In the video below, I'll show you how you can modify the Screencast.com embed code so you can use whatever image you want as the first frame. The first frame is what appears behind the Play button before the viewer clicks it. Since many videos start with a fade from black, the first frame is black. This isn't always the best first impression.

Update: The image you use for the first frame should be hosted on Screencast.com. The video is not clear on this, and it won't work if you reference an image on Flickr, etc.

I'll also show you how you can add a special "flashvar" so the video starts plays as soon as the viewer loads the page. This can be a little disconcerting and a lot of people like to be in control of starting the video. (Click here to jump right to the part about auto-playing videos.)

With Screencast.com's recent Library redesign comes a particularly interesting enhancement that many may have missed.

In the old design, you could upload anything to your Library. Some people might have a bunch of loose content that wasn't in any true folder. Further, this content is "Public" - meaning anyone that knows your display name can see your Library.

Take a look at my public offerings at http://www.screencast.com/users/d.frazier You see two public playlists that I've created, and four folders that are publicly visible and able to be browsed. What's not showing up are all the individual pieces of content that are stored at my Library level.

When you log into your account using the old UI, you find yourself in a "My Library" view by default. Here's a snapshot of some of my Screencast.com account now with me logged in:

Uploading content by clicking the "Upload Content" button results in your file being stored at your Library level, i.e. not in a specific folder. (You can of course upload content into a specific folder by navigating to that folder level and initiating the upload process.)

Previously we had no way of implementing any level of privacy at the Library level other than "Public." With our new UI, and particularly by displaying all folders in the left hand navigation area, we can now treat the Library as a real folder (and it is now called "Default"...by default. Clever, I know). Now with the new UI, when you log into your account you find yourself not in your Library, but in a "view" - specifically the "All items" view.

When you choose to upload content from this view, your content goes into your Default folder - for the time being. (A logical enhancement for us is to put a folder picker on the Flash-based uploader, but that's for a different discussion.) The point here is that because the Library is now a real folder, you can set the privacy of it to something other than "Public".

If you set it to "Hidden", anyone browsing to your account by using your display name won't be able to see any content that's been uploaded to your Default folder, until you send someone a direct link to it, or move it into a "Public" folder of your choosing. I see this as a benefit to most who want to upload lots of content in bulk (through the Desktop Uploader application or Camtasia Relay for example), not have it be instantly, publicly browseable, and then decide later how to organize and share it.

Our intention is to one day index all public content in Screencast.com in order to provide discoverability both internally (as related content perhaps) and externally through the various search engines. Additionally, we will one day make the new UI the only available viewing option for content owners. When we do that (and for those who don't realize that their Library/Default content is publicly browseable), we have an opportunity to set everyone's Default folder to "Hidden" (by default), without affecting any of the content or links to content that have previously been shared. If after that update, you want your Library/Default folder to be browseable, you can easily set its privacy level back to "Public", but it will be you that initiates that action and not us, on your terms and with your understanding.

For now, if you want to take advantage of this new degree of security, feel free to update the privacy settings of your Default folder and rest assured that any content you upload into your account that's not uploaded directly to a Public folder, will be hidden from view until you decide to share it.

This week I'm cheating. I'm dipping into the Jing feedback folder to respond to a few similar questions, and draw attention to the fact that Jing and Screencast.com are connected for a reason.

In fact, I could use this opportunity to point out that everyone who uses Jing should ALWAYS use Screencast.com as their hosting/sharing solution...but I'm biased of course. (for those who don't know, I'm the product manager for both Jing and Screencast.com :)) Even I know that users of Jing and other content creation tools have reasons for using those tools in their own way. I recently conducted several user interviews where I got to watch how people use Jing in their daily lives and the results pleasantly surprised me. I saw a lot of content being captured with Jing and then sent to Snagit and Camtasia Studio for further editing before being published to Screencast.com and other destinations. That's the kind of workflow that not everyone understands, but when you do, it opens your eyes to the unlimited possibilities that now exist.

Anyway, I digress. Here are two comments from Jing users that I hope this post can address:

By the way, I used Jing to take these snapshots and I sent the images to Snagit to make the neat curled edge effect. From Snagit's editor, I then sent the images to my Screencast.com account which immediately returned to me the HTML embed code that I pasted into this article. Simple, eh (that's for you Sharon)?

Ok, now on to the response: FOLDERS! Everyone needs to organize their content, and Screencast.com gives you a great way to do that with the Screencast.com object we call Folders. We thought folders were so cool, we even let you create them in our other content creation tools like Jing, Snagit, Camtasia Studio, and Camtasia Relay. "But where ARE they?" you might ask...

Folders are accessible in Jing through the Button Settings dialog in the Preferences section of Jing's More ball:

The idea is that, from within our tools, you can create a unique button for each folder to which you want to send content. Click on the button you want to customize, or click New to create a new button:

From here you can pick from any of the folders that are in your Screencast.com account, or you can choose to edit folders directly. This would allow you to create a new folder in your Screencast.com account, that you would then select back in the Jing interface.

Jing is smart, so if you have a folder that is private (requiring a password or user authentication to access it), you won't be able to have the button retrieve embed code. Embedding content is only allowed from Public or Hidden folders (Your Jing folder is a hidden folder on Screencast.com). You can have up to eight (8) buttons appear in your Jing preview window:

Now that I've demonstrated one way to use TechSmith's online hosting and sharing solution to do your organizing - what if you wanted to create a unique button to save your content into different local file system destinations (or FTP directories, or Facebook accounts, or...)? You can create new buttons that have unique file paths to your hard drive, FTP site, or Facebook/Twitter/YouTube/Flickr accounts.

We're always interested in hearing what you have to say, so at this point I guess I should quit yammering on and let you, the readers, tell us what you like or don't like about this particular point of integration. So let us have it! And of course, Happy Screencasting (and Jinging!).
- Dirk

I know I do, but I've been having some trouble coming up with argument-proof justification.

I recently got some more ammunition on my side though. Screencast.com recently detects and supports html5 for the iPad. That means if you make your Camtasia, Camtasia Studio or Jing videos "the right way", you can play them on the iPad. See, so it's not just about playing Plants vs. Zombies. Learning stuff from screencasts is extremely important. Well, yes, I could watch them on my laptop but... Darn it all--foiled again!

Well, if you have an iPad or want people to be able to watch your videos on an iPad, there are certain ways you'll want to produce your video. For example, I made the video below showing possible best practices for using Camtasia Studio to make high quality videos for the iPad. You can find a lot more information about video requirements for the iPhone, iPad and Android in this help topic. It also describes how to make a iPad-compatible video using Camtasia for Mac.

Do you create or view video content on mobile devices? Do you have tips to share?

Oftentimes our users think up great new ways of using Screencast.com. Here's a comment that we received recently that I think demonstrates a unique way of using the service:

We've known for quite a while now that educators and students are using Jing to capture and share content in a variety of ways. TechSmith recently went to ISTE 2010 in Denver and experienced the distinct pleasure of having our customers actually present to other attendees how they use Jing to facilitate the learning process. Their presentations (see three recorded here) received acclaim from everyone who saw them.

Jing uses Screencast.com to host the image and video files that are created, and to deliver a shortened URL for users to paste into IMs, email messages, blog posts, Learning Management Systems, and other forms of communication.

But Screencast.com is a lot more than just a URL shortener. How do teachers and students use Screencast.com in their daily lives? And if they don't use Screencast.com on a regular basis, how could they? We know that instructors have content that they need to share with their students individually and as a class. Instructors need to restrict the viewing of secure content to specific students, and sometimes students need to submit content for instructors to review.

Screencast.com has evolved into a basic file system of sorts (with lots of room for improvement in that regard for sure), with various levels of privacy applicable to folders and playlists. Content that you upload to your main Library is publicly browseable meaning that if anyone knows your Display Name, they can point their Web browser at your Screencast.com account - for better or for worse. Browse to http://www.screencast.com/users/d.frazier and you'll see my publicly visible content, folders, and playlists, but you won't see the gobs of other folders and playlists in my account space that are "hidden" and "private".

When you assign a password to a folder to make it private, all the content you put in that folder is accessible to anyone that has that password. We do not have file-level permissions in place, meaning that you cannot assign a given video or image the status of private, hidden or public. That would get confusing quickly - how do you display a "public" file stored in a password-protected "private" folder? That's why, in the case of our user above, anyone with the password to a folder full of content can see all the content in that folder.

So how do you address the specific need that our user above is requesting - namely that a single student can only see content that is intended for their eyes only? Well, given the current state of Screencast.com's folder and playlist paradigm, an instructor could create a password-protected folder for each of their students and share that link and password with only the applicable student.

Content that is for only that student could be put in that folder and only that student would be able to see it. You would of course trust that student to keep their password private, but you could also change the password if you ever felt that trust was compromised.

A second method for making content available to only specific students is to create a playlist for each student and protect it with a password as you would a folder. Playlists can be made up of content from any folder in your Screencast.com account...private or public. In this example, an instructor could upload content to a private folder to which only she knows the password. She would then create a private playlist for each student, and then populate that playlist with content that's unique to them. She would share the password to that playlist with only the student that needed access.

Playlists afford a different method of content organization and display than folders because the contents of a playlist can come from many folders. Think of how you might organize a classroom using folders and playlists - content could be organized for storage securely in private folders by subject. A single semester of Economics 101 (something we ALL should take these days) could be represented by a playlist, titled by subject, year, semester, or whatever, but populated with content that's reused from previous semester's classes (and stored in a secure folder). Or you might create one playlist for a class that addresses many subjects with content stored in folders by subject.

These are just examples of how I can think of organizing and displaying content - I would love for classroom experts on the topic to give us all some insight on how they use Screencast.com to present content to their students.

-Dirk

This question posted through our Feedback form highlights one of the least understood features of Screencast.com - The MediaRoll.

Sometimes a seemingly simple question creates even more questions, with answers that run off on tangents. Widgets are objects that present information to the viewer. Sometimes they're embedded on webpages and blog posts, like a collection of Tweets or Digg entries. Other times they are displayed on your computer desktop as a Sidebar in the case of Windows, or as a collection of tools on the Mac Dashboard.

Widgetbox is an online resource that lets you create widgets from various sources, like an RSS feed, a collection of YouTube videos, or some other source of video or image data. TechSmith's public folders and public and hidden playlists can be linked to by RSS, which means you can provide a folder RSS feed link to Widgetbox and create your own embeddable widget that displays that folder's contents. Keep in mind that RSS feeds are primarily used to present a subset of source data - usually the most recent 20 or so "items". If you have a large collection you want to present through some kind of widget, RSS may be too limiting.

TechSmith has its own "widget" called the MediaRoll. The MediaRoll is a Flash based viewer of content that gives a viewer insight into a folder or playlist on Screencast.com.

When you choose to share a folder or playlist, copy the "embed code for MediaRoll" presented in the share dialog box and paste that into your Website or blog post. If you don't like the look of our MediaRoll, you can customize it by adding parameters called FlashVars. This Help Center article will show you what you can do.

I hope this gives you some ideas as to what you can do with widgets, RSS and the MediaRoll today. in the future, we'll be improving our MediaRoll customization experience and even incorporating video playback elements into the MediaRoll object. Then there's also Silverlight and HTML5 to worry about since the MediaRoll won't display on an iPad... There's always so much to do. :)

-Dirk

Have you ever had problems finding answers to your questions regarding Screencast.com? Do you struggle with finding or getting technical support at TechSmith?

"Cindy" writes in with the following comments and question:

It just so happens that you can find a link to our Technical Support site on the very same feedback page that is used to submit comments and questions:

Regarding the download link - as a content owner, when you log into your account and view content, you will always see the download link in the Details tab. When you log out and view the same piece of content, the download link won't appear unless you explicitly enable the download link option in the Edit Details dialog.

Of course, this information is also available in the Screencast.com Help Center by searching on the text 'Download link' and you'll find a written tutorial on the subject of the download link - and there's even a great video tutorial on the subject that explains that as a content owner, you'll always see the content's download link when you're logged into your account.

I hope this example helps folks find our support services and help center content...there's a lot of good information in these services. It would be a shame for it to all go unnoticed.

Screencast.com is different from other online media repositories in that content owners have an exceptional amount of control over who sees their content. There are four types of privacy settings: Public, Hidden, Password, and Authenticated.

In this post, we break down the four levels of Privacy settings and, more importantly, provide context for why and when to use them. Privacy settings are available to all Screencast.com users, whether you have a free or Pro account, including Jing users.

To learn how to apply the various privacy settings, please refer to this video and tutorial.

Public

What Does it Mean?

With a name like Public, you might think anyone could stumble across your content. It turns out that's not exactly the case. Screencast.com does not allow search engines to index content, nor do we provide any means for a viewer to search Screencast.com content.

Public means that when you share a folder's content with someone, they can access all other content in the same folder.

Important: Your Library is always considered Public. The Library is basically the root of your Screencast.com account. If people know your Screencast.com display name, they can add it to the Screencast.com URL and see all of your Public folders.

For example: http://www.screencast.com/users/mcurtis. The "mcurtis" part is my display name and you can see what I have in there. (Not very exciting.)

When Should I Use It?
Make a folder Public when you want to allow anyone (theoretically) to view your content.

For example:

• You want as many people as possible to be able to experience your video tutorials or music you've written and performed.
• You're going to use the content on a website or blog and you hope people will not just view the featured content but sift through the other content in the folder.

Hidden

What Does it Mean?

Viewers cannot browse content in a Hidden folder. The content owner can share a link to an individual piece of content with a viewer. The viewer clicks the link and can only see that specific piece of content; the viewer has no ability to access anything else in the folder.

A Hidden folder is very convenient because you can have personal, private content right next to stuff you don't care if the world saw and be confident no one will stumble onto it.

When Should I Use It?
Make a folder Hidden to easily share one piece of content with a viewer, but not allow them to access the rest of the folder contents.

For example:

• Random Jings (The Jing folder is set to Hidden by default).
• You want to share a piece of individual content, but you have no idea who might view it. Blog comments would be a good example.
• In your work with a client, you want to provide access to a single piece of content.

Fun fact: You may be familiar with URL shortening services like Bit.ly or Tiny URL. Screencast.com's URLs are longer than most--and for a reason. The odds of someone randomly entering the case-sensitive alpha numeric URL are about 1 in 10^28. That's 10 with 28 zeros after it! Here's a URL to a silly Captain Jing/Holiday Sweater photo from a little event at work. http://screencast.com/t/OTkwYzA3ZT There happens to be a lot of other content in that folder as well, but I'm confident you'll never see it.

Password-Protected

What Does it Mean?

This type of privacy control is very straight forward. If people know the password to the folder, they can see everything inside the folder.

Tip: To experience the folder as your viewers will, sign out of Screencast.com and access your folder and content as a viewer.

When Should I Use It?
Make a folder Password-Protected when you want to allow anyone with a password to view your content.

For example:

• Family photos and videos you share with relatives
• Internal company or department content
• Working with colleague to collaborate on some videos

Authenticated Folder

What Does it Mean?

This method of privacy is the most secure and provides the content creator with control over access on a per-individual basis.

There are two steps to obtain access to an Authenticated folder.

1. The content creator invites the individuals they wish to have access to their content. The invitation is sent to the individual's email address via the Screencast.com website.
2. The people that receive the email must sign into Screencast.com using an existing account or sign up for a free Screencast.com account.

The beauty and power of an Authenticated folder is that once you have people set up, you can restrict access on a per individual basis.

Here's an example scenario for using an Authenticated folder:

An instructor has an online class. Dozens of people are paying to take the class, and as the weeks progress more and more instructional content is added to the class' Authenticated folder. At some point in the term, perhaps some people drop the class or get a refund. The instructor can revoke their access on an individual basis. This allows the right people to still have uninterrupted access to the content.

When Should I Use It?
Make a folder Authenticated when you want to allow restrict access to only those you specifically invite, without the risk of viewers sharing passwords or links. You can also revoke access to a specific viewer at any time.

For example:

• Instructors & students
• Newsletter subscribers
• Any time you have a specific list of people and you want control on a per-individual basis