ScrnShots: A Screen Capture Sharing Community

 

The introduction of high-speed broadband internet to people’s homes meant that internet users could now share vast amounts of files and information with each-other. P2P and file sharing started out with music and has evolved into a medium through which all kinds of data and information is shared.

ScrnShots has taken the evolution of online file sharing further by offering an unlimited screenshot sharing service. In other words, you can take screenshots from your computer, post them online, tag them and name them. Other people will be able to view your screenshots and comment on them and you will be able to do the same to others.

 

As soon as you load ScrnShots, you are able to search for screen captures simply by typing in a keyword, as in the example above. If you have an account, you may comment other people’s screenshots and upload your own screenshots to share.

Uploading to ScrnShots

Uploading to ScrnShots may be done in two ways. First, you may take your own screenshots, save as picture file and upload using a browser uploader, or you may install the ScrnShots application, pictured below.

The advantage to using the application is that you are able to instantly upload the screenshot, it is available for Windows and MAC OS.

For developers, ScrnShots offers and API for Windows and MAC OS, allowing you to integrate ScrnShots’ functionality in your own programs. In other words, using the API, a program can be made to upload images directly to the ScrnShots server.

Final Thoughts

While the idea of sharing screenshots is great, there are many other services that would accomplish the same thing, such as Flickr or Google’s Picasaweb, which also allow you to upload large resolution pictures, tag them, and search them. ScrnShots’ interface is very straight-forward and easy to use, which does make it a good service if this is what you are looking for.

 

ScreenCastle Makes Web-Based Screen Capturing Easier Than Easy

 

A good amount of free web-based screen capture solutions exist today, many of which we regularily review on this site. Today, however, ScreenCastle a new web-based video capture solution came to my attention.

ScreenCastle is by far the easiest web based applet I’ve used, and it really holds true to its “One Click Screencasting” philosophy. ScreenCastle brings the following features to its users:

• 100% free
• It is possible to record fullscreen or to choose the part of the screen to record
• Unlimited fullscreen resolution recording.
• Audio recording (from primary audio recording device such as computer mic)
• Unlimited video length
• Unlimited maximum number of videos
• No registration

Features like unlimited resolution, length, and number of videos truly make this applet stand out from the crowd. There is also an API provided for developers who would like to integrate this technology into their own websites and applications.

 

Using ScreenCastle

As soon as you open screencastle.com, you will see the huge red button to the right. That is what needs to be clicked in order to begin the screen capture.

After you click the button, a security warning comes up, you must accept it for the recording to work, as ScreenCastle needs to gain access to your computer.  After that, ScreenCastle lets you choose if you would like to record your entire screen or just a part of it. You are also able to record from your mic by ticking the checkbox in the lower bottom of the window. Once you are finished configuring the recorder, the arrow at the bottom must be selected.

You will now see a black bar at the top of your screen. Click on “start recording” for the recording to start, and then go back to the top of the screen and select “stop recording,” then “save” in order to save your video. This is where I was disappoined. I attempted to record a minute of HD video and even though it was recorded, the video was unable to proccess, thus making ScreenCastle not all that it is made out to be.

I then went ahead an recorded some simple internet browsing with some standard definition YouTube video (near the end of the video). That didn’t work either. I tried recording 10sec of browsing a text webpage, and although it did get to the uploading step, the video never actually proccessed. I am assuming this is a temporary problem with the site and will be fixed. Once it is, samples of video recordings will  be added.

Finally,  assuming the uploading and processing does work, ScreenCastle gives you several ways to share your video:

• Link to watch (YouTube-like streaming Flash video)
• HTML embed code
• BBCode (for posting video to forums and message boards)
• Direct link to media file
• Preview images (for linking to video)

Conclusion

ScreenCastle is a great idea, is easy to operate, and seems to work smoothly until you get to the final step. No matter what scenarios and resolutions were thrown at it, ScreenCastle would not let me upload any of my recordings. As such, ScreenCastle’s video recording quality cannot really be judged until that bug is fixed.