6 ms·

Show HN: I made a website recorder webapp you can use to create screencasts

42 points by bengoa 12y ago

Just something I put together quickly: https://webcast.browserprotect.me/ I made this in one day, now I'm wondering if It's interesting enough to make it a real product (Add new features like setting the size, zoom, annotations, fix bugs, export, voice-over, etc..) Here is an example screencast I just did: https://webcast.browserprotect.me/view/2764aa94dcd855959819fd91881f0882baa61a0e-44646 Do you consider this a viable product? I'm thinking about offering it for free and then add some premium features.

brianjking 12y ago
Received an error when trying to POST -- is this not supported yet?
- bengoa 12y ago
  It should be supported, but it's not thoughtfully tested yet, at this point it's just an experiment :)
shovel 12y ago
Definitely a sweet idea and I can see some great use cases for onboarding new users to a site by demoing functionality. Really like how it just gets to work and outputs the vid without making me make any decisions. I'd love to see a gif output (maybe that could be one of your premium features :) EDIT: Just cross-posted to PH. http://www.producthunt.com/posts/websitecast http://www.producthunt.com/posts/websitecast
X-combinator 12y ago
Clickable links: [1] https://webcast.browserprotect.me/ https://webcast.browserprotect.me/ [2] https://webcast.browserprotect.me/view/2764aa94dcd855959819fd91881f0882baa61a0e-44646 https://webcast.browserprotect.me/view/2764aa94dcd855959819f...
BorisMelnik 12y ago
if you do, just make sure to grandfather all of us in with beta accounts :)
MarcScott 12y ago
I think this is a great idea. Could definitely see it being used in educational institutions where Chromebooks are popular.
atom-morgan 12y ago
I've been wanting something like this to exist - specifically for weird browser compatibility issues or for submitting bugs. There's been a few times where I've encountered a bug, sent a message about it to someone on Twitter, and wished I could send a quick Snapchat/Vine of the issue to them. This would be much better than numerous screenshots. It shows exactly how I produced the bug. This, hopefully, could allow me to do just that.
- bazillion 12y ago
  Try Jing: http://www.techsmith.com/download/jing/ http://www.techsmith.com/download/jing/ It has a screencast feature that lets you create a video (which you can crop to whatever part of the screen) and then uploads that video onto their server and gives you a shareable link of the video. At my last job, we used to use that for all of the bug reports, because it's a thousand times better than what you reference (taking multiple screenshots and having to explain exactly what's going on between them) Here's an example of me using the program to get to this comment: http://screencast.com/t/zbfcEinhJN http://screencast.com/t/zbfcEinhJN It can be a little slow and wonky at times, but a lot of good (free!) features out of the box.
grimmdude 12y ago
Cool idea!
aembleton 12y ago
I like it. Looking at my logs, you are using Firefox in Windows 7. Is it just capturing screenshots of the browser, or did you write a plugin?
- bengoa 12y ago
  It's Firefox inside a secure Linux container. We spoof the UA for privacy reasons, I made this browser mirroring technology for browserprotect.me, which didn't get any traction, so I'm trying to do something else with it!
animex 12y ago
This is a great idea! Do it!
ShoePooPoo 12y ago
It didn't work for me upon first few attempts: http://imgur.com/OgpCfk1 http://imgur.com/OgpCfk1
amitamb 12y ago
I built something similar. Though you need to sign up to use it http://www.castbin.com/ http://www.castbin.com/ Great for an effort for a day though. Apparently I don't see mouse movements in playback.
- rjuyal 12y ago
  Great website Amit. Sign-up is the only thing stopping all to use your website.
110king 12y ago
went 10 layers deep, but it only shows the first 3.
waleedka 12y ago
Nice idea! But it didn't work for me when I tried to login to my site. It opens a Facebook auth popup for the login.
franzpeterstein 12y ago
Nifty idea, but my page [http://roberttomsons.bplaced.net/ http://roberttomsons.bplaced.net/] get a "Cannot GET /error/notsupported" error.
mrborgen 12y ago
Cool idea, I say go for it!
scribu 12y ago
It seems like a neat idea, but I just get a blank rectangle where the site to record is supposed to show up. Nothing in the console; using latest Chrome on latest OS X.
HLFH 12y ago
LOL. QuickCast is the right way. http://quickcast.io http://quickcast.io
- slimetree 12y ago
  Oh? Could you please elaborate more on this insight?
kidlogic 12y ago
I was looking for something like this today. This would be great for on-boarding tutorials, troubleshooting, etc.. If you could add text bubbles (similar to Youtube) that would be superb :)
evansd 12y ago
A friend of mine is building something very similar, pitched at creating interactive guides for customer support. Might be worth looking at. There's a demo guide here: http://wikipedia.nickelled.com/how-to-create-an-article?&ngroup=marketing http://wikipedia.nickelled.com/how-to-create-an-article?&ngr... And a marketing site: https://www.nickelled.com/ https://www.nickelled.com/

42 points by bengoa 12y ago

brianjking 12y ago

Received an error when trying to POST -- is this not supported yet?

bengoa 12y ago
It should be supported, but it's not thoughtfully tested yet, at this point it's just an experiment :)

shovel 12y ago

Definitely a sweet idea and I can see some great use cases for onboarding new users to a site by demoing functionality. Really like how it just gets to work and outputs the vid without making me make any decisions. I'd love to see a gif output (maybe that could be one of your premium features :) EDIT: Just cross-posted to PH. http://www.producthunt.com/posts/websitecast http://www.producthunt.com/posts/websitecast

X-combinator 12y ago

Clickable links: [1] https://webcast.browserprotect.me/ https://webcast.browserprotect.me/ [2] https://webcast.browserprotect.me/view/2764aa94dcd855959819fd91881f0882baa61a0e-44646 https://webcast.browserprotect.me/view/2764aa94dcd855959819f...

BorisMelnik 12y ago

if you do, just make sure to grandfather all of us in with beta accounts :)

MarcScott 12y ago

I think this is a great idea. Could definitely see it being used in educational institutions where Chromebooks are popular.

atom-morgan 12y ago

I've been wanting something like this to exist - specifically for weird browser compatibility issues or for submitting bugs. There's been a few times where I've encountered a bug, sent a message about it to someone on Twitter, and wished I could send a quick Snapchat/Vine of the issue to them. This would be much better than numerous screenshots. It shows exactly how I produced the bug. This, hopefully, could allow me to do just that.

bazillion 12y ago
Try Jing: http://www.techsmith.com/download/jing/ http://www.techsmith.com/download/jing/ It has a screencast feature that lets you create a video (which you can crop to whatever part of the screen) and then uploads that video onto their server and gives you a shareable link of the video. At my last job, we used to use that for all of the bug reports, because it's a thousand times better than what you reference (taking multiple screenshots and having to explain exactly what's going on between them) Here's an example of me using the program to get to this comment: http://screencast.com/t/zbfcEinhJN http://screencast.com/t/zbfcEinhJN It can be a little slow and wonky at times, but a lot of good (free!) features out of the box.

grimmdude 12y ago

Cool idea!

aembleton 12y ago

I like it. Looking at my logs, you are using Firefox in Windows 7. Is it just capturing screenshots of the browser, or did you write a plugin?

bengoa 12y ago
It's Firefox inside a secure Linux container. We spoof the UA for privacy reasons, I made this browser mirroring technology for browserprotect.me, which didn't get any traction, so I'm trying to do something else with it!

animex 12y ago

This is a great idea! Do it!

ShoePooPoo 12y ago

It didn't work for me upon first few attempts: http://imgur.com/OgpCfk1 http://imgur.com/OgpCfk1

amitamb 12y ago

I built something similar. Though you need to sign up to use it http://www.castbin.com/ http://www.castbin.com/ Great for an effort for a day though. Apparently I don't see mouse movements in playback.

rjuyal 12y ago
Great website Amit. Sign-up is the only thing stopping all to use your website.

110king 12y ago

went 10 layers deep, but it only shows the first 3.

waleedka 12y ago

Nice idea! But it didn't work for me when I tried to login to my site. It opens a Facebook auth popup for the login.

franzpeterstein 12y ago

Nifty idea, but my page [http://roberttomsons.bplaced.net/ http://roberttomsons.bplaced.net/] get a "Cannot GET /error/notsupported" error.

mrborgen 12y ago

Cool idea, I say go for it!

scribu 12y ago

It seems like a neat idea, but I just get a blank rectangle where the site to record is supposed to show up. Nothing in the console; using latest Chrome on latest OS X.

HLFH 12y ago

LOL. QuickCast is the right way. http://quickcast.io http://quickcast.io

slimetree 12y ago
Oh? Could you please elaborate more on this insight?

kidlogic 12y ago

I was looking for something like this today. This would be great for on-boarding tutorials, troubleshooting, etc.. If you could add text bubbles (similar to Youtube) that would be superb :)

evansd 12y ago

A friend of mine is building something very similar, pitched at creating interactive guides for customer support. Might be worth looking at. There's a demo guide here: http://wikipedia.nickelled.com/how-to-create-an-article?&ngroup=marketing http://wikipedia.nickelled.com/how-to-create-an-article?&ngr... And a marketing site: https://www.nickelled.com/ https://www.nickelled.com/