Screencasting & Education

[RacingHistorian]

As the topic lately has been what the club is going to be offering in the future, one of the items I've always enjoyed was something called "Screencasts" which are basically screen capturing movies with voiceovers, etc.   I have a software package that will do this, and it's something I've been wanting to play around with for some time.  So since it was a "yucky" day outside today, I did just that.   

I've put together a very basic, first attempt video as an Introduction to Adobe Photoshop Lightroom.   I wasn't as concerned with the content as I was with just seeing how the video turns out.   I still need to experiment with the encoding method to use.   I tried just creating a mpg, but it was almost 300mb in size (This current one is only 46MB) and would make it really taxing on our server and storage space.  So I'm now experimenting in Quicktime time formats with h.264 encoding.   It doesn't help that I shot the video in my full desktop mode at 1680x1050 resolution.  So next time I'll size the window a little smaller as everything is fully configurable in the software. 

I've uploaded the file and you can view it and/or download it from here:

Scott's Basic Introduction to Adobe Photoshop Lightroom Experiment #1

For anyone who takes the time to view it, please leave any feedback.   I'd like to know what you feel about the video quality (areas that can be improved, etc) and the audio quality (I only caught myself breathing heavily into the mic 2 or 3 times.     ).   Please ignore the end where I accidentally overlapped the sound file in a loop.   I just didn't feel like editing it and re-encoding the video which takes about 25 minutes for this particular video.   

It's a tough balance trying to get video quality vs. size of video.   I'll keep experimenting to see where it goes.

Does anyone think this is a useful or viable option at presenting educational material in terms of software packages?  Is it preferable to live presentations for software at meetings?  Do you enjoy the life meetings so you can ask questions as we are doing it?  Would you like to see the video and then be able to ask questions at the next meeting?  Etc.

Again.. it's an experiment so please let me know what you think!

[tjdelikat]

Scott,  Great work! This would be an awesome addition to our website!   

[RacingHistorian]

Thank You.

Did anyone else take a moment to view the cast?   Opinions?  Suggestions?  Ideas?

I think my 1680x1050 desktop resolution really is the difficulty I have to play with right now.  Unfortunately, that's my native resolution.  Obviously, the larger the resolution and size of the video - the larger the file size itself will be.   I can shrink the window and size of the recording, but that will just make the size smaller and harder to see. 

This particular video is just under 10 minutes, and it's just under 50mb in size.   I found the Quicktime encoding to offer the best quality to size ratio.  I'd like to add fast-start to the video so that the quicktime players and plugins will begin playing while streaming so you don't have to download the whole thing first, but it increases the size of the file signficantly.  On other topics, or if I break them up, I could bring the time down to 5 minutes each and that would allow me to use a lower compression to increase the quality.  The sound came out really good I thought, my occasional mic breathing not withstanding. 

Or, with the cost of CDs these days being so inexpensive (about $.20 each) - we could optionally burn a presentation to CD and hand out at the meetings if it were a larger presentation and do it in full resolution.

Again - just a thought for future consideration when it comes to software applications.   If some people don't like live presentations of software and want to watch on their free time or something that might not make a very interesting live presentation - this might be an option.   

Heck.. it might even work on VISTA!   

[jefg99]

Scott, you are really living in real time. Many of us (OK, me!) still live in the past when it comes to application and presentation software. You did a beautiful job of bringing this to life and making it interesting and easy to comprehend. Next you'll be like that guy on TV, giving these out free and counting us to order your next 23 presentations on various software at the low price of $9.99 per DVD (plus $7.00 S&H, of course). If I happen to miss this meeting, I can sit back with a glass of wine and soak in the information.

Thanks for doing this!

[tjdelikat]

Scott,

I did view the video and thought it was very well done and ran smoothly.
I'm on a Mac with a cable modem.

If you find a video is too large, you could break it apart as part 1, 2, etc as needed.

This is good not only for those who don't like live presentations but also for those
who want a refresher course too!

[leelf62]

Scott,
I couldn't open your presentation and I DON"T have Vista.  A "quick-time" logo appeared and nothing else.  Do I need a plug-in?  Which one, etc.
Thanks,
Lee

[RacingHistorian]

Scott,
I couldn't open your presentation and I DON"T have Vista.  A "quick-time" logo appeared and nothing else.  Do I need a plug-in?  Which one, etc.
Thanks,
Lee

Lee.. if you got the quicktime logo you should have the proper plug-in.  Did you wait long enough?   I don't know your speed connection but the file is just under 50MB so it may take a minute or two to load. 

[jefg99]

That would be my recommendation when downloading this...P A T I E N C E ! My computer is relatively fast, but I was going to give up on it loading up and then...there it was.