Opinions?

[mouser]

i need some help here guys+gals, anyone want to try installing some of the demos and give us your impressions? see the list in part1 of the review for features we think are important.  also interested in gut-level impressions.

[nudone]

i'm very interested in the final verdict for this one as i want to make some 'screencasts' myself so i'll have a look at some of them over the next couple of days if that's of any use.

i've used camtasia - but not for any particulary good reason other than it's what i had and it was before all these flash based things came out (i think).

anyway, i'll try my best to give some time to testing them properly.

[nudone]

right, here's what i've thought so far - i may not have been entirely fair in judging these 'screencasters' on their full version capabilities but i didn't wish to get bogged down doing comparisons when some of these programs managed to annoy me within a few short minutes.

it's also difficult trying to compare the only totally free product against programs that cost around $300. there appears to be a massive gap in the market just waiting for someone to release a lower priced alternative to the current crop on offer.

firstly the ones i don't like:

viewlet builder:
forced to register on line, which i didn't do, before being able to render out a final movie file - okay, this isn't such a big deal but i wasn't in love with how the program worked. without the forced registering i would have given it more of a chance for sure - anyone who has used the program will no doubt have positive things to say about it. totally annoying but i admit i may have dismissed this one unfairly.

envision:
cheap but only if you already own macromedia flash as it has to work within it. didn't like the on screen icons it used for illustrating that mouse clicks had occurred, etc. main annoyance was the 25 frames limit on the demo version - hardly enough time to give it any real world kind of testing. only advantage is that you could edit your movie to your hearts content right there inside flash - but how much editing do you want to do when making 'screencasts'? i suspect, not a lot.

turbo demo:
i couldn't decide if i was doing something wrong with this one. the audio recording was absolutely terrible - it keeps pausing between frames so you end up with a stuttering screencast.  the menu of the actual editing program was buggy also - just appears black on my screen. loads of output options (can't do pdf with the demo) but i wonder how many people will be wanting to make a java screencast - well i suppose someone will, in which case good luck to them. in the bin it goes for me.

now, the ones i thought average:

wink:
it's free. it's good but not brilliant. if you don't need audio recording then this is the place to start. you can place annotation style text boxes and things onto the frames but they aren't anything fancy - but it's free.

i tried doing simultaneous recording with wink and the inbuilt windows sound recorder with the hope of combining the .swf and the .wav file to make a full fledged audio/visual screencast. this could still work if i could find a totally free .swf editor (maybe i didn't look hard enough). i don't see much point using this method if it's not going to be free or at least very cheap to do.

of course when wink starts recording audio itself in a future version then it will be hard to beat for the price.

instant demo:
this just seemed a bit odd. editing the movie requires exporting out frames to external image editing software. not very good if you want to edit a section of frames. bit of a weird interface too. sounds like i don't like this one at all.

captivate:
i didn't think that i would find anything wrong with the big daddy. it's got loads of editing ability, all the things you would expect from the price but i found the audio editing very impractical. the movie is split into sections depending on what actions were recorded on screen - this may make it a more efficient file to compress but it means that the audio stream is also split into sections too - maybe i didn't look hard enough but it seemed impossible to rerecord an audio track for the whole movie. if it wasn't for this strange audio restriction then there probably wouldn't be anything else to complain about. i was expecting captivate to do absolutely everything you could wish for with 'screencasting' but as it didn't i'm disappointed with it.

this leaves a pretty weird bunch for what i liked:

demobuilder:
has a potentially great feature if you don't wish to use audio in that it can automatically add bubble and text box pointers that tell you the action to perform before you see it carried out. other than that it looks nice but i didn't really go into the sound recording side of this one (i've only just discovered it does sound whilst i've been writing this).

camtasia:
yes, i still like this one even though it records in that obscenely large file format we know as video. to be honest i don't think the file size matters that much. you can still create relatively small files with the techsmith codec. the advantage with this capture method is that they just seem to look right and you know you aren't going to miss any frames out when you are recording movements in image editing programs. the truth is that you do have to scale down your window that you wish to record though - you wouldn't want to capture something full screen at high res. the file size probably wouldn't be worth it then. another possible advantage is that you can add annotation bubbles and other graphical helpers whilst you are recording the movie. either by pausing and adding on screen content then continuing to record or by pressing the appropriate camtasia menu buttons to add the same things whilst the action is being recorded. (i didn't get as far as doing post editing with the camtasia studio but i would imagine this to be able to add and mix or re-dub extra audio tracks if required.)

bb flashback:
something about this one just made me think i was onto a winner within a few short minutes. the interface feels right. the way you can drag the direction of the bubble points around is a classy idea (give it a go), the popup thumbnails on the time-line and the adjustable playback preview speeds - all quality ideas. re-dubbing audio was simple enough to do also but i'm not sure if you could mix between the tracks. the playback buttons included with your final rendered screencast were also better than any of the other programs here as they would autohide (captivates were terrible as they actually covered parts of the movie playback). and to top it off - when i checked the 'bbsoftware.co.uk' website i noticed that Zaine had already given them i 5 star award from the Greatest Software List.

you'll notice i've not done any comparisons for compression ratios. well, this is mainly because i didn't notice any major differences that would worry me (i didn't go to great lengths to test them in this way though). the quality of the outputs from all these programs seems pretty much the same minus the audio ability. the overall feel of the editor and the way the screencast file played back seemed the most important thing to me - after all you want to enjoy the editing procedure if you have to do it and you want the final movie to look like it was done professionally to impress your audience.

if money is the main concern then wink wins it. sound isn't essential after all as you can still demonstrate what you need to do with the message boxes. but if you've ever watched a few 'screencasts' that include audio you will know that it makes a great deal of difference to how much information can be conveyed - the narrators will often explain details that would just not be practical to try and include in a soundless movie. it's also sometimes good to get a sense of the character who is doing the demonstration (some of the free movie tutorials over at 3Dbuzz.com use two or more commentators at a time to explain things and their personalties do add to the experience. and there's non more enthusiastic and entertaining than Russell Brown for photoshop tutorials).

so, if i could ignore the prices of these programs which would i choose? most likely bb flashback. using it felt the quickest way of working and the output was like what i'm used to seeing with real movies from camtasia. the auto bubble thing with demobuilder is a nice touch but i don't think it's something that essential - maybe if you want to create the smallest screencast possible by not including audio then this is the one to go for. and what of captivate? it does everything other than a practical overdub as far as i could see so maybe this isn't really anything to complain to harshly about.

i'll be very interested to see what mouser's final verdict is as i'm sure he will have gone over these programs with a fine toothed comb by the time of the 2nd review. with a more thorough investigation i'm sure there will be different points of interest to what i've glanced over here.

[mouser]

fantastic! really really nice summary.
i had the same qualms with macromedia captivate audio recording, but haven't had much to compare it with yet, so i will give some special focus to the issue of editing audio.

really really helpful to read.

btw:

it's also difficult trying to compare the only totally free product against programs that cost around $300. there appears to be a massive gap in the market just waiting for someone to release a lower priced alternative to the current crop on offer.

i could not agree more.
i was telling zaine, these companies are going to get murdered by the next version of wink, or another freeware alternative if they keep up with this $200-$400 price range.  if they were smart, one of these good one would price their app at $50 or $79 and grab the market.  its just bad markering imho, and/or the poisonous nature of capitalism.  its a shame that wink development has stalled for now..

[nudone]

i've been playing around with wink and reading the forum over at http://www.debugmode...userforums/index.php (you'll have to sign up to enter them).

Emilio Le Roux has made a post over there describing how to use a swf loader file to combine a wink swf file with an mp3 narration track - i've included the file. there are restrictions to what you can use (800x600 screen capture size wink movie, don't include wink navigation controls) but it appears to work quite well.

i was using 'audacity' http://audacity.sourceforge.net/ to record the audio to mp3 (using lame encoder) as they are free to use but have since discovered this other free little app, 'step voice recorder' http://www.snapfiles...m/get/stepvoice.html that will create a smaller mp3 file (though of course sound quality will be reduced).

if you are quick you can pretty much get everything in sync when you start both wink and the audio recorder going - use the mouse to click start on the sound device and press your hotkey to start wink. this should reduce the amount of messing around trying to get things matched up with your final screencast.

the controls on the winkloader don't appear to work fully but i would have thought any average user of Flash could create something along the same lines that worked better - and then of course share it with everyone for free.

it also appears that if you use the 'optimised octree' palette you can reduce the final output file quite a bit without it looking too bad.

just thought this might help anyone wishing to have a go with screencasting and keep it all free to do.

i hope that someone with a bit of flash knowledge can create a better swfloader though - that is pretty much the final link in the chain that needs fixing.

anyone trying bb flashback recorder may like play around with the output settings - it appears you can more half the size of the final swf file if you reduce the quality settings. you'll need to experiment but i would say that 256 color and 1/4 frame rate aren't worth using - the next settings up produce a better looking result without any real addition to output size (not on what i was doing anyway).

[mouser]

i'm going to spent the rest of saturday writing the review draft. then ideally that would give us at least all of sunday to get your feedback and dissenting opinions, etc.

[moerl]

Absolutely AMAZING post, nudone! You deserve all the praise for your effort and hard work. That post must have taken quite a bit of a chunk out of your time, and I'm sure all of us here appreciate it. Unfortunately, I don't have the time as of right now to test ALL the contenders, but those that I do look at I will make sure to post about. First on the list of course is Wink. I'll give it a shot right now. I'm very curious to see what's going to come out on top here as well

BTW, the spell-check feature of SMF is the best I've ever seen in a forum-script. Amazing... this is the first time I've gotten to use SMF as well. I like it a A LOT. Nice choice

[nudone]

thank you very much Shangnyun.

how's it going mouser - i hope you're coping with all the screencasting comparisons.

i've been playing with bb flashback and wink and thought you might like to know what i've found interesting.

with bb flashback:

using the same project i've been comparing different output settings to see what offers the best quality compared with file size.

quite surprising is that 256 colors produced a larger file size than 16bit - and i do mean noticably larger.

for an 800x600 sized 2 minute recording i got a final swf output file of about 11 meg with the highest settings  .

  on the lowest settings: 5fps, 16bit color, 11khz 8bit mono, i got a final output file of just over 2 meg.

quite a difference and the quality isn't that reduced - the color space isn't perfect but it's better than the 256. the sound still seems good to me at this lowest setting and the 5 frames per second is pretty standard as far as i've encountered when downloading tutorials.

but...

if you output the same project to xvid at the same low sound setting and 5fps you can make the final screencast even smaller (i used the default xvid settings so it would be possible to make it even smaller still).

  using xvid i got a file of 1.6 meg.the video is slightly darker than what it should be and it's not as sharp as a swf movie but for how much smaller it is i think it's worth it.

at the sacrifice of longer encoding times i think double pass encoding with better compression settings and you would get the file size down even further.

from experience i've found that the techsmith codec used with camtasia always produced larger files than using xvid and this proved to be the case when using techsmith and bb flashback.

  the final techsmith encoded file was just under 4.5 meg - it looked brighter than the xvid version but it wasn't any sharper.

anyway, that's it for the moment - can't wait to see what mouser and anyone else testing these apps out has to say.

[nudone]

just a quickie...

when comparing maximum quality settings i get smaller swf files when using camtasia than from bb flashback - not really what i was expecting.

it takes longer for camtasia to do the encoding but the lower file size is remarkable - about 3.5 meg compared to bb flashbacks 11 meg. the screencast looks perfect but it is at 15 fps rather than 25 fps which i think bb flashback is doing for it's high quality setting.

one problem i've found with camtasia is that i can't export a compressed audio output when trying to encode with xvid and mp3 so the file sizes are too big - a bit of a shame that.

i've not really played around with the other screencasters but if they are anyting like these two then i think the final review winner could be anything. i find it a bit odd that the 'video' style editor produces smaller swf files than bb flashback and in turn bb flashback produces smaller xvid files than camtasia.

i was going to start praising camtasia rather heavily but i think it lets itself down by not being able to mix between 2 video tracks. other than that i think the swf output it performs means it deserves more recognition than what it is currently getting.

another thing i'm sure mouser will have picked up upon is there are different styles of screencast editors on review - some like camtasia are pretty linear in that you can't really edit single frames for repositioning cursors if you needed to. this is unlike how the 'flash' style content editors work were you can repostion recorded elements on screen in the individual frame/slides.

i can't really see when you would want to reposition the recorded cursor movements, though. so the difference in styles between these two types of editor is merely academic.

i've not revisited 'captivate' yet - i have a sneaky feeling that it will produce the smallest swf files of all. if not, then i'm backing camtasia for swf and bb flashback for xvid and wink because it's free.

[mouser]

ive got a lot more to do, but here are is some info to save people some time.

there are really only a couple of contenders to win the award at this point:

1. Macromedia Captivate
2. Camtasia
3. BB Flashback
4. ViewletCAM (this is not viewlet builder, it's their other app, i missed it in part1).

nudone could you try viewlet cam if you get a chance, i was pleasently impressed by it!

the other apps are just not good enough for capturing full screen movies easily.

wink will of course win best freeware though it has a long way to go before it can compete with these big guys.

i will talk about the other apps not in this list a little, but these are the only four real contenders.

i agree with you nudone about finding it hard to think of a case where you would need to move cursor..
the only time i have used it is if i have spliced out some section of the demo, and needed to move mouse in order to keep the continuity which would otherwise be broken because of the sliced out stuff.

to me, all of my biases tell me that camtasia is not the way to go; i just think of this tool as not using a video file codec for recording this stuff and that i want a storage of screens and movements. but i am trying to keep an open mind and i definitely prefer your continued thinking on the matter to help me make up my mind.

[mouser]

i have to admit camtasia is pretty damn sweet..
going to have to run more tests on various features.

[nudone]

ah yes, i see your point about removing frames making the cursor not match up - that is a very good reason for being able to edit movements  after you've done the recording.

i'm pleased you've still got camtasia in the list of four. i would have to say, though, that the final quality of the output screencast movie and it's related file size ought to be a priority deciding factor on what is 'best' regardless of how it was made.

i shall do a few longer, more colour intensive and animated screencasts to compare camtasia's swf output alongside the others to see if the small sizes were a fluke.

the truth is, i've been downloading and watching video tutorials for years (downloaded from www.lynda.com and vtc.com on a 56k modem) and non of these are created using flash. they are usually quicktime at 5 frames per second and seem the standard way of doing things to me. so that is perhaps why i don't share the same bias against video encoded screencasts.

there is also the ability to resize video to a lower resolution to reduce the final file size even further (i know this blurs the image but sometimes the result is more than good enough).

i've been back to test captivate and i'm not impressed with the file size output. it also seems to be a little slower in doing the compression.

i've also found a way of doing free xvid screencasts with sound using free utils which i'll mention after your conclusive review on monday.

mouser, if i need to persuade you about xvid screencasting or using camtasia to produce swf output all i can say is: so far they have produced the smallest file sizes with little detriment to the quality of output. i think quicktime and wmv are a waste of time as they take far to long to encode - xvid encodes fast enough for me to find it usable and, like i say, the image quality is more than good enough.

believe me the xvid results i'm talking about aren't blocky pixellated rubbish.

there is a perhaps a flaw in all of my testing though and that is i've been doing things within a 800x600 area - but i would have thought this about right for most things (i'll do some 1024x768 tests to be sure).

if the final winning screencaster can produce swf files smaller than xvid then i'll be a happy bunny whoever it is made by. if it can't then i won't really be able see the point of the flash based screencasters other than they can produce 'streaming swf output' so you can begin watching as you download. okay, i agree, i'm an idiot - that is a very good reason for using swf over xvid.

i've lost the plot. i'll let the judge and the rest of jury decide.

i'm now going to investigate 'viewlet cam'...

[mouser]

well i think you and i basically started out in the same place which is:
we expected the apps designed for flash capture to produce MUCH SMALLER files and MUCH BETTER quality.

when the reality seems to be that the full motion flash capture apps and video capture apps (camtasia) are producing very similar results in terms of size and quality.

the surprise is that the flash capture apps are producing flash files that are so large, and that camtasia is able to produce flash files that are so small; the result is very little difference.

there are some advantages and disadvantages to having the files in the different formats.
a strong advantage of capturing video is:
you can capture in very high quality, and downsample and resize, etc for final output depending on target.
the flash capture apps dont capture at a high enough rate to make truely super smooth output the way camtasia can.
the flash capture apps have more flexibility in doing things like interactive stuff, changing mouse position, etc.

the other thing that these experiments make clear is that there really is still a use for these manual click-to-capture-screen tools (like wink), because the difference in file size can be 100k vs. 2mb.

this is clearly going to be a nail-biter of a review..
im still doing some more detailed tests of advanced features.  i need to play with these apps more.

viewletcam is also impressing me.

[nudone]

well spotted mouser. it appears we have a late contender.

viewlet cam appears to be just the right kind of screencaster. straight forward to use and not extortionate in price.

it did crash once but i won't hold that against it.

maybe this is the 'one'.

[mouser]

this is really a tough one..

we may have to do a split award or something..
different winners for different purposes..

camtasia needs to get some recognition for being the only one of the bunch that can truely claim to do high speed smooth desktop capture, while at the same time doing an excellent job of producing flash output.

but for those who like to do a lot of annotation and interactive stuff, or who want to be able to do small captures by manually taking screenshots, then the flash based tools may be more appropriate...

im going to experiment more by creating more real movies with annotations and captions and see.

[nudone]

this will probably be my last post before mouser gives the final verdict.

after messing around a bit more i still appear to get the same sort of results as already mentioned but i have to confess that xvid isn't the smallest file size.

there is obviously a point where the size and duration of the area captured makes it clearly better to use swf for screencasting.

that said i still find these results to be true:

camtasia - produced smallest swf output whilst still looking okay (i say this as viewletcam almost did the same but the color space wasn't so good).

bb flashback - produced larger swf files but smaller xvid. i suspect with tweaking, these video encoded files could be made smaller still with a little practise.

viewletcam - it is nice and simple to use. very immediate and direct if you want to add extra symbols like text boxes, etc. to your movie. some of the settings are kind of hidden away in the menus and it seems to be a bit unstable (on my machine at least) but it is quick to use and the results are good enough - if your system is  working in the right color space.

as i don't really need to do any of the extra annotation type stuff - for final file output quality and size i'd have to pick camtasia but for price it would be viewletcam (i'd tollerate the crashes and find a compatible set of screen colors for it to grab). but bb flashback is kind of fun to use - maybe not that good a reason to use it.

anyway, mouser, i hope you manage to arrive at a conclusion without too much of a headache. good luck.

[moerl]

I'm sorry I couldn't be of much help. The discussion between you two was very "enlightening". I have to give Camtasia another chance. I tried it a while ago and didn't like it at all. I didn't try it thoroughly though, I must admit. For me, the two most impotant factors about a screencasting tool are crispness/sharpness of the output and the smoothness of playback. The problem is with these two factors, because the file-formats optimal for each is not the same. *.SWF is better for a crisp image, but video-encoded files are better for smoothness, I'd say. I have to find a middle-ground. I'll do some more testing as well, but my opinions probably won't make it in a timely enough fashion to be of any help. Sorry about that.

[moerl]

Here's one thing I noticed. There are two features that I have not seen mentioned in the review that I consider rather important. BB Flashback seems to support neither of these features.

1. Anti-Aliasing for text-box fonts
This is pretty important, if you want the text you use in text-boxes in your demo-movies to look good. BB Flashback does NOT seem to support this, and because of that, many fonts will have "jagged edges". Not very pretty. I don't know about the support of this feature in any of the other products tested in this review.

2. Clickable URLs (far more important!)
One thing you really want to be able to do with screencasting software is to have the ability to create objects, (buttons, text, boxes etc.), that are CLICKABLE. It would help tremendously if it were possible to have the user viewing the demo be able to click on a link while viewing the demo. This is crucial when demonstrating a specific feature of one program that can be drastically enhanced with another tool that is available on a certain site on the web. As you demonstrate, you might want to include a reference to this second, possibly independent tool that will make the task at hand a lot easier. Again, BB Flashback does NOT seem to support this feature. Obviously, this is something that could only be done in flash-based demo-files, and which would therefore stand as a disadvantage of any of the video-based files.


That's all I have to say for now . This review is excellent work! We should all be proud of mouser

Keep up the great work!