We make custom screencasts for our clients, aimed at explaining your software to your website visitors. Professional screencasts are an excellent way of showing your viewer that your software solves their problem.
The technique is far more powerful than screen-shots and feature lists and results in higher conversions of visitors into trial users. We have over 20 years combined expertise in the art and science of telling the right story to explain your software combining the talents of screencasters, voice-over artists, story-boarders, script-writers, animators and graphic-artists.
Tools at our disposal include CamTasia and BB FlashBack (Windows), ScreenFlow (Mac), RecordMyDesktop (Linux), Audacity (audio editing), and the full Adobe suite for 2D, 3D and animated graphics. We have three microphones including a studio-grade sE2200a, we also have HD video cameras and all necessary lighting.
LiveDrive Overview (introduction for first-time visitors, includes mobile footage and live video)
LiveDrive.com's on-line storage service needed a professional, snappy introduction that shows all their main features including video playback, Windows folder synchronisation and mobile phone interfaces.
Using a team of 4 we developed a brief, scripted, recorded screencasts and mobile footage, added voice-overs along with custom graphics and delivered a set of 5 videos (see their Demos page).
By: Ian (concept, screencast, voice-over), Richard (animation, graphics), Iain (HD mobile video), Neil (video editing). Also available at YouTube.
Adblock Plus Overview (open-source advocacy for first-time users, animated)
Adblock Plus is an ad-blocking plug-in for the Firefox web-browser. Wladimir Palant received questions from new users who needed helping understanding why they needed Adblock Plus and how they should install it. We offered to create this video for open-source advocacy as we're long-time users of Adblock already.
This screencast is viewed over 700 times per day via AdblockPlus.org, courtesy of YouTube. Also available as ogv (12mb), mp4 (16mb), iPhone m4v (10mb).
By: Ian (concept, screencast, voice) and Richard (animation, artwork).
" I like it a lot how this video manages to show all the important steps for a new user and to indicate where additional information can be found" - Wladimir (maintainer)
BrandWatch (web-app) Introduction (overview for first-time visitors)
BrandWatch.net wanted to have more of their site visitors sign-up for a live demo. This screencast is linked on their frontpage and shows the viewer the major features of BrandWatch with clear examples of how you can use their product to monitor your brand's reputation, ending with a clear call-to-action.
This screencast was used by CNET in a review of BrandWatch via the copy I uploaded to Vimeo to increase their exposure.
Techniques include zooms, pans, highlights, backing music and a call to action. See at YouTube, Vimeo.
AppBeacon.com (overview for first-time visitors)
AppBeacon were losing too many users on their frontpage and weren't converting enough visitors into repeat customers. Their service acts as an enhanced iTunes for iPhone users - losing customers meant losing revenue. ProCasts delivered a solution in time for the expected Christmas rush that decreased the bounce-rate and increased sign-ups, adding to the bottom line.
Details are available on our blog, the video is also available at YouTube and Vimeo.
" I did watch it. It was vital. I should probably watch it again now that I've used the website. " - Laura (first-time AppBeacon user)
VisualSVN (overview and walk-through for first-time visitors)
VisualSVN.com needed to replace their older 6 minute video with a shorter, sharper video which conveyed the same information more concisely.
This resulting video runs for 4 minutes and shows you how to install their VisualSVN source-code-manager into Visual Studio 2008 and how to create, share and update a project between two developers.
Techniques include zooms, Flash-based 'Download' links at the end (they only work in VisualSVN's site), text annotations to differentiate the three machines that are shown in the video and a call to action.
Resolver One Tutorial Video (tutorial for interested user)
Resolver Systems maintain a collection of screencasts to teach existing users about the power of their Excel-beating ResolverOne product.
This screencast teaches the viewer about Putting Python objects in the spreadsheet grid, demonstrating two methods of Python object creation and manipulation.
Techniques include zooms, highlights and a call to action. View at YouTube and Vimeo.
Cancelling your Coursework.Info Subscription (support video for existing users)
Coursework.info (hosting the UK's largest academic essay collection) wanted to reduce the number of support emails they answered by empowering more site-visitors to cancel their own subscriptions without requiring support. The problem to solve was explaining the process to less-confident Internet users so they felt comfortable completing the process.
Techniques used include highlights, on-screen annotations and zooms.
"The video has been a big help. Our users really appreciate us going the extra mile, and it has greatly reduced the amount of time we need to spend holding their hands. Job Done. Thanks!" - Chris Newson (MD)
Django In Under A Minute (open-source advocacy video for interested users)
This 1 minute screencast introduces the Django web-application framework which has recently released at v1 after 3 years development. Topics include:
- Getting started
- Following the tutorial
- Examples of real Django sites
- How to start writing your own web-applications
You can also view this at YouTube and Vimeo.
"The first thing I looked for when I considered experimenting with a different web framework was to see some action. Screencasts were just that, letting me see how I could get things done and easily compare the available options out in the wild." - Rodolfo Henrique Carvalho
2 Minute Website Tour - Introducing HowSociable.com (introduction for first-time users)
In this screencast we demonstrate Inuda's HowSociable.com. This web-service helps companies to measure their brand's visibility on the social web. The aims of the screencast are to:
- Show the visitor why they should measure their brand's visibility
- Increase sign-ups to the monthly brand-visibility reports
- Increase the number of users who provide feedback
You can also view this at YouTube and Vimeo.
"Adding a ProCasts screencast to our front page increased activated email conversions by 25% and reduced support requests by half" - Jonathan Markwell - Founder HowSociable.com
8 Minute Tutorial - Internet Explorer 8 vs Firefox 3 (open-source advocacy for new Firefox users)
This 8 minute demonstration of Internet Explorer 8 (beta) vs Firefox 3 is intended to show these two very recent browsers to regular users of the Internet. The intention is to make the user consider trying Firefox 3 or at least upgrade their older Internet Explorer 6 to a more modern browser. View at YouTube and Vimeo.
"With technology advancing it is often better to see (and compare) new tools in action. As a Forefix devotee, I am interested to see if IE is keeping up with Firefox without having to install it on my own system - screencasts make it so easy to see what's changed." - Matt Sarjent (Senior Programmer)
Screencasting for Software Demos
WingWare use a pair of screencasts to show their Python programming IDE to new users. The screencasts introduce features like commonly used preferences and editor-intelligence tools which show the viewer why their IDE is superior to other tools.
"Great tutor[ial], I have been using Wing for about a year now but never really played with the debug probe. I will now. It would have saved me 1/3 the time on my last project."
- ShowMeDo User
"...I hope you are getting paid by Wingware as you have me thinking about paying for their IDE."
- ShowMeDo User (lcluster)
The second screencast shows a live debugging session - debugging is hard to teach and hard to describe with text but it works perfectly in a screencast. This is exactly the sort of demo you'd give to a prospect who sat next to you and it demonstrates the power of screencasting to convert sceptical users into trial customers.
"I'm glad I found this web and specially this tutorial. I was going to forget about wingIDE because it's not free and I don't work with Python. But now I'm going to try it. Thanks"
- ShowMeDo User
Screencasting for Web Applications
The web-app and design agency 37signals are famous for their championing of screencasts for user-education. For their Basecamp project-management web-app they mix screencasts and videos for advocacy, education and demonstration.
"Basecamp uses screencasts (videos demoing how to use site features) for anyone using any feature for the first time. I found them to be so much easier to follow than reading instructions so I was up and running in no time at all."
- Aliza Sherman Risdahl
DropBox have a demo of their web-based invite-only file sharing service. Their screencast shows how their tiny desktop app lets them upload files from a Windows machine to their storage server and that the connected Mac auto-updates. They could have shown this with a whole series of screenshots and text, instead in less than a minute of video you see exactly what they're offering.
Who else uses screencasting?
Screencasts for product demos
- Atlassian's JIRA uses screencasting to show walk-throughs alongside their feature lists and a live webinar
- ResolverSystems show their ResolverOne Excel-beater with 8 screencasts, mixing user-interface and Python/.NET coding to give you a thorough walk-through
- CodeGear use video for JBuilder, their Java IDE (sadly their videos aren't web-enabled, their videos are large zipped downloads) to show new product features to developers
- Microsoft - over 200 screencasts (1, 2) to teach programmers about their new tools
- 37Signals use screencasts to show their products in action and for user-education
- WingWare to demonstrate their Python IDE to potential buyers
- Karlelia demo their SandVox web-site builder software
- Zotero's beautiful demo quickly shows how and why their product can help a researcher replace their traditional pen-and-paper note-taking tools
- Firefox Web-browser "A picture really is worth a thousand words" (via slashdot), this screencast shows an impressive list of new features within 4 minutes
- Marc Andreessen (founder of Netscape and Ning) using a screencast in a blog entry to show updates to his Ning start-up.
Screencasts for tuition
- Lynda.com is famous for offering graphics-application tutorial screencasts
- ShowMeDo offers Python programming, Inkscape, OpenOffice and other tutorials by screencasts
- Peepcode offers Ruby programming tutorials
- ScreencastsOnline specialises in Mac tutorials
- VTC has a wide range of tutorials
- Ubuntu Operating System demonstrations by advocates