What to use to create video tutorials

[sue]

Can you share your experiences with tools to create tutorials on video to use with AMS? I would like to be able to 'capture' the steps to do on an online service and a software application and put them into a tutorial CD - but I'm confused about what I should use for the best results - What solutions other than zooming the video camera on the computer screen have you guys used to get a good quality software tutorial? I haven't done this before so I'd appreciate if you could share any ideas you have tried - whether successful or a failed attempt -

Thanks for your feedback!

Sue

[kpsmith]

In my opinion... Camtasia by www.techsmith.com is the best. It gives you very high quality screen captured video, it's easy to use and has a ton of options, and the resulting video size is quite small

[Worm]

I've really never done this for anyone but friends, but I've used Camtasia from TechSmith. It's a very nice app that lets you capture your whole screen, or only a window to record.

Can you share your experiences with tools to create tutorials on video to use with AMS? I would like to be able to 'capture' the steps to do on an online service and a software application and put them into a tutorial CD - but I'm confused about what I should use for the best results - What solutions other than zooming the video camera on the computer screen have you guys used to get a good quality software tutorial? I haven't done this before so I'd appreciate if you could share any ideas you have tried - whether successful or a failed attempt -

Thanks for your feedback!

Sue

[yosik]

Sue,
If you are looking for a feree tool, try Camstudio. If you can afford it, Camtasia is VERY good
Good Luck.
Yossi.

[sue]

Thanks! I'll look at the suggestions ....... I greatly appreciate your ideas.

Sue

[Intrigued]

I would suggest also reading up on the different video codecs out there.

As well as, weighing the pros and cons of the audio that you plan on using (if you do) in your project(s).

Though it was pricey (they doubled their price for such and turned it into a 'suite'), my recent purchase of Techsmith's Camtasia Studio was still worth it for my needs,wants. If you are doing just one project it may be a bit steep in price.

I look forward to hearing what options you decided to use for your project(s), when they are completed.

Sincerely,

[Corey]

Hi Sue. Just so you know, our video training stuff http://www.speedytraining.com was done with a combination of Camtasia and Camstudio. Either will work, the main difference is cost. The codec issue is something you should look at afterwards, i.e. don't record with a codec. If you record uncompressed video that's best, you can back that up to a CD and then you have the option to recompress at anytime, i.e. if you decide to convert to Quicktime after 6 months, or whatever. In general never record audio or video with any codec, record uncompressed and choose a codec in the post-production stage, i.e. after you have finished all your raw recording and are now setting things up for distribution... Hope that helps. Good luck!

P.S. The new video CD will be out in a week or so-ish everyone. I'm finishing it this weekend.

Corey Milner
Creative Director, Indigo Rose Software

[eric_darling]

Recording uncompressed video is demanding on the hard drive - in terms of both space requirements and speed to keep up with even a marginal frame rate. You have to have a pretty top-notch machine with lots of spare and fast hard drive space to make a go at uncompressed video, particularly if it's being recorded from screen actions on the fly - the same processor has to both perform the actions and record them to video simultaneously.

Fortunately, Techsmith's codec that ships with Camtasia is phenomenal for screen capturing purposes. To me, it looks nearly as good as uncompressed would if my machine could even hope to keep up (picture me drooling over Corey's setup).

Incidentally, almost every non-linear editing system in use by high end post-production facilities today (including Final Cut Pro, AVID, Media 100 and Canopus) digitize directly to a codec - almost always a QuickTime codec. Usually, the codecs are proprietary and especially good, but they are codecs nonetheless.

[sue]

Wow! Thanks everyone .... I'm going to experiment with your suggestions .... I really appreciate the advice!

Sue

[Corey]

I'm only on a 2.66GHz P4 with a Gig of DDR2700, nothing special. BUt I still agree with Eric, the Techsmith video codec is a superb choice and as I read his post it just reminded me that I did actually use it on some of the Speedy stuff and I definitely didn't notice any difference. I forgot all about that. Actually now that I come to think of it I may have used the Techsmith codec on the entire CD2. Man, my memory must be going, I need some new RAM.

OK so the revised reccomendation in light of Eric's post is that recording your raw screencapture-based (not full motion video) video material with Camtasia's codec is fine.

Ginko for two please.

Corey Milner
Creative Director, Indigo Rose Software

[Corey]

Update:

Yep, just went and checked. Indeed I did record the entire second CD using the TSCC (Techsmith codec) so that's the best way to go. I rarely forget things as entirely as that, my bad.

If this was a science fiction movie and I had to pick 5 guys to be on my team to battle the evil empire, I would pick Eric.

Corey Milner
Creative Director, Indigo Rose Software

[Stefan_M]

Hi Sue,

we are als evaluating software for tutorials.

Viewletcam

Viewletbuilder

MasterDemo

Instant Demo

ScreenFlash

Robodemo

Demoshield

TurboDemo

camtasia

flashcast



Stefan

[eric_darling]

If this was a science fiction movie and I had to pick 5 guys to be on my team to battle the evil empire, I would pick Eric.

The evil empire...

I figured you just forgot about that. Don't worry, Corey. Even a diet high in fish and fiber and Ginko won't save you from time, my man. As soon as I crossed 30 I started losing it myself. So I just gave up trying, and now I find each new day fresh and exciting.

[Corey]

I skip the middle man and feed the ginko to the fish. Saves me time on the back end. Fiber I get by consuming one issue of People magazine each day, just before my morning jog... Depending who's on the cover, that can really get things moving if you know what I mean.

Corey Milner
Creative Director, Indigo Rose Software

[eric_darling]

Depending who's on the cover, that can really get things moving if you know what I mean

I do indeed, unfortunately.