Why Make a Screencast

Screencast is a digital recording of computer screens, full screens or screen regions and usually comes with an audio narration to describe the on-screen actions. The term screencast dates back to 2004 with an interesting story.

In 2004, a columnist Jon Udell invited readers of his blog to propose names for the emerging genre. In all the suggested terms, Udell selected screencast, which was proposed by both Joseph McDonald and Deeje Cooley. His "Heavy metal umlaut" screencast is a well-known example - which explains how Wikipedia works. http://weblog.infoworld.com/udell/gems/umlaut.html
Since then, the term screen has be known by more people and the use of screencasts has itself become more popular. Currently the new trend of screencast is documentary filmmaking of software-based social networking services like Wikipedia, del.icio.us. or digg.

Screencast Types

Product Tutorials:
The screencast tells users how to use a software application or service by showing screen introductions. Usually, there is a recorded voice over to walk through the steps. See examples below.
Eventools online Demo http://www.eventtools.nl/demo/Eventtools-Toevoegen-wijzigen%20personen.html

Short How-to:
This kind of screencast is often short and demonstrates a simple guide or gives tips and tricks to solve a small problem or dig into a product feature.
See example below.
Xtrmlive Web Service Demo http://xtrmlive.com/demo/sponsorship2/

Conversational Demos:
Conversational demos have more focus on the conversion rather than the screens. Usually, there are two voices for the screen. Often one is asking question about the screen and another gives the answer.

Software review:
If you are asked to write a software review , you can always make a screencast to highlight some features.
Boq System Online Demo http://www.boq.se/help/qounter/qounter.html

User produced demo:
Some software applications are difficult to use and you sometimes have some unexpected troubles. Making a screencast to explain, will help you a lot when you are talking to the technical support. You can even make yourself a troubleshooting demo to share with your friends and families.
DMM Online Support Demo http://www.dmm-support.dk/uploads/video/4pictures/add_pictures/add_picture_to_SDB.html
Of course,there are more types has not yet included in this article.

Screencasting Tools

For Window Users
Windows Media Encoder - Free but with high system requirements http://www.videohelp.com/tools/Windows_Media_Encoder
Wondershare DemoCreator - Flash-based Screen Recorder http://www.sameshow.com/demo-creator.html#107
CamStudio - Free. It has the ability to capture in .avi or Flash (swf) http://camstudio.org/


For Mac Users
Snapz Pro X http://www.ambrosiasw.com/utilities/snapzprox/
iShowU http://www.shinywhitebox.com/

Guide Lines of making a screencast

Know what you want to present
First and foremost, You’ll need to have an idea about what you’ll present, and you’ll need to figure out which platform to use. Knowing your purposes of making a screecast is the first step.

Make it real
Always make a screencast real and substantial. For example, if it is for software demonstration or a network monitor, then work with the software or live network.
Of course , for reasons of logistics or security, this isn’t always possible. But the more real you can make it, the better.

Interactivity is important
Interactivity engages viewers through the demo. If your screecast is just screen by screen, your viewers will leave soon. You can and should record narration or insert background music to the screencast. Usually, some screencasting tools like DemoCreator enable you to add some visual aids to the captured screens like callouts, shapes, annotation buttons and animated images. Note that when a screencast is interactive it will engage the viewers in a conversation that steers it into unexpected areas.

originated from: http://www.wikihow.com/Make-a-Screencast

http://screencast-demo.blogspot.com/2009/09/maximize-your-benefit-of-your-software.html

Create a DVD Photo album for party using PowerPoint

Dozens of memorable photographs come from Birthday Party, Christmas Party, Wedding Party and etc. We touched by the memories. But troubled by how to create a photo album arranging the photos in an apple-pie order, or how to share the photo album in a convenient way?

From now on, under the powerful function of widespread PowerPoint, we easily archive hundreds of our favorite high-resolution photos to create a photo album. After convert PPT to DVD, we throw ourselves in a sofa. Let memorable yesterdays flow out from the big screen TV with a remote in our hand. The bride can send DVD photo album to each of the party goers with a thank you note. The mother can memorialize your baby's first birthday permanently. Between the food, the guests, and the entertainment, a DVD photo album makes it never to end!

All these can be done in a few minutes. Just use the photo album feature of Microsoft Office PowerPoint 2007. Just four mouse clicks to burn the PPT to DVD. Let's start to create a memorable DVD Photo album.
1. On the Insert menu, click Photo Album. And in the drop-down list, click New Photo Album option.

2. Click on the 'File/Disk…' option and choose the photos. Importing multiple pictures at a time is available. You can preview each photo by clicking it in the Picture in album list. Below the preview window, there is a photo editing area. You can use these buttons to adjust the rotation, contrast and brightness of each picture.


3. In the drop-down list of Picture layout, you can choose the layout format you like. And in the drop-down list of Frame Shape, you can choose the frame you want to add to your photos. Click the Browse button. Locate the template in the Choose Theme box that allows you to navigate to the folder where we have stored the downloaded templates. Or you can use the operating system's own theme templates.




4. Clicked Create button. If necessary, click the title placeholder, and then type the title for your photos.


5. If you want to give your album captions, click the Photo Album arrow on the Insert tab. And then click Edit Photo Album. Select Captions below All pictures box, then click Update.

That's how your own PowerPoint photo album got out. Isn't this easy?

Want to store the photo album permanently? Want to share the photo album efficiently? Want to create DVD menus to play on TV with a DVD remote control?

Now, let’s convert our valuable photo album to DVD.
Click here to start the process of burning PPT to DVD.

Imagine that you and your family watch the photo album on TV after years, you all bring back the good old days. Imagine that your friends view the photo album DVD disc when you are separated by distance. So, when are you going to create your next DVD photo album? Very soon, I presume, like this happy person--“I love PPT2DVD, I created a Family Reunion album viewed on our TV's for a BBQ we had with several generations of the family. It's fantastic! Work on a bigger one for Christmas this year!”

Experience of Zoom and Pan in Screen Recorder DemoCreator

Wondershare released Democreator v2.5.5 in Mar. 2009, a screen recorder on Window Platform that creates interactive presentations, tutorials and demos. This version shows the zoom and pan feature that provides specific details of a certain area on the screen, and more editing features are available. Zoom-n-pan is especially useful when the movie is replaying on a small screen. And it can also help to focus the audience’s attention on important screen operations.

Besides the zoom-n-pan feature, the developers redesign the beginning and ending of the movie. That makes the published demo more professional. The master image object introduces the new feature that you can adjust the transparence and add the redirect link in you Flash movie. You may find its good when you want to add the logo to the demo to mark it of your own, and the clickable logo can drive more traffic to your website.


The advanced editing features enable users to edit the recording readily. Because the recorded movies are shown as slides, you can drag the visual components to modify the pace and control the timing of objects. There is a library of available objects to decorate the recording, such as Flash animation, mouse movements, text box, edit entry, zoom-n-pan for specifying details of selected area, highlight boxes for spotlighting areas in a slide, and clickable buttons for directing users to another slide or a URL page. You can decorate the movie by adding the objects to make the illustration explicit. Besides, you can record the narration or import the music file to enhance the movie.

Back to the Zoom-n-Pan feature. Click the Zoom-n-Pan object in the Objects Library, then click and drag a rectangle area in the edit scene to adjust the area your want to enlarge for emphasis. When editing, the zoom area is displayed and can be easily repositioned or resized with the mouse or the property dialog box.

When you put the Zoom object in the movie, you can see its length in the time line. The total Zoom length includes the Zoom in duration, Zoom out duration, and the time when the zoom area playing as the enlarged status. Easily modify the Zoom in duration and Zoom out duration in the zoom property dialog box. Most slides are short for seconds, if you want to zoom in to show part of the screen for quite a while, you can set the zoom object to apply to multiple slides.

If you link up two zoom objects and preview the movie, you can see it pans smoothly from the first zoom area to the second one. That is how the panning effect achieves.

Last step is to publish your movie. There are only some publishing formats for you to choose from, but no dimension setting for the movie. It seems there is some logical error for this software. Most people don’t have the idea where to set the movie dimension, so what they do is just publishing the movie of the original size. When zooming in to enlarge an area of the movie, it comes to be a little blurring!



The truth is that you can adjust the movie dimension in the scene setting dialog box. But the Scene scale in the same box make me confused, in fact, scene scale is just related to the ratio of the editing scene but the movie dimension.

Anyway, there is the zoom-n-pan feature available in this software. In general, it is nice tool to make demos of your screen. And there are still some details and features need to be improved for better use.

Make Outstanding Demo Videos with Ease

Overview of this screen recorder

Wondershare DemoCreator makes it shockingly easy to capture everything that happens on your computer screen, including audio, and create software tutorials, demos, and online instructional videos.

As a screen recording software DemoCreator is so intuitive, all it takes is 3 simple steps to produce a polished final demo: record your onscreen activities as slides, edit your recording with animated objects（optional）, and publish your demo videos.

When launching this screen recorder, select to record an application window, an area of your desktop, or the entire screen. Hit record, and get stated with capturing!

Once you've finished recording, you can decorate your presentation with audio, annotations, images, Flash animation, mouse movements, highlight boxes for spotlighting areas in a slide, zoom-n-pan effect to show the specific details and clickable buttons for directing users to a different slide or URL page, thus make it a compelling demo video.

After the editing, you can go to preview or publish the recording. Your demo can be publish as Adobe Flash (SWF) files that can be integrated into HTML and displayed on a website, or you can create AVI files readily uploaded to the most popular video sharing portals. You can even create standalone executable files that are small enough to be sent via email or burned to a CD! What's more,
Wondershare DemoCreator includes comprehensive support for publishing training
courses with AICC/SCORM compliance for Moodle, WebCT, SharePoint, and Blackboard!

The result is a repeatable, consistent, and quality demonstration that your customers, trainees, or colleagues can view at their own pace, and which conveys a greater understanding of your product, service, and your point.

In General, DemoCreator provides one of the best and easy-to-use ways to record, edit, and share spectacular video demos!

Want to learn more? Check out the video:

DemoCreator lets you:

• Capture everything that happens on your computer screen, including audio.
  
• Enhance the learning impact of your presentation by adding helpful callouts, music, narration, annotations, images, interactive elements, and animations, zoom-n-pan scale.
  
• Create software tutorials, demos, and online instructional videos that are repeatable and consistent.
  
• Extend the reach of your training materials.
  
• Output your files as Flash, AVI, or standalone executable files.
  
• Publish training courses with AICC/SCORM (1.2 & 2004) compliance.

Who Needs DemoCreator?

You do if you've ever:

• Created screencast presentations to demonstrate what online product you are selling and how it works.
  
• Enhanced software training efficiency by making a series of demonstrations and video tutorials hoping that your audience will remember and retain what they've learned.
  
• Reported system bugs by capturing the error window and sending it to the development team for software testing or technical support.
  
• Wanted to deliver a consistent learning experience that could be re-run anytime, anywhere, at the client's own pace.

Step-by-step Guide Video - Tech Support Solution

As a technical support staff, a question that I am asked a lot by my customers is "Can you show me the solution of the problem step by step?" I try really hard to state the operating steps to them by the words in the email or on the phone, but they don’t get what I mean for most of times. In fact, the 80% questions have been asking again and again, but I still have to answer them one by one. Now the solution is clear for me: Creating the step-by-step video for troubleshooting.

Why create a video for technical support?

• It is an easy way to explain your solution process
  
• No continual stop/start grabbing screenshots and typing instructions
  
• Easy to follow along and reproduce steps
  
• Friendly to users
  
• Reduce service costs with online customer self-service

To make a troubleshooting video, there are 4 steps to go: prepare your script, record screen activities, edit your recording, and publish your movie. There are some applications available to record what happens on your computer. A few of them are free, but with little editing feature. Some editing is necessary for making a compelling step-by-step video. Here I will focus on the editing feature of DemoCreator.

The advanced editing features enable you to edit the recording and add details to your video. Because the recorded movies are shown as a slide format in this screencasting tool, you can readily modify the pace and control the timing of objects such as visual components on the timeline editor for each slide. There is a library of available objects to decorate the recording, such as Flash animation, mouse movements, text box, edit entry, zoom-n-pan scale for specifying specific details for selected area, highlight boxes for spotlighting areas in a slide, and clickable buttons for directing users to a different slide or URL page. You can enhance the video by adding the objects to make the illustration explicit. Besides, you can rerecord the narration or import the music file to the video if it is in need. Furthermore, the existed project can be imported to the current recording project. It means that this screen recorder supports project reuse, and the multiple videos can be integrated as one.

To make a good step-by-step video, there are some useful tips:

• Prepare your recording script: Be familiar with the software you are going to demonstrate, and know clearly of the operating steps. If you want to add the narration to the video, you’d better write down the script or prepare it in your mind.
  
  
• Capture only the minimum screen area that you need. This will reduce the file size. And you can emphasize the important part by zooming and panning.
  
  
• Adjust the screen resolution and color quality: To improve your computer’s performance during the screen-capture session, especially if you plan to capture the entire computer screen, reducing the screen resolution and color quality is good for the recording performance.
  
  
• Be aware of your mouse movements: When selected the Taking screenshots recording mode, avoid the unnecessary clicks; when selected the Full motion recording, you may hang the mouse to the area which need to be selected or clicked for a second or two. For a video with audio, the synchronization is very important.
  
  
• It's OK to pause. If there is a long video or if you have to pause when in recording, it is all right. And you can resume your recording by capturing additional slides.
  
  
• Save your recording in the shareable format. To put the video on your websites, publish the output as Flash movie with Html page is nice. To share it on video sharing website like Youtube, you can publish it as Avi.

Well, have a try and make the video of screen for technical stuff. You may enjoy doing that.

Sleeping-Personality-Quiz - Not Only a Screen Recorder

It is not only a screen recorder.

Created by DemoCreator

Top 7 Screen Recorders with Zoom-n-Pan: Show Specific Details

Zoom-n-Pan is very useful when making videos for the small screen. This feature allows you to zoom and pan in a specific area smoothly showing specific area in details, and focus your audience’s attention on important screen movements or actions to make your point clearly. Now more and more screen recorders come to introduce this feature that provides full visual clarity when replaying on a smaller screen. Here I have collected 7 screen recorders with the zoom-n-pan feature, you may pick up the one that fits your need.

1. DemoCreator

Easily creates the powerful animated software video tutorials and website demos just by three steps: Record, Edit, and Publish. The new version of DemoCreator 2.5.5 has enhance the user’s experience and the editing features.

Put the zoom object on the area of the slides you want to enlarge for emphasis. When editing, the zoom area is displayed and can be easily repositioned or resized with the mouse. If you link up two zoom objects, you can see the panning effect.

2. Captivate

Captivate from Adobe lets you create powerful and engaging Flash-based simulations, software demonstrations, and scenario-based training without programming knowledge or multimedia skills. Captivate 4 has just been released.

To achieve the zoom-n-pan effect in Captivate, you need to put a zoom object to select the area. It works like a magnifying glass on your screen.

3. Camtasia

Easily record onscreen activity. Edit for professional polish, enhance for emphasis. Share multiple video formats conveniently. Version 6.0 features support for HD, timesaving editing hotkeys, and the ability to edit audio and video tracks independently.

Add the zoom-n-pan effect to the selected key frames, and adjust the zoom speed and scale for best result.

4. BB FlashBack

Easy-to-use screen recorder creates compact, high quality movies for tutorials, demos and presentations with powerful video and audio editing features. Version 2.5 includes and enhances multiple formats export.

You can emphasize key actions and areas of the screen by adding 'pan' and 'zoom' effects to your presentation for that professional finish.

5. Instant Demo

Using a very simple interface you can create animated Flash demos quickly and easily. Most controls to edit and annotate are contained in just one sm

Zooming is done during editing by dragging a rectangle around the region to be enlarged. The zoom region can automatically follow the mouse activity.

6. DemoBuilder

A powerful Flash-based tool that allows you to create eye-catching and professionally-looking interactive presentations that do not require any programming skills.

Set the zoom scale and time for the key frames. Adjust the parameter by dragging the parameter to left or right. You may find setting your zoom target area confusing if you are not familiar with this screen recorder.

7. TipCam

Free screen recorder for Windows. Record your screen and voice in a flash video (FLV format) and share it instantly at uTIPu.com or via e-mail.

The only free application supports Pan-n-Zoom so the recording area can easily follow the movements of your mouse cursor. The Pan-n-Zoom feature is controlled by some hot key when recording. Not that convenient for users.