPhone developer. For one, there are differences in memory management on the iPhone versus desktop apps (iPhone apps don't do garbage collection). Also, iPhone interactions require the use of Cocoa Touch, and that isn't covered in these. If you are looking to move from another OOP language to Objective-C, however, this is a great way to get started. Plus, you really need to understand Obj-C to make solid iPhone apps. The side bonus is that you will also be able to write Mac desktop apps.

These screencasts are particularly useful if you are an audio-visual learner and have some background in programming. Don't expect to come up to speed if you have a slight understanding of a basic scripting language. That said, these are very clearly explained and the structure is great. If you watch the videos and do the exercises, I have little doubt you'll be learning the basics of Objective-C in no time. Listen to the audio as we discuss who these are for and what could be done better.

ScreenToaster is a web-based screencasting utility that works via a Java applet. That means that as long as you've got Java installed you can use ScreenToaster to record screencasts on any computer running OS X, Windows, or Linux without installing any additional software.

Last time we looked at ScreenToaster it had a few limitations. You couldn't record live audio and you couldn't save screencasts to your computer, and you needed an beta invitation to use the service. This week ScreenToaster released a major update that features support for live audio recordings, variable speed recordings, and the ability to embed your webcam in the screen capture.

Users can also now download screencasts as AVI files in addition to saving them to the ScreenToaster web site. And best of all, while still need to register to use the site, it takes just a few seconds to verify your registration. No more two day waiting period.

The video quality of recordings is quite good, and far better than recordings made with Screencast-o-matic, another web-based screencast recorder.

[via Go2Web20]

You won't find many particulars about ScreenToaster on the web site, but here's what matters: it's built on Java, so as long as you have the right plugin for your browser you're ready to use it on Windows, Mac, or Linux.

They're currently in beta, so you'll have to request a code if you want to play around with it (expect to wait about two days). Once you've got it, head back to the site, register, and you can begin capturing.

ScreenToaster supports both full screen and selection-box capturing. On your home page, click the start recording button and wait for the ready message to appear. To select a region, simply press alt+shift+S and drag a box around your target. For full screen, it's just alt+s, which stops recording in both modes.

It's dead simple to use, and even my netbook's tiny Atom processor had no trouble firing up ScreenToaster in a few seconds.

While Screentoaster's simplicity is a bit of a good thing, it also means that there aren't any options you can configure yourself. There's no way to adjust frame rates, for example. There's also nothing posted on their site about how much storage space you get for your clips or how many clips you can upload. Since they're still in beta, I'd expect this kind of information to be added as they get closer to a public release.

If you want a quick-and-easy way to create and share screencasts, give Screentoaster a shot.

It's been just over a year since TechSmith launched the Jing Project, a free utility for capturing screenshots and screencasts. Users can also upload their video recordings to Screencast.com to share with other users. Techsmith is celebrating Jing's birthday by increasing the amount of storage space it gives to Screencast.com users to 2GB. That's ten times more space than you would have gotten last week.

The program is pretty powerful as free screencast recorders go. But there's one major limit: You can only record screencasts up to 5 minutes. One of the reasons the company gives for this time limit is the sheer file size of long videos. Perhaps now that TechSmith is giving away more free storage space, we'll see the company remove the 5 minute time limit as well.

Jing is available for Windows and OS X.

Popular video hosting site Vimeo has announced that they will no longer allow videos of video games on the site. Specifically, they're going to be deleting "game walk-throughs, game strategy videos, depictions of player vs player battles, raids, fraps, or any other video gaming videos that simply depict individuals playing a video game." As of September 1st, all videos that fall under that description will be deleted.

The staff blog post on the subject lists some reasons for the decision, including the staff's feeling that these videos don't meet the standards of "creative expression" that the site tries to uphold. More importantly, though, video game vids tend to be some of the longest and most common videos on the site, slowing down transcoding times for the other content that Vimeo is apparently trying to encourage.

Debate has already fired up in the comments section of the Vimeo blog, as users wonder why the site would cut off a type of video that is evidently popular enough to take up significant system resources. There's also a fair share of relieved comments from folks who are glad to see this type of "unoriginal" content removed from the site. We can see the points that both sides are making, but what's your take?

[via Eric Rice on Twitter]

uTIPu has released an updated version of TipCam, the company's free screencast recording application for Windows. TipCam 2.0 has the same basic look and feel as the older version, but sports a few new features, including:

• Upload videos to YouTube directly from the application (previously you could only upload videos to uTIPu)
• Export files in AVI format (previously you could only save Flash video files)
• 800 x 600 pixel and 480 x 360 pixel resolutions now supported in addition to 640 x 480 pixel resolution
• Option to display a countdown before the recording starts
• Option to cancel an upload in progress

TipCam still limits recordings to 20 minutes. But at $0, the price is right, so we're not going to complain too much about the time limit. If you're looking for other free screencast recorders for Windows, you might want to check out Debut or Jing.

Debut could be one of the easiest to use video capture tools we've come across. You can use it to record videos or take screenshots from your webcam. You can use it to record screencasts. And you can save your files in a variety of formats including AVI, WMV, MP4, MPG, 3GP, and MOV. And best of all, Debut is free.

Here are just a few of Debut's features:

• Record audio and video
• Adjust resolution, framerate, and colors of the output video
• Setup timed recordings by hour, minute, and second
• Mirror recordings to a network or local hard drive
• Automatically send videos via email once a recording is finished, or upload to an FTP site.

There are a ton of configuration options. In addition to recording your screen or from a webcam, you can record from any video input capture device on your computer. So if you've got a TV tuner, you can record live TV. If you want to record home movies from your video camera, you can do that too.

[via AppScout]

Last week we took a look at uTIPu, a free screencast recording application for Windows, and we were pretty impressed. For a free utility, uTIPu has a nice feature set and produces decent quality recordings. Users can also upload them to a web site and share via an embed code. But there were a few rough edges to smooth out last week. Today, uTIPu has started the smoothing process with the release of uTIPu 1.5.

The update brings a brand new user interface and a couple of new features including:

• Record videos up to 20 minutes long (the previous limit was 5 minutes)
• Option to add a voice-over track after you're done recording the video instead of in real-time
• You can now set uTIPu to change your screen resolution before a recording starts instead of just squeezing a 1280 x 1024 display down 640 x 480 in real-time
• There's a new mini-toolbar you can use to access the controls during a recording session without taking up as much space on your display as the full application. If you don't want the application or the toolbar to show up in your recording at all, you can minimize the application to the system tray once you've started a recording.
  

There's also a new "public computer" mode that prevents uTIPu from saving your login information. And the embed code has been updated so that it should be easier to embed videos on any web site. When we tried embedding a video last week, we had trouble resizing to fit properly on Download Squad until Oleg from uTIPu recommended a way to modify the code manually. Now users shouldn't have to do any manual tweaking.

FreeScreenCast isn't the only game in town when it comes to easy to use free software for recording action on your Windows desktop. Like FreeScreenCast, uTipu is a free Windows app that lets you record videos and upload them to a web server. You can either send links to your videos to friends or use the embed code to post the videos on your own web site.

The screencast recorder is fairly basic. There are no advanced editing features, so if you're not happy with your voice track, or if you want to redo the beginning or end of a video you're going to have to redo the whole thing. But you can hit pause while you're making a recording to collect your thoughts before continuing.

Unlike FreeScreenCast, uTipu allows users to save files to their desktop as Flash videos. So if you have a video editor that can handle Flash videos, you can make edits using a third party application. You also have much more control over your settings with uTipu than FreeScreenCast. You can adjust your bit rate and choose your zoom level, which will let you do things like capture your fullscreen desktop while compressing the video to 640 x 480 pixels. You can also zoom in on just the area of the screen you want to focus on.

You can find a sample video we uploaded after the jump. Yes, we know it's too large to properly fit on our website, but if you alter the embed code trying to shrink the video you just wind up awkwardly cropping the video

Update: Oleg from uTIPu contacted us to show us how to shrink a video by adding "overstretch=fit"to the embed code. He also tells us there will be an updated version of the client with some additional features coming out soon.

[via WebWare]

If you're looking for a cheap and easy way to record screencasts and post them to your blog or other website, it doesn't get much cheaper or easier than FreeScreenCast. There are two parts to FreeScreenCast: a dekstop recording application for Windows and a web site where you can upload and share your screencasts.

The ScreenCast Recorder application is incredibly easy to use. The image above shows pretty much all of your options. You can change the screen area to record, but you can't change your file types, frame rates, or anything else.

When you're done you can save your files, but good luck figuring out where they're stored. That's because the utility hides them away as TMP files in your local settings folder. The easiest way to find a video is to click the preview button and examine the file properties in your media player of choice. If you want to edit your videos, that's pretty much what you'll have to do. But once you've edited your videos, you probably won't be able to upload them to the FreeScreenCast web site because you need to use the ScreenCast Recorder to upload your files.

While FreeScreenCast's recorder lacks some of the features you'll find in programs like CamStudio, Camtasia, or Jing, the audio and video quality is significantly better than what you'll get using an online tool like Screencast-o-matic.

Once your files are uploaded to the FreeScreenCast site you can share the link or embed the videos in your website. Check out a quick sample we put together after the jump.

Update: FreeScreenCast's Jason Askew tells us that a future release may include the ability to export WMV files.

[via MakeUseOf]

Although there are a lot of different screencasting options out there for the Mac, in our opinion, none has had the power and features of Camtasia Studio (a Windows only app); until now.

ScreenFlow from Vara Software is, quite frankly, the best screencasting application for the Mac that we have seen to date -- and trust us, we've tried them all. Taking advantage of Core Animation (making this a Leopard only application), Quartz Composer and a custom 64-bit enabled compression system, ScreenFlow can capture DVD playback (see our screencast below for a demo), 3-D game playback and can also simultaneously capture from your screen and your iSight or DV camera -- meaning you can create a screencast that can show you as you speak.

ScreenFlow's recording algorithms are great, truly, but what really made us excited were all the built-in post capture editing tools. It is very, very easy to add animations to a screen capture, highlighting one window, zooming in on part of the screen, isolating the mouse pointer (and adjusting the opacity of the non-isolated area), and more. Editing is where Camtasia absolutely owns any other screencasting application (regardless of platform), and while ScreenFlow might not be as advanced as Camtasia at this point in time -- it's only at version 1, and it already does the really big stuff.

ScreenFlow is $99.99 and a full functioning demo is available here, you can use all the features, your videos will just have a watermark on the top.

[via TUAW]