+1 for CamTasia (Windows) and ScreenFlow (Mac), also RecordMyDesktop (Linux). CamStudio (free Win) ok. Online solutions (screencastomatic, screentoaster, jing) also good.
I'm a professional screencaster (http://procasts.co.uk) - if you want to crib examples, see my Examples page, they all reflect live use of screencasts that make users happier, convert more visitors, reduce support costs etc.
Definitely get a good mic - I prefer pro audio equipment but you'll go a long way with a decent USB mic (not 3.5mm jacks, they get electrical noise from the motherboard).
If you can't do good audio yourself then see something like voices.com for outsourcing but melding the video+audio can be problematic. You do need good audio, as others have said the easiest way to kill your presentation is muffled, noisy, volume-changing hard-to-understand audio.
Expect 1 day to do a first reasonable video of a few minutes, several days if you want a perfect cut with great audio, a bit more if you want to add effects (captions, fades, highlights, scrolls).
Look at ShowMeDo for 800+ examples of screencasts made by many users on different OSs with different tools.
Jolt Magazine has three useful articles: http://joltmagazine.com/2008/10/08/lets-make-a-screencast-th... http://joltmagazine.com/2008/09/23/lets-make-a-screencast-pa... http://joltmagazine.com/2008/09/17/screencasting-an-expert-r...
See LongTail video player (http://www.longtailvideo.com/players/jw-flv-player/) to embed flv/mp4 result, they have great plugins, it works with thickbox/lightbox, stats tracking possible, lots of features, I use it for all my work.
Ask HN: How do you produce product demo videos?
21–30 of 42 posts
Re: Ask HN: How do you produce product demo videos?
#22I'd actually recommend Captivate from Adobe (it was a Marcomedia product). The reason being is it's awesome for mastering videos. It seems to run acceptably in VMWare fusion too.
I've used iShowU to capture video on my Mac but then mastered it into Flash files. You can add pauses, description, etc.
Screenflow also seems really bad ass from my limited experience with it if you are happy with doing 100% Mac demos.
Re: Ask HN: How do you produce product demo videos?
#23I use XVidCap, edited with KDENlive, then uploaded to youtube and embedded that. All free (using ubuntu)
Thanks - I think the only problem is the resolution on YouTube is not very good. I followed the link through your profile to your YouTube video and although it's nice, for my purposes I'd like the text to be clearer on the video.
There's a post here with some hints on getting high quality up on YouTube: http://nerdwithnolife.blogspot.com/2008/09/how-to-get-high-q...
Re: Ask HN: How do you produce product demo videos?
#24I'm a freelance developer, but a couple of months ago, one of my customers asked me to make some screencasts of the product we're building.
I tried Camtasia and Adobe Captivate on Windows. Camtasia has been best to work with, although it has a couple of pretty horrendous bugs that require nonobvious workarounds that took me a while to learn. On the bright side, it has a great set of online video tutorials (duh) and it's easy to do transition effects and record from Powerpoint.
The other commenters are right -- the hardest thing to do well is the voice-over. You need a good mic -- USB digital mics are probably best, but I've gotten by OK with a good headset. You also want a quiet place -- digital "noise removal" post-processing makes me sound like the Predator. One day when I was at a shared office, I spent the morning standing in the bathroom, recording audio to my laptop.
It's also vital, of course, to have an engaging script and a product that's interesting to watch. Writing and filming the screencast will force you to concentrate on these things from the perspective of a new user, and you should take that opportunity to ferret out any needless distractions.
Re: Ask HN: How do you produce product demo videos?
#25Email Demogirl.com. She will do the job for you (assuming she likes your application) and get you a few beta users.
Interesting. I really like the way her videos zoom in and out on the browser to focus on the important area. Even though the video size is quite small, it works because of the zooming. I think I'll email her and also ask what software she uses!
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Re: Ask HN: How do you produce product demo videos?
#26Aside from all the technology, it's crucial to get a solid, professional voice-over that tells a clear story about your product. My personal experience has been that even the best video production can be quickly tarnished by a voice-over that is casual, meandering, or inconsistent. For our demo video, we first sketched out what points we wanted to make in the video, wrote a draft script, then recorded nearly an hour…
Do you have a link?
I'd guess it's http://www.uuorld.com
Re: Ask HN: How do you produce product demo videos?
#27I use XVidCap, edited with KDENlive, then uploaded to youtube and embedded that. All free (using ubuntu)
Thanks - I think the only problem is the resolution on YouTube is not very good. I followed the link through your profile to your YouTube video and although it's nice, for my purposes I'd like the text to be clearer on the video.
Yea if you want higher quality, I wouldn't use youtube. I still recommend XVidCap for linux... I find it much better then the others (like RecordMyDesktop). The quality will be very HQ and you could easily convert to FLV and host it yourself.
The quality will be very high, but youtube will ruin it, I agree.
Here is a higher quality version done with XVidCap: http://overtrainer.com/render.ogg
Re: Ask HN: How do you produce product demo videos?
#28If you find the other recommendations here a bit more than you were looking for, have a look at Wink:
Re: Ask HN: How do you produce product demo videos?
#29Blue SnowBall (usb mic) + Audacity + Camtasia.
Start with the written dialogue, record it meticulously then do the visual.
The Blue Snowball referral came from Scott Chacon at GitCasts. Great piece of equipment. Thanks Scott.
Re: Ask HN: How do you produce product demo videos?
#30Camstudio is great and completely free. http://camstudio.org/