If you ever need to make a quick video capture of your screen but don’t want the hassle of having to install any software or upload the video anywhere to share it, Screenr might be a god-send.
Screenr allows you to capture screencasts and share them easily, being especially designed for Twitter integration.
Screenr works on Mac or PC, essentially any computer with a modern browser and Java installed.
You can capture up to 5 minutes of video at any resolution up to 2560×1600 on a PC and 1920×1200 on a Mac. You can integrate the use of a microphone to voice-over your video capture, but unfortunately there currently isn’t any means to add captions or annotations to your recording.
You’ll create an account with Screenr to make your recordings and it integrates your Twitter account if you have one. After you have your account, you can just click the Record button in the top-right corner. This will take you to a page that loads a Java element which provides your recording interface. You can move the box with the dotted border anywhere on your screen and resize it by dragging any of the black squares. You can also choose a pre-selected resolution from the control bar at the bottom. There you also control the microphone sound as well as begin, end, or cancel the recording. I used Screenr to making a recording that showed much of the functionality of Google Image Swirl for the article I wrote last week on it.
Once you have everything lined up where you’d like it, just hit the record button and walk through your screencast. You can minimize the browser and record anything on your primary display. After you’ve completed everything you want to capture, hit the Done button which will take you to the Summary screen. There you can add some commentary about your video and publish the automatically-provided shortened URL to your Twitter account (or check the box to not tweet it) and hit the Publish button. This will send it through a very fast (considering) publishing process.
After it’s published, you’ll end up on the video page like this: http://screenr.com/nIB From there, you can see the URL to share with people, the code to embed a Flash player version of your video and options to upload directly to YouTube or download the .mp4 file.
The YouTube integrated process is very convenient to use and if you have your own site, you can embed the video easily with the code provided. Along with anywhere on the net, Screenr also states that the videos can be played on an iPhone.
You can see the screencasts that are being produced through Screenr and made publicly available through the Public Stream. If you find a favorite author, you can find an RSS subscription per author as a subtle feature of Screenr. Screenr is easy to use, fast, convenient, and provides the hosting for simple screencasts. If you have more complicated screen recording needs, you might check out previous reviews of BB Flashback Express or CamStudio and other Camtasia alternatives. For simple cases though, Screenr will be a perfect, no-install-required choice. Check it out at Screenr.com. Requires: Modern browser with Java installed.
