The next time I create screencasts, I'll shoot for a smaller frame, such as 850 or 900 pixels. As I said, the smaller dimension isn't as clear as it could have been had I chosen to record the screen at a smaller dimension. I ended up creating two sizes: the full 1280 x 720 pixel size, which I link to at the bottom, and a 1024 x 576 pixel size, which is more viewable with smaller computer resolutions. But when I open the same file on my home laptop, which has a much smaller resolution, it extends off the screen. The resolution on my work laptop is notably high, so even a 1024 pixel width looks small to me. But if you're working with the files locally and not going the HD route, you should record at the same dimensions that you plan to publish, because otherwise playing the videos at smaller dimensions leaves them a bit fuzzy. If you record a 1280 x 720 video and upload it to youtube, youtube's HD encoding engine will make it clear even when played at smaller dimensions. I forgot that you need an HD encoding engine to transform your videos into HD. However, in hindsight, I would have chosen a smaller dimension and foregone the pursuit of HD. I recorded the screen at 1280 x 720 pixels, because this is the minimum dimensions for creating HD quality screencasts when uploading to youtube. I was able to create 30 screencasts in a couple of weeks. Sometimes it takes a little editing to sync it up, but I've found this method to be the easiest. Then I listen to the audio while recording the screen using Camtasia Studio. I record in Audacity for ease of editing and then add it to a Camtasia Studio project as an MP3 file. Basically I have a Shure SM58 XLR microphone connected to a Behringer mixer routed through my Zoom H4 audio interface and then connected to my laptop. I used the recording method that I described in this post. It's probably better that way anyway, as the media server is more robust. I could have reverted to the Legacy SWF format (it also includes buttons in the SWF), but the Legacy format is not nearly as sexy as the Express Show format, so I uploaded the videos to an external media server instead and pulled them in from there. But Express Show injects some XML into the file, and my server interpreted the SWF as a mixed file type and rejected it. I planned to use Camtasia Studio's Express Show format to upload the videos directly into Mediawiki through the wiki's built-in file uploader, because this format combines the player buttons with the media in one integrated package. I would have used an MP4 format, but I couldn't find a functioning extension that embeds MP4 into Mediawiki. I used the Flash SWF extension to embed the SWF videos directly into Mediawiki. You can see a list of the screencasts here. I created 30 screencasts to match the tasks in the documentation (which I transferred from InDesign to Mediawiki). I then integrated the screencasts with the various pages of the wiki. After delivering the documentation, the users needed something more visual, so I set about creating screencasts.
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