I’m looking for opinions on free screencast software. It should allow easy recording and annotating. Output encoding either h.264 or lossless or some other high quality format (so I can later transcode using ffmpeg).
I currently record screencasts using ffmpeg, but that does not allow annotating. While annotating later using Kdenlive or other is of course possible, I assume there are programs which simplify this in a way tailored specifically to screencasts, the way creating mind maps in MindMup is infinitely easier than creating them in LibreOffice.
To my knowledge, even with Commercial software you always add your text only in the end, when you have already stopped your video recording.
Even with Camtasia, quite likely the best screencasting software on Windows, you can modify your video only later : add text, zoom in-out etc [1].
Currently, on Windows, I usually run the freeware: BBFlash Back express 5:
But again, even with the commercial (not free) version of this software you always add your text when you are done recording
In the past, on Windows, I have tried to add some text while recording but the result was not fine. To do so, I used a Microsoft utility (ZoomIT):
write on paper all steps (subjects) your are willing to record on your computer and try them on your computer before the real recording ;
record your desktop (e.g. with FFmpeg);
Improve your video with a video editor. For instance, you fade-in the begininng and fade-out the end , zoom in-out, add text etc;
based on your video, record you voice (e.g. with Audacity) and improve this recording later on (e.g. with Audacity you might want to normalize the sound, reduce the background noise etc).
Add this improved sound recording to your video.
Needless to say, this proposal is very time-consuming…
In some screencasts I see mouse movements in perfectly straight lines or arcs, how is that done? Do they record their mouse movements using some mouse-movement-recording software, and then capture the video when playing back the mouse movements?
In some screencasts I see mouse movements in perfectly straight lines or arcs, how is that done?
Firist off, I don’t know whether I have understood you correctly
But, as regards “circles” around your mouse cursor, on Windows, with specialized software to screencast (e.g. Camtasia, BBFlash Back express, Camstudio etc) you can choose the size, the color, the transparence of this circle.
More precisely, this circle is only visible after you have stopped recording your desktop, when you have already saved your file. In order not to “distract” you while recording.
For instance, with Camtasia:
On Linux, I am not aware about any screencasting software which allows you to get this effect (circle around cursor).
Of course, you might create a new icon “cursor” ( maybe with Gimp ? ) with a circle around it, save it in the right folder (depending on your Linux Distro) and use during your desktop recording
On Kde, among the Desktop (Settings) options you can choose to show a different color for your right click or left click.
In the past, through VirtualBox, I had Windows 7 as Host and Ubuntu as Guest
As a consequence, I ran a Windows screencasting software on Windows (it was Camstudio back then) while working on Linux (Ubuntu, the guest).
Through Camstudio I had plenty of options (circle around cursor, different color for right-left click) and they were all available, later on, when I was editing my video recorded during the “Linux session” (through Vbox)
I don’t mean the attention-grabbing shape around the cursor (in Plasma you can enable a desktop effect which does that, as your video shows, and GNOME probably has something similar). I meant that in some screencasts when the person moves the mouse, the cursor moves in a perfectly straight line, or in a perfect arc. So clearly it’s not moved by hand. Now I can imagine some explanations, e.g. that the whole presentation was first recorded with a mouse-cursor-recording-and-playback program which doesn’t record the path the mouse takes, just the origin and destination coordinates, and then the actual video was recorded while playing back the mouse movements which are now made perfect by the program as it moves the mouse from the recorded source points to the destination points, but that’s a guess, and I wonder whether anyone knows for sure.
In fact, this is how the program works that I linked earlier (Wink). I had done a quick screencast ages ago with it (requires flash - it’s a swf output):
You could indicate how fast the cursor should move, and it’s location was recorded by the software on any interactions (clicks) - it would then interpolate and animate cursor location based on the locations of the last two clicks.
The program at the time did allow you to output to other formats including straight video. Not so sure about it these days as I haven’t even tried to use it in years…
It’s easy to record the mouse events (move and clicks) using cnee. I started writing a small script that uses these values in Blender to create an animation which can then be rendered ontop of a recorded video to show an animated mouse cursor. I will report back once I have something working better than my current crude test.
I’m currently using Screencast-O-Matic (only 720P) but serves my purpose. The pro version allows text to be added to a paused recording (in addition to lines, rectangles and ellipses). Although not free at $15/year it is hardly expensive and probably cost effective for evaluation. Have a look at one of their tutorials on the addition of text to see if its the sort of thing you’re after http://som.screencasthost.com/channels/cDj6YeYed#details-cDj6Y1i7tU The biggest challenge for me is the size of recordings since the range of possible edits to raw recordings is extensive. However conversion of final edits to mpeg is relatively quick.
Wink is a great little program if you are needing small screen recording with text tools but, as pointed out in other threads is somewhat “flash” dependent and (so far as I am aware) no longer under development.
I wanted to record something today and reviewed current options.
Kdenlive used to have a “Record Monitor” tab where you could record the desktop, but it seems this code has been ripped out in a recent release due to lack of manpower in maintaining/porting it.
recordMyDesktop and its GTK and Qt GUIs are all dead.
I use open source Vokoscreen. It is simple, it compresses on a fly and it highlights mouse clicks as well as shows pressed keys. Comments can be added later in openshot, kdenlive, etc.
