HOW TO MAKE A SCREENCAST
Vickie M. Williamson
Texas A & M University
(PDF Version)
Make PPT-
One question per slide
Record
Open PPT.
Use slide view, but make slide as large as possible
Open IShowU
Set recording area to match slide (I use about 900w x 680h) If you are going to splice various recordings together, be sure to use the same area.
Ck recording parameters
Medium, good quality, small file presets
Input Selection: Record microphone audio & force mono
Medium quality 20 KHz
Microphone Input: USB Headset
Microphone Monitor Off Slow Frame Rate: 4
Normal Frame Rate: 10
Scale: 100%
Quality 2/5
Compression H. 264
Mouse Recording: With each frame as it is captured
Choose Record
Click on ppt
Open Ultimate Pen
GO when finished click on ‘click through’ on ultimate pen and ‘finished’ on IShowU
Crop
Use QuickTime
At the bottom is a split head, put the bottom right head at end and the bottom left head at the end of what you want to keep (which should be highlighted). You can play to be sure you have what you want.
Under the edit menu choose ‘trim to selection’
Then close and save when prompted
I rename here to match the number on exam.
Splice
Use QuickTime to open your first question, put play head at the end of file.
Open the ‘movie inspector’ under the windows menu note the current time in the format 0:00:04:42.89. This will be the time that question 2 begins.
Open second question, select all, copy, and close second question
Click on first question, paste, note the current time in the movie inspector (this is the time for the beginning of question 3 or end of question 2).
Continue until you have all spliced in.
Save as a self-contained movie
Chapter Headings- Make the text file from scratch
Type the list of questions with a return after each.
Q1
Q2
Q3
Save as plain text.
From within QuickTime, choose open file. (you will see a black screen with ‘Q1’ in it.)
Choose File, then export. In export popup, choose ‘text to text’ AND in the Use popup, choose ‘text with descriptors’. Click on options, then in the text export settings choose ‘Show Text, Descriptors, and Time’, ‘movie’, and ‘1/30’. Click OK and Save. Allow to replace your old file. Then close the movie in QuickTime.
Open the file with your word processor. It will look like this:
{QTtext}{font:Geneva}{plain}{size:12}{textColor: 65535, 65535, 65535}{backColor: 0, 0, 0}{justify:center}{timeScale:30}{width:160}{height:48}{timeStamps:absolute}{language:0}{textEncoding:0}
[00:00:00.00]
{textBox: 0, 0, 50, 160}Q1
[00:00:02.00]
{textBox: 0, 0, 50, 160}Q2
[00:00:04.00]
Now change the timestamps. The first will be [00:00:00.00] as written. This is the start of question 1. Change the timestamp that follows question 1 to be the time question 2 begins. The time at the end is the duration.
The files will now look like this:
{QTtext}{font:Geneva}{plain}{size:12}{textColor: 65535, 65535, 65535}{backColor: 0, 0, 0}{justify:center}{timeScale:30}{width:160}{height:48}{timeStamps:absolute}{language:0}{textEncoding:0}
[00:00:00.00]
{textBox: 0, 0, 50, 160}Q1
[00:04:42.89]
{textBox: 0, 0, 50, 160}Q2[00:06:04.11]
Chapter Headings- Make the text file from an old file
Make a file with your word processor. It will look like this:
{QTtext}{font:Geneva}{plain}{size:12}{textColor: 65535, 65535, 65535}{backColor: 0, 0, 0}{justify:center}{timeScale:30}{width:160}{height:48}{timeStamps:absolute}{language:0}{textEncoding:0}
[00:00:00.00]
{textBox: 0, 0, 50, 160}Q1
[00:00:02.00]
Save it as plain text.
Now change the timestamp that follows question 1. The first will be [00:00:00.00] as written. This is the start of question 1. Change the timestamp that follows question 1 to be the time question 2 begins. Continue adding the line that begins “{textbox:” with the timestamp below it until you have added enough for each question. The timestamp should be the one that begins question 3
{textBox: 0, 0, 50, 160}Q2
[00:06:04.11]
The time at the end of the last question is the duration.
Save file as plain text.
Chapter Headings- Putting them into the movie file
From within QuickTime, choose ‘open file’ from the file menu to open the text file with the question headings.
From the edit menu, choose ‘select all’, then choose ‘copy’, and close the movie.
Then open the QuickTime movie of working the problems.
Choose ‘select all’ from the edit menu (all of track should be highlighted)
Choose ‘add to movie’ from the edit menu.
Choose ‘show movie properties’ from the windows menu
In the properties menu, deselect ‘text track’
In the properties menu, click on the video track, choose ‘other settings’ and choose ‘text track’ in the chapters popup.
Close the properties box. The movie should now show the question #’s at the right side, and you should be able to go to any question.
Save the movie as a self-contained movie.
Save as MOV and M4V
Open movie in QuickTime.
Choose ‘Export’ from the file menu
In export popup menu, choose ‘movie to ipod’ for an M4V file.
Movie is already in mov format.