

Ask HN: How do you create high quality how-to videos? - joshdotsmith

I&#x27;m working on a product that&#x27;s going to require in-house video content creation. This is way outside my wheelhouse since I&#x27;ve only really worked on user-generated content before. I know little to nothing about video production.<p>What&#x27;s the fastest and cheapest way to go about creating high quality how-to videos? What kind of people do you need to find, etc?
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dholowiski
> fastest and cheapest high quality

As the old saying goes, pick any two (or sometimes just one)

I used to produce high quality video tutorials. I used "Screenflow" from
Telestream. I had a professional quality Shure microphone and an audio mixer,
as well as a USB sound card. Probably the most important component is your
audio, much more so than video quality, so spend some money on good quality
audio equipment.

I pre-planned my tutorials, recorded the tutorials and then edited them. For
editing, I did most of it in Final Cut Pro, although I was eventually able to
do it all in Screenflow. I spent a huge time editing - synching audio and
video, recording parts where I messed up.

All told, for a 20 minute tutorial I would probably spend an hour planning, 40
minutes recording, 3 hours editing, and 2 or 3 hours encoding the video. The
encoding part would probably go much faster on today's hardware, but the 2 or
3 hours editing was the result of many hours of learning - it was probably 8
or 9 hours to edit the first ones.

If you're recording screencasts, I wholeheartedly recommend screenflow.
Without a doubt it's the best screencast software there is (not an ad, just a
happy customer).

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lutusp
> What's the fastest and cheapest way to go about creating high quality how-to
> videos?

Very simple:

* Watch a lot of highly-rated how-to videos.

* Take copious notes about structure and content.

* Imitate them.

Remember that video production is an art, not a science. There are some
common-sense guidelines, but a good video is usually good for intangible
reasons, reasons that cannot be scheduled or controlled, reasons that require
experience and expertise.

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WestCoastJustin
This is exactly it. I run
[http://sysadmincasts.com/](http://sysadmincasts.com/) and this is the system
that I have used. Also, expect that high quality audio/video takes time, each
minute of video takes me about 1-2 hours (research, planning
storyboard/transcript, recording, editing, transcoding, review, etc) to
produce.

~~~
rk0567
I like it. I think, you using ubuntu. Would you care to share what
screencasting softwares/tools you use in Ubuntu ?

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janeglendale
Definitely check out [http://voicebunny.com](http://voicebunny.com) \-- it's
amazing how much higher quality anything sounds with a professional voiceover.
If you don't care about the specific voice (and just that it's professional-
sounding), it's not too expensive and the turnaround is quick. They also have
something called bunnycast.com, that turns your blog posts into audio for
$19/each.

That being said, it's not exactly cost efficient for long how-to videos.

~~~
dholowiski
As you said - not really cost effective. But I had an audiobook recorded by
someone I found on a similar service for a lot more than $19 and it was worth
every penny. If I was a startup producing howto or advertising videos I would
absolutely do this.

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rizwanj
I was facing the same situation when I needed to create an demo video for an
app I designed. I had never done any type of video production before. Luckily
I found this course on Udemy that lays out all the steps needed to create a
demo video [http://bit.ly/1bUkHSV](http://bit.ly/1bUkHSV)

I was then able to go step by step from brainstorming ideas, creating a
script, finding artwork, finding music and effects and then optimizing for the
web.

Hope this helps.

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revorad
Check out [http://hadoopscreencasts.com/](http://hadoopscreencasts.com/) and
contact Rohit Menon (the creator of the site). He told me he did a lot of
research before starting his site, and also got some very good tips from Ryan
Bates of Railscasts.

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wikwocket
Wistia has a lot of great how-to videos for people new to video content:
[http://wistia.com/learning](http://wistia.com/learning)

I believe they also have a newsletter where they share good tips.

