Making screencasts

Oct 1, 2007

In the last couple of days I’ve done some screencasts on how to use BlogEngine.NET. I know there are many applications available that can record my screen and audio, but I didn’t really want to go look for any of them. Many of them come with a price tag and then I’d have to learn how to use them afterwards.

I remembered the time when Windows Server 2003 was in beta and I was running it as my main operating system. It came with a wonderful application called Windows Media Encoder. So instead of looking for newer and maybe cooler screencast recorders I just downloaded the old Windows Media Encoder which is free. It is outdated by now, but it’s easy to start using it and it produces fairly good quality videos.

Windows Media Encoder

The only problem is that it cannot edit a video after it finished recording it. So I gave Windows Movie Maker a go. The result was not good, not good at all. When I imported the video, did nothing and saved it again, the quality dropped immensely and the size of the file tripled. I still find it odd.

From this experience I’ve learned that Windows Media Encoder is good and Windows Movie Maker is not. I’m planning to do a lot more videos so it might be about time I started looking for alternate recording tools and editors.

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Comments (16) -

Josh Stodola
Josh Stodola United States
10/1/2007 7:44:43 PM #

Did windows media encoder create a WMV file?

Mads Kristensen
Mads Kristensen Denmark
10/1/2007 7:46:01 PM #

Yes it does

Josh Stodola
Josh Stodola United States
10/1/2007 7:51:34 PM #

That's unfortunate.  I could surely help you out with AVIs, but the WMV format totally sucks, IMO.

Mads Kristensen
Mads Kristensen Denmark
10/1/2007 7:53:35 PM #

WMV is not the most universal format, but I kinda like it. I'd prefer MPEG files that can be progressively downloaded.

Josh Stodola
Josh Stodola United States
10/1/2007 7:57:34 PM #

Go with this... http://camstudio.org/  it creates AVI files which are much more portable and easier to modify.

And if you are so inclined, I would highly recommend re-encoding the video stream using the open-source XviD codec for serious compression.  I have taken a 2 hour film from DVD and compressed it to 700MB while hardly losing quality.  Just does not get any better than that.

Mads Kristensen
Mads Kristensen Denmark
10/1/2007 8:02:40 PM #

The thing is that I want it to start playing before it has been completely downloaded. Xvid, divX or AVI cannot do that. As far as I know, only MPEG and WMV (or asx) can in Windows Media Player.

Josh Stodola
Josh Stodola United States
10/1/2007 8:11:38 PM #

I see.  Sounds to me like you are need streaming video.

Perhaps http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RTSP on a VLC server?

Jason Monroe
Jason Monroe United States
10/1/2007 11:39:25 PM #

BB Flashback.. From Blueberry Consultants..

http://www.bbsoftware.co.uk/BBFlashBack.aspx

Ronny Engelmann
Ronny Engelmann Germany
10/2/2007 4:23:12 AM #

Take a look at SnagIt <http://www.techsmith.com/screen-capture.asp>;
You can use the Video Screen Capture to create tutorial videos.

Picacodigos
Picacodigos Spain
10/2/2007 4:29:30 AM #

And for the post-editing of the video, I really like VirtualDubMod (http://sourceforge.net/projects/virtualdubmod). It has a bit of a steep learning curve, but for everyday operations is not that hard...

Josh Stodola
Josh Stodola United States
10/2/2007 4:05:58 PM #

Picacodigos - I'm with you on that one.  I've been using VirtualDub (the old school one, not Mod) for years.  Tough to learn, but once you do learn it, possibilities are limitless.  I use it exclusively for all my encoding/editing/ripping jobs.

Just don't forget to Direct Stream Copy the video if you are not re-encoding!!

Luciano Evaristo Guerche
Luciano Evaristo Guerche Brazil
10/2/2007 5:17:34 PM #

Have you ever tried Wink (http://www.debugmode.com/wink/) ? It's quite similar to Adobe Captivate, but freeware. Saves to flash, avi, pdf, doc and jpeg as far as I remember.

--
Luciano Evaristo Guerche
Taboão da Serra, SP, Brazil

Henrik Stenb&#230;k
Henrik Stenbæk
10/3/2007 8:37:15 PM #

Hi Mads

I did the same search a couple of months ago. Read my experiens here:
onesoft.dk/.../...order-for-making-screencast.aspx

Jimmy
Jimmy Belgium
10/16/2007 7:12:43 AM #

you can use http://www.screencast-o-matic.com/ which is an online tool.
regards,

jimmy

Emad Ibrahim
Emad Ibrahim United States
10/20/2007 11:13:44 AM #

Jing is by far my favorite screencast making tool and it is FREE, there is a review www.thetechbrief.com/.../

But it won't let you edit after you are done too.  You should try it just for the sheer simplicity of it.

Investment king
Investment king India
10/22/2007 4:37:30 AM #

That was a great post on the screen casts  with the windows media encoder and about its quality. I have seen your clips on the other site and realized that what you said was correct that it is poor in windows movie maker and better in the windows media encoder. Thank you very much for this great post.

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Mads Kristensen

Mads Kristensen
Program Manager at the Microsoft Web Platform team and founder of BlogEngine.NET.

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The opinions expressed herein are my own personal opinions and do not represent my employer’s view in any way.