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.
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?
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.
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.
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.
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.
What's almost as good as stuffing your belly with a healthy Thanksgiving dinner? Free downloads! And Techsmith is offering a deal that will make your screencasting wishes come true.
The company is offering its popular Camtasia Studio software up as a free download. The screencasting software currently sells for $300. But there is one small catch. The most recent version of Camtasia Studio is Camtasia 5, while the version available for free download is Camtasia 3. That means a few of the newer features will not be available. Nonetheless, it's free and upgradable to version 5 for half price if you choose.
We're always on the lookout or good screencasting software her at Download Squad HQ. While we showing you screenshots of new programs and websites, sometimes you need a video, or at least a whole bunch of photos to really get a point across.
QlipBoard is a free application that lets you create a video out of images. You can either load in a series of photos or screenshots and put them in order, or use QlipBoard to capture images. It's sort of like Microsoft Photo Story, but with a few extra options like the ability to narrate and annotate your slideshow.
While CamStudio and Screencast-o-matic are both useful free video capturing applications, it's always nice to have a few extra tools in the arsenal. We made a quick and dirty little slideshow showing the installation process for QlipBoard using QlipBoard. How meta is that?
QlipBoard comes in free and paid varieties. The free version includes ads, while the paid version includes advanced features and upgrades for a monthly or annual fee.
Here at Download Squad, we're always on the lookout for good screenshot and screencasting utility. Especially free screenshot and screencasting utilities. And it helps if they're cross-platform applications.
That's why Jing looks so exciting. It's a free, cross-platform (Mac and Windows) application for taking screenshots or making screencasts. Jing is from the developers of Snagit and Camtasia Studio, both of which are commercial applications. It's not clear whether Jing will remain free after it loses its beta status, but for now it's a pretty powerful little application.
It captures screencasts as Flash files, which you can upload and share with other users. Jing is tightly integrated with Screencast.com, letting you upload and share files from within the application. After the jump, check out a quick video we made showing how to split an audio file with Audacity.
There are plenty of free tools out that let you make videos of the activity on your desktop. Wink and CamStudio are two excellent tools, but Wink records your screencast as a flash file, while CamStudio doesn't let you record audio and video at the same time when using Vista (yet).
Screencast-O-Matic is a new web-based screencast program that is incredibly easy to use. And since it uses a Java applet, it runs on Windows, Mac, and Linux machines. Here's a little screencast we put together showing the new Street View in Google Maps.
You may notice two things right off the bat. The audio sounds like it's recorded through a telephone. It's not, but Screencast-O-Matic seems to emphasize video over audio, and the resulting sound is a bit subpar.
Second, we uploaded this video to YouTube in order to share it. Although Screencast-O-Matic lets you upload your videos directly to their site as soon as you've finished recording, there doesn't appear to be any way to embed those videos in a blog. Fortunately, you can also export videos as a Quicktime videos, which you can then upload to YouTube or other sites.
We would have made a screencast showing how to set up a screencast, but that probably would have crashed our test PC. While you could take us at our word that Screencast-O-Matic is super easy to use, we've created a photo gallery to walk you through the process.
With every new release of Firefox--like yesterday's release of Firefox 2 Beta 2--comes the question, "How do I make my old extensions work with the new version?" Some extensions--which Mozilla is now calling Add-ons--made for older versions of Firefox really don't work with the newer features and can cause problems, but for the majority of add-ons, all that's needed is basically the flip of a switch. Of course, that switch is hidden deep in the add-on's code, but Nightly Tester Tools makes it possible to flip that switch with just a couple clicks. To that end, I've put together a short tutorial video showing how to use Nightly Tester Tools to make most of your old add-ons work with the latest version of Firefox. It was recorded in Windows, but should work basically the same on OS X and Linux:
In case you have any trouble with the video, or if anything's not clear, you can find complete instructions after the jump. Also, this is my first-ever screencast, so if you have any comments on the video itself, please voice them in the comments.
Curious where KDE is headed? KDE programmer Stephan Binner has posted a cool sneak preview screencast of "Kickoff", the brand new start menu that will be debuting in openSUSE 10.2. The redesigned menu looks pretty slick, incorporating a search box at the top and tabs at the bottom for flipping between your favorite programs, recent programs and documents, my computer and all programs (which have a hierarchical interface reminiscent of Apple's iPod and file dialogs). It looks like a pleasure to use, which is exactly what the Linux desktop needs.
CamStudio is a nifty little tool for capturing video on your PC. It is hosted at SourceForge.net, is open source, and free for the downloading. This tool allows capturing the full screen, a region, or a fixed region (which is a region you set explicitly). CamStudio offers many features that are rare among the freeware video apps out there, including screen and video annotations, the ability to use a bunch of different compressions, record/not record audio, allows custom cursor options, and even ships with a AVI to flash converter for your video pleasure. There are several decent screen recorders out there, but none I have seen that offer superior quality for free, that even runs quite well on older hardware. CamStudio is lightweight, quick and dirty, yet has many robust features that will greatly enhance the quality of your video arsenal. If you want to see a good example of what you can do with CamStudio, I used it to make the videos on the Word 2007 Video Review post this morning.
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.
CamStudio
