Comments on: Cheap and Free Alternatives to Morae: Usability Testing Software.

By: Pen

Pen — Sun, 01 Nov 2009 16:56:40 +0000

A word on CamStudio – it does record avi if you change video recording settings. It records for fairly long periods though havent tried 90 minutes.

It makes pretty large files but you can always batch compress afterwards – Any Video Converter does a great job. You can record the whole screen and also record good quality audio (44hz stereo if wanted). Overall Ive found this very good.

By: Usability testing gets easier and easier – Open Education Research

Usability testing gets easier and easier – Open Education Research — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 23:50:08 +0000

[...] using your software. The best is Silverback, which is pretty slick but only for Mac. (For Windows, keep looking.) Because it’s recorded, you can skip over boring stuff and replay interesting stuff over [...]

By: Chris Canfield

Chris Canfield — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 04:08:34 +0000

I was just looking into this. Webcammax will do an unlimited number of picture-in-picture videos, and can record your desktop including focusing on the area around the mouse. And unlike a lot of software that does Picture in Picture webcams, it actually keeps them mostly in sync. Downsides include being a resource hog, unweildly large recordings (no compression), and max recording resolution of 640×480. It’s about 50$ a copy.

http://webcammax.com/

Ultimately since we’re not a PC house anyway, we went with superwebcam to join two webcam streams into one Picture-in-picture, then recording that with good old Windows Movie Maker. Superwebcam is free, (which means usable on any computer in the company!), tiny, and takes surprisingly few resources compared to other software. Huge drawback: max resolution of 320 x 240 when recorded with something else, or recording of 640×480 without sound. But overall it has produced quite adequate results without too much effort after this past batch of 20 1-hour sessions. We’re pointing a second camera at a monitor for our Picture-in-picture, but again, that’s because we’re not a PC house.

http://www.superwebcam.com

Neither work particularly amazingly, but both at least are useful in different circumstances. If you find other solid alternatives, please keep us posted!

By: Harry Brignull

Harry Brignull — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 08:20:16 +0000

No, I haven’t… There are a hell of a lot of screen recorder apps out there. If you are going to try it for usability testing, I recommend seeing how well it copes when recording for 90 minutes solid. You don’t want it crashing during an actual research session.

By: Gustavo Gawry

Gustavo Gawry — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 20:08:59 +0000

Have you ever tryed BBFlashback?

http://www.bbsoftware.co.uk/BBFlashBackExpress/Home.aspx

http://www.bbsoftware.co.uk/BBFlashBack/Home.aspx

By: eduStyle Blog || Blog Archive » Start a Usability Testing Program in 5 Days

Mon, 23 Mar 2009 13:17:20 +0000

[...] You can make the software side really easy by using Silverback (Mac only) for quick and cheap or Morae (Windows only) for comprehensive and pricier. If you’re looking for something cheaper for the PC, there are some cheap alternatives to Morae. [...]

By: Nick

Nick — Sat, 07 Mar 2009 22:05:11 +0000

> Thanks for the tip, Nick!

No problem, Harry. Thanks for the informative post and blog.

> So Windows Movie Maker can deal with resolutions like 1024 x 768?

Yes.

> Upon import does it spend ages converting the video?

Snagit saves the files as AVIs. They come straight into MovieMaker. Depending on the codec you use though, Snagit might spend a bit of time procesing the file once you’ve finished.

By: Harry Brignull

Harry Brignull — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 07:58:09 +0000

Thanks for the tip, Nick! So Windows Movie Maker can deal with resolutions like 1024 x 768? Upon import does it spend ages converting the video?

By: Nick

Nick — Thu, 05 Mar 2009 21:04:05 +0000

Hi Harry, in the tiny budget category could I put out a shout for TechSmith's Snagit, $49 (£28). Using it with a free codec like Xvid gives (ahem) usable results. No picture in picture, but it does do audio (not forgetting it's pretty much the best screen capture tool money can buy). And for editing the results, Windows MovieMaker comes free with most recent flavours of the OS.

By: David Travis

David Travis — Sat, 21 Feb 2009 12:32:03 +0000

Just a correction to your point about Morae videos. You can create a video of a session in real time (while the study is in progress) by logging in with Observer and saving the file as a .wmv. So if you just want videos of the session you don't need to import .rdg files into Manager at all. I've written an eBook with more tips like this available here.

By: Laurence Veale

Laurence Veale — Wed, 28 Jan 2009 23:12:58 +0000

Ditto on the screenflow – nice effects can be added within the app which is a nice touch

By: Harry Brignull

Harry Brignull — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 10:52:43 +0000

@Roland – screenflow is fantastic for making beautiful screencasts. But for usability testing, Silverback has some useful features, and is half the price.

@M The problem with Camstudio is that it outputs .SWF files as your video. This is not straightforward to edit. But, I guess if you don’t need to edit and you are just recording for archiving/analysis then Camstudio might do the trick. However, I don’t know if it works reliably for long sessions (e.g. 90 minutes solid) without causing performance problems.

By: M

Tue, 27 Jan 2009 10:44:47 +0000

No PIP but free http://camstudio.org/

By: Roland Studer

Roland Studer — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 13:22:10 +0000

On the mac there is ScreenFlow, 99$. Which is very nice!

By: Ian Mikutel

Ian Mikutel — Mon, 26 Jan 2009 08:05:06 +0000

Great post Harry.

I did a similar comparison this past fall for alternatives to Morae and the biggest thing I’ve found is that Morae is really overkill for most people.

Half the time you can do just fine with Camtasia doing scree/audio recording for you.