JoshSweeney

Tips To Start Screencasting: Software and Equipment

Over the past few weeks I have determined that most people really don’t understand the amount of effort that goes into creating a quality screencast. I believe this statement to be accurate for multiple reasons.

1. I have had people ask me to create screencasts in “my spare time” as if it is something that can be quickly executed. This also assumes that I actually have spare time.

2. In discussing the creation of screencasts with the people requesting them of me, I have been told things like “We tried it and it is easy, just hit record and tell the user how to do something.” If it was that easy then they would have recorded their own already and not be asking me to do it.

3. When I decided to start recording screencasts I really didn’t understand all the aspects that made up and went into recording.

Recording a quality screencast takes time, practice, the right equipment and a quiet space with no echo. This isn’t to say that it can’t be done on a budget or in a less than optimal space, because it can, but it does need to me more planned than one might anticipate.

When it comes to software and equipment you want to be cost conscious but not cheap. The things that you can’t do without is recording software, a microphone and, of course, a computer.

Software:
There are plenty of options for recording software and the one thing that I have found to be true is that free will cost you more. Although I had heard of Camtasia and even played with the trial the first thing that I did was download multiple free screencasting software packages to determine if I could get by with them. This was the right thing to do in order to be cost conscious but after much usage and analysis I knew that I was going to have to pay for software.

If anyone came to me now and asked about recording software I would tell them to save days or weeks off of their lives and just go buy some good software to record with. In the end I purchased Camtasia and haven’t looked back.

Equipment:

• Computer – Without getting deep into system specs, it is safe to say that you need a fast computer. Recording and editing video is a resource hog which can quickly decimate netbooks, cheap processors and old hardware. I would recommend no less than 3 GB RAM and a peppy processor. Stay away from Celeron type low budget processing.

• Microphone – Starting out I used a $10 mic which did the job as long as I was in a very quiet room. After letting Loren Norman, an avid screencaster, check our my first works I decided to upgrade. The one thing that he pointed out was the background noises and feedback that happened with a cheap mic. Norman enlightened me to the finer points of having a good microphone and upon his recommendation I went with the Blue Snowball.

Doing the research ahead of time and getting the right software and equipment will make life much less complicated when you start to record your first screencast. Keep a look out for my next post which will outline the time cost to record a screencast.

Tags: camtasia, screencasting, video