Howto: Create Screencasts

I was recently asked how I create the screencasts on this site. This has been an evolving process.

Wink from Debugmode

I used a piece of software called Wink to create the screencasts. It has the benefit of providing the "next/previous" widgets which are nice. A drawback is that it creates snapshots of the screen in bitmap and then merges them together into flash. So, you can only use the Wink editor to edit the screencasts.

CamTasia - Full Featured, Full Price

For a Drupal Dojo Session about CVS I used the CamTasia recording system. It was pretty good, but is quite expensive. I don't think the price is justified in the features that it offers. CamTasia is basically an all-in-one solution which is great in a lot of ways, but, as often happens with all-in-one solutions, it isn't the best in many ways.

Krut - Cross platform Java Recorder

For my own projects, I now use Krut which is cross-platform and creates regular movies/sound files which you can then edit using standard movie editors. The drawback to standard movies is the lack of "next/previous" navigation - but most movie players will give you a progress slider which is good enough.

Voice Recording

I had been using just a plain old headset/microphone combo unit which I used also for VOIP calls. I now have a Rode Podcaster and use a pop filter which makes it super easy to provide high quality sound.