Quick Jing Test

Though we love Viddler for our screencasts, there’s a new free + easy tool called Jing from TechSmith that may become our default choice for quick screencasts and support.

Previously, we used Camtasia or Camstudio (free) to record and edit (adjust audio, add callouts, narrations, etc.) and then we would upload the finished file to Viddler to paste into our Tips + Support blog, here.

Jing turns a multi-hour process into multi-minutes. The trade-offs for ease of use (and no-cost software) are:

1. Limited to 5 minute screencasts.

(but if you can’t explain something in a five minute screencast, a screencast may not be the right medium for the task in the first place)

2. Cannot edit audio or video.

(again if it is under five minutes, not such a deal-breaker, given that re-recording a 5 minute how-to is often easier than recompiling audio, adding callouts, etc.)

3. Overall limit for hosted videos on screencast.com (Jing’s partner) is 2GB for the free account.

Just to show how easy it was below is a mock screencast that was done with Jing. Total time from downloading Jing software, registering email to embedding on this blog = 9 minutes.

Team Verdict:  Jing rocks!

Here it is: