Requirements for Screencasts

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These are our requirements for submitting a screencast to ShowMeDo. Earlier in our life we tried to accept any codec, but this gave us a lot of trouble when transcoding to our standard formats. Now we ask that you submit a screencast using one of a few well-known and well-understood codecs - this will greatly asstist us in getting your screencast onto the site quickly.

We might be able to accept other formats - get in contact with us beforehand so we can chat and test your format. If we can't transcode your screncast, then we can't accept your work, and we'd hate to have you put in effort which we can't accept!

Contents

Acceptable formats

We accept screencasts from Windows, Mac and Linux. Windows is easiest with the tools that we know about, Mac as easy (but you have to pay for some of the software), Linux a little fiddly but if you're happy at the command line then you'll be fine.

We are fixing our preferred resolution at 800x600 - if you need to work at a different resolution, be aware that our forthcoming player page will be fixed to this resolution so your 'cast will be scaled. Most screencasting software lets you pan around the screen (a bit like a virtual window), so you can use that feature to pan around a larger physical screen whilst maintaining an 800x600 recording area.

Compression before submission

Most of the following codecs can still be further compressed with a utility like 7zip's 7z. WinZip (on Windows) does a reasonable job, but 7z is noticeably superior. The smaller the resulting file, the easier it is for you to get it to us.

Windows

  • 800x600 resolution - all 'casts will be shown scaled to 640x480 on our player page, so your cast should ideally be recorded at this larger resolution (the scaling works great and later we may offer 800x600 downloads as well).
  • CamStudio Lossless Codec (preferred codec) for use with CamStudio
  • TechSmith's Screen Capture Code - a standard codec if you're using TechSmith's CamTasia, similar to the Microsoft Video Codec 1 but produces much smaller files
  • Microsoft Video Codec 1 - a standard codec for Windows machines, very old, it can be set to 'lossless' quality so that there are no compression artifacts (which gives excellent playback quality). Note if you use this, remember to compress the output using 7zip's 7z or a zip program (7z is best, WinZip produces notably less-compressed files)

We prefer not to accept SWF files from these tools, as we can't transcode SWF files to our preferred formats, but if this is the only format available then we can accept them.

Mac

  • 800x600 resolution - all 'casts will be shown scaled to 640x480 on our player page, so your cast should ideally be recorded at this larger resolution (the scaling works great and later we may offer 800x600 downloads as well).
  • a QuickTime codec - preferably H.264 or Sorenson 3 or Animation.

Linux

To record SWF use either pyvnc2swf or Bruce Cadieux has an automated script here at It's Your PC!.

Tools

Windows

See ShowMeDos for HyperCam and CamStudio here.

  • open-source CamStudio (with the excellent CamStudio lossless codec) - see these CamStudio configuration instructions - we use CamStudio here at ShowMeDo HQ.
  • commercial HyperCam (evaluation license has a small watermark - we don't mind if you don't mind, for non-commercial use), approximate cost £26.
  • commercial CamTasia $299.00 per copy

Mac

  • commercial iShowU, approximate cost £11.
  • commercial Snapz Pro X (30 day free license), approximate cost £46.

Linux

See an example ShowMeDo for running pyVNC2SWF.

If you have more information on Linux screencasting tools, please get in contact so we can update this information - we don't know a lot about Linux tools and we'd love to help people out.

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