Create free video screencasts of your desktop using Screencast-o-Matic

Posted on October 5, 2007 at 9:19 am

Screencast-o-Matic is a free web-based video screen capturing software that lets you create a recording of your desktop and upload it for free hosting, all without having to install any software onto your computer! Previously, I had written about another free screen capture and recording software called Jing, but I found that the program crashed a lot while using it.

Screencast-o-Matic is very easy to use and allows you to create screencasts of specific regions on your desktop or a full-screen screencast. Once you upload your recording, you can share your screencast via a a unique URL or embed the screencast into your web site or blog using the embed code. Here’s an example screencast I created.

Another cool feature that I really like about Screencast-o-Matic is the fact that you can record audio along with your video recording, which means you can create tutorials full with audio and video. Also, there is an option to follow the mouse with a red dot during the screencast for easy pointing.

To get started, click the Create button at the top and choose an initial size for your video.

Click Go and a box will appear of the requested size that you can then move around on your desktop. Once the position is set, go ahead and click on the red recording button to begin the screencast. The max length of a screencast is 15 minutes.

Once your finished, click the Pause button and then the X at the right. You’ll be brought to the Preview page where you can give your screen cast a title, description, make it searchable, upload it, or export it to Quicktime.

Another really cool feature of this software is that you can add notes to your screencast at specific times. These notes will show up at the time you configure in the video.

Once you’ve uploaded a screencast, you can click on My Screencasts to view all of them. You can also see stats on your screencast, such as the number of views and any ratings.

Click on a screencast to begin watching it and to get the URL and embed code: