This is the final post in a three-part series about how I made the BatchBook Screencasts. In Part 1, we recorded the screencasts. In Part 2, we encoded the screencasts and embedded them on the web. Today, we’re going to take your screencasts and turn them into a video podcast. We’ll also submit the podcast to iTunes.
Making the screencast into a podcast
First of all, what exactly is a podcast? Sure it’s audio, and you can subscribe to it, but really… what is it? Luckily, we included “Podcasting” in our glossary of tech terms!
Podcasting is a kind of audio broadcasting that uses the Internet, like an on-line radio show. The name was created by combining “iPod” and “broadcasting”. Podcasting involves making one or more files available in an RSS feed. A pod-caster (the creator of the podcast) makes a list of music and/or other audio files and makes the list available for other users to retrieve.
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Tags: enclosure, FeedForAll, how-to, itunes, podcast, rss, screencasts, tutorial, video
Earlier this month, I kicked off a three-part series about how I recorded the BatchBook screencasts with a post about the hardware and software I used to record the screencasts. I also included tips about scripting and recording the screencasts.
Today, I’m going to talk about how I exported the screencasts and embedded them within BatchBlue.com and BatchBook, our small business CRM.
When we last left our heroes, we had just recorded our screencasts (with Screenflick), done some simple splicing with QuickTime Pro, and saved a full-size, full-quality QuickTime video. This video looks and sounds great. The only problem is, it’s too big for the web. I’m not just talking about the file size. For example, the uncompressed version of the “Manage your contacts and social network” screencast came in at 27.1 megabytes. That’s not bad for a four-minute video.
The problem is the video’s dimensions. Before resizing, my videos were 1038 pixels wide and 758 pixels tall. While many users have large monitors now, there are still a ton of 1024×768 screens out there. That’s pretty much the size of our video. Factor in menu bars, task bars, browser windows, browser buttons, and other toolbars and we quickly realize we need to shrink our video.
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Tags: embedding, encoding, flash video, how-to, jw flv media player, screencasts, tutorial, video
We recently published an all new set of BatchBook screencasts. I often am asked how I record our screencasts, so I’m going to write up the process in a series of three blog posts. Today, I’ll tackle the actual recording of the screencasts. Part 2 will discuss encoding and embedding in your site while Part 3 will discuss building a feed for your screencasts and getting them on iTunes.
So, let’s get recording! First, what do you need?
Hardware
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Tags: how-to, micflex, quicktime pro, screencasts, screenflick, screenflow, tutorial, video
