Screencasting Options?

A friend and colleague asked this question via Facebook; my response is shared below, and I am interested in any “off-the-top-of-you-head” suggestions you may have.

I thought in lieu of using Camtasia, with which I would need a license from a college, would I be able to export a narrated powerpoint or keynote presentation into a video file? I read that you can do this with keynote to create quicktime videos.  Audio podcasts are easy with Audacity, but I’d like to be able to create this ‘video lectures’ on my own.

My response:

Others can help more than I can re: Keynote. I know little to nothing about Mac’s – beyond the fact that I’d like to have one at home and at work.

Camstudio may be worth a look; it’s a free screencasting tool. Only does capture though – no editing. There’s also free web-based screen capture tools perhaps worth looking at: screencastle.com and jingproject.com.  Some of those services may have a limit on the length of screencast though; I think Jing’s limit is five minutes. That may not be long enough for the type of capture you have in mind.

Bigbluebutton.com may be a solution if it does screencasting and archiving; it’s a freely available webconferencing tool though I haven’t looked into it enough to know if it offers hosting online or if it requires installation on a server. I’ve heard of institutions using Elluminate – another webconferencing solution – for lecture capture as well. They may still have affordable individual licensing available.

Another possible PC based solution is a screencast-to-webcam driver. Instead of using your webcam for recording, the driver uses your live desktop as the outgoing video signal. That makes it possible to record your desktop directly via the YouTube interface – instead of YouTube capturing your webcam, your computer sends your desktop. Getting the clarity just right so it’s readable may be an interesting exercise – so the desktop is readable and not compressed/stretched to fit the YouTube display. YouTube displays at 854×480. If you can get your desktop at that display ratio; that may work as the quickest/easiest solution.

As far as quicktime streaming, I know several affordable webhosting solutions offer streaming as part of their base packages. Dreamhost.com is one; $120/year includes streaming server/solution. But I’ve not had the opportunity to use it much.

Those are the ideas I have off the top of my head without digging and researching much ;-)

To that I’ll that I’m curious if there are any services offering hosting solution for a product like Camtasia Relay or if Camtasia is providing a service like that for the independent educator or content provider.

Your thoughts or insights?