

Tips for Recording Engaging Screencasts - Matt_Mickiewicz
http://www.sitepoint.com/blogs/2010/02/04/tips-for-recording-screencasts

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acangiano
Good tips. Here are a few further comments.

> 1\. Start with an Outline

It's not a bad idea to have a rough draft of your script ready that outlines
what you're going to say for each slide or during the coding sessions.

> 2\. Focus on the Audience’s Needs

Be as practical as possible. Theory may be necessary of course, but a
screencast is an excellent medium to SHOW rather than simply tell someone how
to do things. That's the whole point behind screencasts.

> 3\. Get a Good Mic

The cheapest microphone that could possibly get the job done is the Logitech
Desktop USB Microphone (under $30). If your budget permits it, the next step
up would be the Samson C01U with a stand, shockmount and pop filter. We've
found it delivers the best bang for your buck.

> 4\. Lock Out the Noise Makers

You'll hate ambulances, trust me. Two quick tips regarding that: 1) Pick the
quietest room in the house; 2) If you hear a temporary sound, keep recording
while repeating what was interrupted by the loud sound. Cutting the undesired
part of the audio/video is far easier than stopping and restarting the whole
recording session.

> 5\. Consider Separating Audio and Video

Doing both simultaneously saves time, but it's really hard and the best
results are usually obtained when audio and video are not recorded together.
In my experience, most authors have found that recording the two things
separately takes longer, but it's far easier. In the beginning, you can expect
an hour of work for every one minute of production quality screencast. With
experience and a well tested workflow, this number can be drastically improved
upon.

> 6\. Clean Up Your Desktop

Use a white background or a solid color, and be consistent about it. Some
programs, like ScreenFlow for Mac, have a "hide desktop" option that
automatically hides all the icons on your desktop.

> 8\. Plan a Dress Rehearsal

If you record fragments of video without too much care for the audio the first
time around, you'll get the timing right and it will act as a rehearsal. Once
this is done, you can discard the audio track, and go for the polished
recording of the audio as the video rolls.

<shameless-plug>My startup, <http://ThinkCode.TV> is doing pretty well in the
Italian market, and we plan to go live with an English catalog by the end of
March. If you are interested in recording engaging screencasts about
programming, feel free to drop me a line at antonio@thinkcode.tv.</shameless-
plug>

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justinph
Good tips indeed. I do lots of screencasts to give my clients documentation on
how to use the sites I build them. I've learned a few things:

As the tips say, audio is really important, and setting the levels correctly
is also important. You want the loudest you're going to be to not quite top
out the level meter. In OS X, the system prefs show you the levels, as do most
sceencasting apps. Even with levels set properly, I usually run my audio
through Levelator, <http://www.conversationsnetwork.org/levelator>, which does
a really good job of automatically adjusting levels and smoothing out clips
and chirps.

If you're on OSX, using Universal Access and making the mouse cursor larger is
a great and easy way to call out where you are on screen. I tried working with
OmniDazzle to get mouse halos and such, but it's just not worth it.

I'm usually pretty lazy and don't want to go into after effects or a bigger
program to edit my videos afterwards if I need to show text, so I usually just
prepare a text edit window or two ahead of time with any text I'll need. Drag
them on screen, talk about whatever, and edit out the second it took you to
drag it on later on.

Editing, I usually just use Quicktime Pro. My stuff doesn't need to be overly
polished, so this works great.

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gnosis
Anyone got tips for eliminating the lip-smacking noise that sometimes shows up
on recordings of speech?

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andymism
What you're asking about is a pop filter. They're used in music recording to
reduce a singer's mouth sounds (or plosives). It's basically a nylon screen
placed between the singer or speaker and the microphone. You've probably seen
these music videos before.

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gprisament
What software do people actually use to capture the screencast? Is there
anything good for linux?

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acangiano
On Mac OS X, one of the easiest programs to record screencasts and to do some
editing, is ScreenFlow. On Windows, Camtasia Studio is definitely the best
option, granted it's fairly expensive. On Linux, recordMyDesktop is one of the
nicest programs, and of course it's open source and free of charge.

~~~
nitrogen
There's also the free CamStudio for Windows. The UI is clunky, but it works
pretty well.

