JoshSweeney

Tips to Start Screencating: The Time Commitment

In the last Tips to Start Screencasting post we went over the software and hardware that is required to record a screencast. This time we are going to outline the time commitment.

Preparation:

1. Write a script – Once you have decided on the topic that you will be covering I suggest that you write a script which outlines what you are going to say. You will also want to read through that script to determine about how long it will take. The reason that I find this important is because each time you mess up during the recording it will add to the editing time.  It also gives you an idea on the length of the video which is important depending on where the video is posted, the topic and the audience.

2. Prep the demo – Preparing the environment and doing a soft run through before recording will ensure that everything is in place before you hit the record button. If something is out of place during the recording it will either slow you down or cost you time in editing.

Recording:

Reading a script, clicking and making it all seem like a natural demo without messing up is a difficult task. I have heard of two ways that people go about recording.

1. Record all together – Recording the sound and screen while speaking and clicking is a lot of work and must feel natural to be professional quality. This is very difficult to do but can be done with practice.

2. Record separately – I have spoken to individual that record sound and the screen separately which I have also tried. The problem that I run into with this is keeping everything in sync.

At this time I have not settled on the best approach but continue to research.

Editting: Celia Dyer once told me that your can expect 1 minute of editing for every minute of recording. At first this sounded a little high but after recording and editing a few of my own videos I find this to be an accurate expectation. I have also found that proper preparation up front can save you large amounts of editing time.

One example is with setting the intended length of the video. If you record a video that is 20 minutes long and you need it to be ten then you can expect a significantly higher amount of editing time and the 1 for 1 rule gets blown out of the water.

Publishing:

1. Format – The format of the video will be dictated by where the video is being published. Before you start recording you will want to determine the screen resolution and other playback criteria and change your settings accordingly.

2. Publishing the final -The one item that I always see left out when people talk about the time to produce a screencast is the time it takes to process and publish. Once the video has completed editing it has to processed and converted into the appropriate format. the time for this varies depending on the video length, quality and speed of the system.

After the video is process and formatted it has to be published. You could always just log in to YouTube or TubeMogul and publish in minutes but that doesn’t take into account SEO or searchablility. Taking the time to pick a keyword rich title, description and tags could enhance the traffic for your video.

As always, we hope this is helpful information and would enjoy seeing your screencasts. If you decide to create them after reading this short series then please let us know and provide a link.

Tags: camtasia, screencasting, video

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