The Indian Blogger recently posted an excellent survey of screencasting and the software that can be used to create screencasts. People tend to talk about Qarbon Viewlet Builder, Macromedia Captivate, and TechSmith Camtasia in conjunction with screencasting. While these probably are the most usable products on the market, there are plenty of lower-cost or no-cost options for those who don’t have $200-$500 to spend.
The Indian Blogger mentions several other offerings, including Windows Media Encoder (recently used by Alan Levine to create his first screencast), BB Flashback, Wink, Demobuilder, and WinCAM. The only one I’ve used thus far is Wink (per Sarah Houghton’s recommendation). I played with it some time ago, and am definitely going to give it a more thorough trial. Does anyone else have experience using these low-cost screencasting options?
Also, I’m trying to collect the URLs of libraries that have created screencasts. So if your library has screencasts up on its website or you know of a library that does, please send me the link. I’d also love to hear more about people’s experiences creating screencasts, how useful their students/faculty/patrons have found the screencasts, and how open your colleagues were to the idea of screencasting. Thanks!
I have used both WME and Wink and found them both very effective. The major drawback with WME is that files cannot be saved to swf format, while the major downside to Wink is the lack of audio support (so far). Am I complaining about freebies? Absolutely not, but these are factors that must be taken into consideration in choosing a piece of software.