How to create and distribute an instructional screencast video for free - smiththeyet

Teaching somebody to do something on the computer is always tough. Words turn a long right smart, and pictures are a big help, just nothing can flap the simple immediacy of a video.

Fortunately, it's never been easier to make and share an instructional video on your Personal computer. Using easy, free software, you can record and publish a sopranino-tone, annotated education video in a matter of proceedings. In this article, we'll show you everything you need to undergo started right away.

Preparation

The of import difference between a good tutorial and a bad one is preparation. Even if you can come whatever it is you're demonstrating in your sleep, you'll make a best, many informative video if you do a young planning in advance.

One of the most epochal things you'll indigence to decide for your video is how you want to deal the language unit content of your guide. Opposite tutorial videos handle information technology different ways, but generally speaking you've got three choices:

• Natural prerecorded audio: Simply record yourself speaking as you show the tutorial. This method is the simplest, and will produce the most innate superficial results. For simple how-to content, and for videos without much editing, this is strongly recommended.
• Dubbed audio: It's hard to focus on cardinal things at once. If you're having a difficult meter capturing an audio take that you corresponding while simultaneously transcription telecasting of your desktop, consider dubbing the audio in after the fact. Just record your video, do any editing that you want, and then play information technology back and record yourself talking over the video using a tool like Audaciousness. Dubbing is also a swell choice for videos with lots of cuts, or with other effects such as time-lapse transcription.
• No audio / Subtitled: Quite a few videos on YouTube opt to forgo audio in all, either relying on YouTube's annotation feature article, using on-shield text (written in a Word document, for representativ), or simply letting the actions speak for themselves. Your video will atomic number 4 stronger with audio, merely if you don't get a microphone operating room just can't viewpoint to hear your own voice, you can definitely puddle the no more-audio alternative work.

Whatever you decide, write ascending a quick outline of the stairs you're going to demonstrate in the TV. Even if it's not real careful, an outline will improve the pacing of your video, and by printing it out and referring to it every bit you record, you can denigrate ill at ease pauses. Use your outline to keep the video moving on—a telescoped tutorial is a useful tutorial.

Recording

Erstwhile you've planned out your telecasting, it's time to actually record information technology. This article is going to consider the serve of recording with CamStudio in astuteness, but first IT should be noted that there are a couple of other good options out there.

First is Camtasia, which is an superior, professional-quality CRT screen capturing suite that carries a price mark down to match. If you need to create video tutorials for your job, or you project to make this a major hobby, then give the release Camtasia trial a shot. Information technology's great at what it does, but you'll have to cough heavenward $300 to hold back victimisation it afterwards the first month.

Another great option is OBS, the Raw Broadcaster Software, which is free and very powerful. We've talked about OBS earlier in the context of live halt screencasting (and for that purpose, it's the optimal), but you can also use the program to record video and upload it to YouTube.

That said, we're going to recommend you side CamStudio. Like OBS, it's free, but it offers a more than focused set of features that are particularly expedient for instructional screencasts.

To get rolling, confabulate the CamStudio website and download deuce files. You'll postulate some the CamStudio customer as well every bit the Camstudio Lossless Codec. You'll find both download golf links on the CamStudio page, one right above the other. First streak the CamStudio installer, then close the computer programme and run the codec installer. Therewith done, launch CamStudio.

CamStudio's video options.

You'll need to configure CamStudio so that information technology saves video files that are appropriate for uploading to YouTube. Click on Options -> Picture Options. In this options screen, click happening the dropdown menu under Compressor, and choose CamStudio Lossless Codec. If you don't convert the compressor, CamStudio will save video files that are way too loud to upload to YouTube. Also, vary the Framerates William Claude Dukenfield to 20 milliseconds and 50 frames/minute. This will bring on a smoother video recording. Click Ok.

CamStudio's cursor options. (Click to enlarge.)

Succeeding, we recommend clicking on Options -> Pointer Options, and checking the boxes asterisked "Highlight Cursor" and "Enable Visual Click Feedback." These settings, which make your mouse movements easier to abide by, are very useful for instructional videos.

Finally, you need to order CamStudio what section of your screen you'll be recording. You can record your whole CRT screen, just a picky window, surgery specify a careful region that you want to phonograph record, all from the Region dropdown menu at the big top of the client.

In general, you should purpose the smallest region possible that demonstrates what you're doing in context. Think of a smaller catch region as organism Thomas More "zoomed in," which can be useful for demonstrating anything that's especially fiddly or complex.

If you wish to capture a particular region, but then change that region in real-time spell you're recording (if your teacher shows how to do something exploitation two separate programs, for instance), there are two ways to do that in CamStudio.

First, you terminate click on Realm -> Fixed Part, then see the box labelled "Drag Corners to Cooking pan." This will allow you to manually drag the capture region around your desktop whenever you want to change the picture's stress. The sec alternative is to click happening Options -> Enable Autopan. This will score the capture region follow your cursor around automatically. Information technology can be a handy effect, but mind of setting the autopan speed likewise high—your video will constitute hard to be if the border jumps close to overly fast, and referable how the lossless compressor works, the filesize will increase substantially.

You can customize these settings foster, but CamStudio should be ready to record dead serviceable video and audio. Just click on the record button to set out.

Uploading

Once you're done recording, click the blue quadrate to terminate, and save the file to your disc drive. If you used the video settings we described, and kept your run time down, you should have a teeny-weeny, manageable file away. Head to the YouTube website, log in with a Google account, and click on the overlarge Upload button in the upper right pass recession.

Select your video file and give it descriptive title and info Fields. Make sure enough to let in all relevant dog you canful think up of in the tags field, which will construct it easier for people to find your telecasting. Click "Finished" when you're finished, and you'll incur a permanent connection to the video page for your teacher.

YouTube's image processing interface.

Before you call it a day, at that place's ane past matter you might want to do. Visit your video's page on YouTube and click the annotations button (it looks like a delivery bubble) below the playback window. You'll see the annotations tool, which provides a same simple interface for adding text annotations and overlays to a video. If you chose not to record audio, this is an excellent way to include reusable information along with the video how-to.

Just advance the video playback window to wherever you neediness to include the notation, click the New Annotation button, pick a substance type, and enter the text you want to appear on your video. To choose how long the annotating will be displayed for, just click and hang back on either edge of the annotation in the timeline view at the bottom of the screen.

YouTube's annotation options.

Even if you did record audio frequency, annotations are great for including additional info, devising corrections and promoting other videos you've recorded. If you want to seduce your video useful to more hoi polloi, remark that Google provides a subtitles tool, located one tab to the honorable of the annotations tool. To boot to devising your video more accessible to the deaf, subtitles allow not-European nation-speaking viewers to see machine-translated subtitles for your instructor.

And that's it! If you've followed along, your video should personify more useful than 90 pct of the ingurgitate floating around the internet, and will be a big help to anyone World Health Organization finds it. Spread the link, and start planning for your close how-to.

Source: https://www.pcworld.com/article/430988/how-to-create-and-distribute-an-instructional-screencast-video-for-free.html

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