Screencasts

A **screencast** is a digital recording of [|computer] screen output, also known as a //video screen capture//, often containing audio [|narration]. Although the term **screencast** dates from 2004, products such as [|Lotus] ScreenCam were used as early as 1994.[|[1]][|[2]] Early products produced large files and had limited editing features. More recent products support more compact file formats such as [|Adobe Flash] and have more sophisticated editing features allowing changes in sequence, mouse movement, and audio. []

Screencasts are useful for demonstrating and teaching software features. Creating a screencast helps software developers show off their work. Screencasts are a useful tool for ordinary software users as well, to help report bugs (the movie takes the place of potentially unclear written explanations) or to show others how a given task is accomplished in a specific software environment. Screencasts are excellent tools for learning how to use computers, and several [|podcasts] have started to teach computer users how to use software through screencasts. Considering the high cost of instructor / faculty led training and the relative ineffectiveness of typical [|computer based training] (CBT) systems, screencasting is likely to become a very popular technique for imparting high-quality knowledge at a low cost. For example, organizers of computer related seminars may choose to routinely record complete seminars and make them available on [|DVDs] to all attendees for future reference and/or sell these recordings to people who cannot afford the fee of the live seminar or don't have time to attend it. This will generate an additional revenue stream for organizers of seminars and make the knowledge available to a broader audience, so generating a win-win situation for everybody. This strategy of recording seminars is already widely used in fields where using a simple video camera or audio recorder is sufficient to make a useful recording of a seminar. Computer-related seminars need high quality and easily readable recordings of screen contents which is usually not achievable by using a video camera to film the desktop which is usually projected onto the wall by a projector. A drawback of most commercial screencasting programs for [|Microsoft Windows] is their inability to make videos of [|OpenGL] applications, though Demo Builder, [|Fraps], and [|Growler Guncam] can cope with this. More recently, the popularity of inexpensive desktop screencasting software has created a cottage industry among internet marketers claiming that their screencasting techniques will increase sales for online businesses like eBay and monetized blogging. []

Here is the start of a series of screencasts to show how to create a blog. I have used the program [|Jing] to create these screencasts media type="custom" key="3936553" Follow this up with media type="custom" key="3936567"

I had no end of trouble trying to learn how to embed screencasts. I had an extra tutorial and tried to implement the suggestions but to no avail. Then by chance i returned to the Jing help desk and came across the some simple instructions. they ahve been simplified because as with many Web2.0 programs they are updating them regularly and trying to make them more user friendly. The reality is the more user friendly they become the more likely people will be to use them. [] This explains how to embed directly from the jing screencast. One thing to remember is to go into the code and changing the size to fit into the space required. If left unchanged the screencast will be the size of the full screen.