Record your desktop, screen capture: Jing Project 1.2.5

Jing Project 1.2.5
http://www.jingproject.com/

Brought to you by TechSmith, makers of Camtasia, Snagit, and online service Screencast.com, comes a new screen recording utility called 'Jing'. Jing is a utility that is similar in function to CamStudio and Wink - i.e. it lets you record your desktop and save to a Shockwave file (.swf - perfect for streaming within a web browser).

Not only does it allow you to capture videos (with audio!), but it also gives you the option of capturing screen shots. The screen capture process also includes a feature that detects window controls, panes, and editable text areas, allowing you to easily select an area of focus if necessary prior to capture.

Upon installation, it places a 'sun' icon at the top of your screen with three nodules attached to it: Capture, History, and More.

Clicking the capture nodule allows you select whether you wish to capture a screen shot or a desktop video.

The screen capture (i.e. 'snapshot') feature is smooth, but it could use a few more features. Thankfully, annotation is included so you can markup your captured images. However, only saving to .PNG is supported, which isn't a terrible thing, but I would have liked to see .jpg supported here. Also, I would have liked to see some additional affects, like drop-shadow and watermarking.

Again, the interface is very smooth and easy on the eyes.

What is the end purpose of the Jing project?
The purpose of Jing was to easily be able to share your desktop recorded videos with your friends, so it is for that reason that there is a time limit on desktop recordings set at 5 minutes. I'm not sure at this point if this is a limitation since the project hasn't been fully completed, or if this is the end goal of Jing. I think that a lot of people would be upset if the time limitation stayed in the final release.

I just hope that Jing stays free.

Plugged into Screencast.com
Since Techsmith also owns Screencast.com, there is an added feature that allows you to upload and share your videos, hosted on their servers. Those that are testing the software (from what I've read) can upload videos for free, but again, I'm not sure if this free service is time-limited or not. Normally, basic packages on screencast.com is 6.95 a month. Of course, that doesn't mean you can't upload your videos to other hosting sites - its just that Jing has the code built-in to share to Screencast.com for the convenience.

Likes:

• Interface
• Smooth overall simplicity
• Ease of screen capture
• Screenshots and recording of desktop with audio
  

Dislikes:

• .swf output only. I would have liked to see .flv (at least).
• Ability to call up annotations during a video
• No additional "plugged-in" ability to upload to YouTube, Google Video, etc.

Things to note:

You need .NET 3.0 in order to install Jing.

Alternates:

• Wink
• Camstudio (review here)