Update on Screencasting Options
September 29th, 2011
A couple weeks ago, someone who reads my website emailed me this question:
I was wondering, in reference to your article from August 9, 2009, what web-based screencasting resources you might recommend given that both ScreenToaster and Screenjelly have apparently bit the dust?
His email took me a little by surprise - I hadn't realized that both of them were gone now.
I haven't made a screencast in awhile, but they're always a good idea (check out the Overdrive/Kindle video by the King County Library System), so I did a quick search and read some reviews just to see what was out there. The best free online options seemed to be http://www.screenr.com and http://www.screencast-o-matic.com, although I haven't tried either one.
I also know a lot of librarians use Jing, but that is software you download, so it's a little different. And another somewhat related option is http://www.xtranormal.com - it doesn't do screencasts, but is an easy way to make little movies.
Does anyone have any other suggestions for creating screancasts and videos? Or any links to good examples of library promotional/help/training videos?
In any case, one last word of caution: since these do come and go so often, it's good not to use them to host your video - upload them to YouTube or at least save them as video files, so you don't lose them if the website goes out of business.
September 29th, 2011 at 1:56 pm
My top three are Screenr, Screencast-o-matic, and ScreenCastle (www.screencastle.com). There’s a range of functionality across the three with ScreenCastle being super quick and no fuss. Was sad to seen ScreenJelly go.
September 29th, 2011 at 7:20 pm
@Heidi: thank you – screencastle does look pretty easy.
September 30th, 2011 at 9:12 pm
Our library system (Shortgrass Library System in southern Alberta, Canada) uses Camtasia. While it isn’t free; it is relatively inexpensive and will do many things besides just screencasts.
Shortgrass has created a series of video tours of our electronic resources, which are posted on our YouTube channel: http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=theshortgrasslibrary&aq=f.
I also use this software to create videos of our videoconferences, which are posted on the RISE Network Vimeo Channel: http://vimeo.com/28410061
This software is fairly intuitive and easy to use.
October 5th, 2011 at 11:09 am
I like Screencast-o-matic because it gives me more options when saving the file to my computer.
October 8th, 2011 at 6:28 pm
My library learned its lesson about not hosting videos with the site, when ScreenJelly vanished, taking many of our video demos with it. I use Screencase-o-matic now, and have been very pleased; it’s super-easy to record and super-easy to push videos directly to my YouTube account.
October 10th, 2011 at 3:41 pm
Hi Brian, we use screencastomattic to make our videos. You can find my videos at http://www.library.ohiou.edu/subjects/businessblog/videos . We also have more general videos at http://www.library.ohiou.edu/vidhelp/ .
October 20th, 2011 at 7:06 am
[…] think this tool is a great compliment to creating screencasts, because sometimes combining text and images (or videos, maps, whatever) is more suitable than just […]