A screencast is a digital recording of computer screen output, also known as a video screen capture, often containing audio narration, text or callout annotations.
Screencasts have a very wide range of applications, and are often used to:
- Show others exactly how to do a given task or how to solve a problem on specific software
- Make step by step software tutorials, product presentations
- Record complete seminars and make them available to all attendees for future reference or share it with people who didn’t have time to attend live seminars.
- Show others your game playing experience
Screencasting is the process of making screencasts:
Screencasting = record computer screen + adding audio narration + mixing visual annotations
So you want to make screencasts?
To make a simple screencast is quite easy: you just need to record all the activity and your voice narration while performing on your computer screen. With growing demands and the rise of internet video sharing services like Youtube, Vimeo, Metacafe, Dailymotion… there are more and more tools that can help you make screencasts quickly.
However, most screencasting software can only record the computer screen to a video, some with limited editing functionalities and basic annotations, a few advanced tools with lots of features that might make you confusing at first glance. Some are free; some are commercial, some with reasonable price, and some with high price tag…
This makes it confusing and quite difficult to choose the right tool because most people don’t have enough patient and time to try every tool.
There are many articles or blog posts about things like “10 best screencasting tools”, “list of best screencasting tools”, “comparison of screencasting tools”, “screencasting tools comparison”, … However, most of them just try to list all screencasting software they know or heard, adding a screenshot and a short description of the software. You will still have to try all listed tools to find your favorite one.
