I’ve been asked tutor some colleagues of mine on a particular software package that we use at work. To make a long story short, I’ve decided I want to look into creating a video/offline webcast/youtube video/anything else of tha t ilk that I can record once and provide a way for my colleagues to view it.
Here are the particulars.
Free is nice, but I may have access to a colleagues WebEx account, or not as I don’t know what would be involved in using someone else’s account for a one time recording.
Windows 7 based. No Macs around here.
It would mostly be screen recording with narration; no reason to record any web cam video if that helps any.
Here’s what I envision. I record me using the software. I possibly go back in and narrate (or re narrate as necessary); and maybe even simple editing. i.e. I watch it, and want to record something else that I missed; and splice it into the original.
Is this even something I could do to make a semi-professional looking video?
For this first time around I’m not even interested in adding title pages or even transitions; just a simple “here’s a look at this tool.”
Sounds pretty straightforward - editing the video is probably going to be the most challenging piece, if you’ve never done it before, but it’s not that hard.
CamStudio will do the screen recording - http://camstudio.org/ - if you plug in a microphone, it will capture your narration at the same time
You’ll need a video editing solution - maybe something as simple as KDEnlive will do - Kdenlive - Wikipedia
arranging and clipping your videos is fairly simple drag and drop stuff
If you want to record and overdub the narration, Audacity is a very nice audio recorder/editor, which can output a soundtrack that you can just drop into your video editor - Audacity download | SourceForge.net
Then when it looks OK, render it and upload to YouTube (either as a public video for anyone to watch, or as a video that is only accessible via the link you send to people)
I meant to say… if you rehearse the thing so that your entire presentation is flawless and narrated in realtime, all you need is CamStudio and a YouTube account.
With that in mind, you might want to break up your tutorial into smaller modules, as these are simpler to get right in a single take.
I used to do this exact thing for an old company I worked for. They were a small business inventory management and shipping company and they wanted me to record training videos. I used CamStudio and uploaded them directly into Youtube.
I would practice a couple times before actually doing the video, but given that I was just showing a step by step “here’s what you do” kind of thng, I just turned the capture software on and went with it.
How are your improv/conversational skills? The key to doing these is to narrate what you’re doing as you’re doing it, but also recognize the fact that things take a millisecond or two to load. Break the videos down to 10-12 minute sessions and you’re golden.
Uh… yeah, I have no false illusions that I’m going to be flawless the first time out and assumed I’d need to time slice chunks of video. Thanks for the suggestions.
I’d say my improv/conversational skills are pretty good. In my mind there’s the narration of what I’m actually doing, and fill-in comments to explain the necessary W’s. i.e. What I’m going to do, Why, When, Where, etc.
I haven’t used WebEx, but I have used GoToMeeting, and I assume their service / capabilities are similar.
GoToMeeting allows you to record a meeting session, including whatever visuals you’re using. In the past, I’ve used it to record training sessions using various visuals (PowerPoint files, websites, screen grabs, etc.). No video editing software is needed; once the session is over, you can download the recording as a video file (.wmv or something similar) and then host it on YouTube, Vimeo, or any other video-hosting tool.
It may require several “takes” for you to feel comfortable with the end product, but this is a cheap and easy way to create an informational or training video.
So I just wanted to give you guys an update since I received such great suggestions; which I ultimately have followed only a few of yet.
Since I have an MSDN Membership it was “suggested” I make use of it. As it turns out Microsoft Expression was available for download and between Microsoft Expression Encoder and Microsoft Expression Screen Capture; I have tools that are good enough; and don’t cost anything.
The method that worked for me was to create a long rambling intro tutorial where I would just begin the sentence again if I messed up. Then I opened the file up in Encoder and began deleting chunks of unnecessary video. For a first time out, I’m happy enough with the results.
I’m curious to know if any of you has ever used the Expression tools? I may have some software specific questions coming up.
For now I’ll keep the generic questions that a first time DIYer would ask…
First video ended up being about 16 minutes. Longer than my 10 minute goal. The rendered file came out to just over 60 MB. I assume I can make that smaller by adjusting things like frame rate, or other A/V encoding features. Do you guys have any tips or guidelines on that?
