I decided to go over this because there so many options but the key is file size and quality. Also we just tested a number of options today. From capture tools, to settings, and server space.
There is Jing. it is free, In 5 minutes (there limit) a screen cast with mic audio is 84MB in file size. They use flash video. Why so big ?
Then there is option two, a quicktime screen grabber like: Screenium. Screenium cost just $20.00 and there is no limit on recording time, but 10-15 minutes seems wise because it does eat up system memmory. a 15 minutes quicktime with audio (system audio and mic mixed) and video with, H264 video set to high and apple Loseless audio codecs a file is only 40MB under half the size and triple the time .
So 15 minutes 40Mb break that down to 5 minutes that would be 13.3 MB file size over the 84MB flash file jing makes with the exact same quality. That a major bandwidth savings and cash in your pocket choosing quicktime over flash.
In all honesty before this test I really thought flash would have won over quicktime in bandwidth usage and file size. But it didn’t even come close.
Just another reason why not to use flash, save on server space and bandwidth. The $20.00 for screenium is a deal because it records system audio and not just the microphone and has onscreen titles and mouse clicks. I even find that it makes screenflow seem useless and super expensive.
Interesting info if you wanted to know the deal with screen casts and file settings. We could even knock down the quality even more and make it smaller but I am unsure how wise that is.
This is another reason it good to test out multiple options. It can save money down the road.
Screencast.com is one place where you can set up a professional level video server, there is free options and pro – paid options. The paid option is pretty reasonable. Unlike Vimeo or uTube people can not steal your video as easy. and the server will not sell it, like vimeo says it may do with in there licensing.
This could be a great way to overview your products on a web site, pictures are worth a thousand words. Well a video is worth a billions words and keeps consumers coming back to your site.
The only major time consuming process of doing this is uploading content. even with a 6bps upstream it seems to take forever. Also depending on what your trying to do you may find your self recording a number of times because your mind when blank on the word action.
I highly suggest checking into adding some form of this to product marketing or user support. Image is everything and may help you sell more products. In this day in age the cost is reasonable to consider it.
