The Business of Software

Hi,

What can I create to create demo videos (in flash I presume)? I need something good, but cheap.

Please advise.

Thanks!

Camtasia is $300, if you want support and continuous development, CamStudio is free: http://camstudio.org. We've used CamStudio and it worked great for our simple needs (our demos came out not quite super but that was our own fault). If you want to do post-processing, you'll need to find some other packages (virtualdub or so).

I recommend the following:
- Use CamStudio to record your session, leave in the mistakes you make and don't do voice yet.
- Use VirtualDub to edit the video to what you want it to be (cut out loading times, mistakes you made etc.)
- Use a simple audio editor to record your voice track (like audacity or so).
- Mix the sound into the video with VirtualDub.
- Convert the .avi or .mpg to .swf. Not sure if there are good free tool to do this. A bit of googling shows up this: http://www.avi-swf-convert.com/ but there are many for-pay packages who do this, most of them cheap.

The above is what we'll use when we redo our demos. We did the all-at-once approach but that's very time-consuming (you have to repeat the whole thing when you make a mistake) and you (at least we) never get it quite right.

Another alternative is Wink: http://www.debugmode.com/wink/

I prefer BB FlashBack:

http://www.bbsoftware.co.uk/BBFlashBack.aspx

IMHO (and I do this for a living for local clients, no longer to ISV's) if you are going to a voice with your video it's going to have to sound right. I use SoundForge for video production, Sonar Producer for the audio production and Neumann U-87’s for the mic's. I have an article here on mic's that might save you a few dollars: 
http://www.cdroo.com//index.php?option=com_mojo&Itemid=113

The worst thing for folks to hear is a heavy breathing, badly pronounced, "er" and "uhms" production that's recorded right in front of a computer (complete with 60khz mains cycle hum as a background "effect").  Doing it "cheap", like most things for ISV's is rarely a good thing. I do not do many for ISV's these days directly due to pricing issues, but you really do need to consider getting it done pro by somebody who does.

I've used CamStudio in the past, and it worked fine for my purposes.

I use CamStudio too!

I am using Camtasia 5.0 for screencast production.  I also have a Zoom H2 mic and use Audacity for some audio post-processing.

Camtasia 5

I've had mixed results with Camtasia.  The price isn't bad and the SmartFocus feature is great, among other things, but it had too many significant bugs that really got in the way. of progress  They've resolved some of those, but I would assume some remain and some new ones may have popped up.  I wish we had spent more time reviewing Adobe's.

- Dan

I've used Camtasia 4 and 5, they have worked well for me.

I've used Camtasia v3 and v4. Haven't upgraded to v5 yet as I don't really need to so far. Works well. But I have had a few glitches. Recording audio for me is important, and it doesn't do multi-track recording, which would be a huge improvement.