Creating Screencasts

screencaptureICONS

Screen captures are a great way to create video content without needing to get someone in front of the camera and setting up a studio. There are a couple different ways you can approach this.  First take a look at the required equipment and then view the post below on ways you can record your capture.

Required Equipment

You will need screen capturing software and a microphone to execute your capture.  Here are links to some equipment.  

PC & Mac - Camtasia

Mac=$100 PC=$300

Camtasia is a great screen capturing program and has a very easy to use editing tool.  We recommend using Camtasia.

View, Download Demo or Buy Camtasia

PC - CamStudio - Free

View and Download CamStudio

Mac - QuickTime Player

Quicktime Player 10 for Mac offers a free screen recording feature however it does not allow you to edit and it is very limited.  You will also need another program like iMovie for editing.  This should already be installed on your Mac.  If not, run a system update.

Recording VoiceOver

Screen shot 2010 12 16 at 6.26.05 PM

Here is a post you can view to learn how to record voiceovers.  You can use your computers microphone but it's recommended to use a microphone and the mic we recommend with the Zi8 will plug right into your computer.

Getting Started With Screencasting

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Remember, just recording what you're doing is only half the process.  You'll want to remove dead or waiting time from your recording.  It's wasted time that can cause a lot of drop off.  

It's also good to zoom into the areas you're featuring to help show them more clearly.  Be careful with zooming though, you don't want to make people motion sick. When working on one one page, it's good to zoom and move rather than jump cutting to other areas. This will help people keep the context of where they are on the page.

Very quick fades to black are good to use when changing perspective of the camera or on a new page.  

Camtasia is great for doing this and you can learn about downloading and using Camtasia here: