So I downloaded Camstudio and did a real quick tut on making a ball to see if it would work. It worked and lasted about a minute. But the size of the avi file is like 15 megs and the swf isn't much better. How do I get those file sizes down? I'll never be able to make tutorials with file sizes that huge .

Thanks for any answers you may give.

You should convert it with Vegas or if you want to go free Super to for example h264.

Anyway it depends on the screensize. If you are using a screen-resolution of 1600 x 1200 it will result in much larger filesizes than for example 1024 x 768.
I use 1024 x 768 for all of my videos. You should scale your A:M-Window to that size before capturing -> This will result in a better quality and less time to convert the video.

For Screencaptures you wont need many fps. So use for example 10 frames / s. Depending on how fast you move the mouse of course, but generally it will be enough.
-> Using a lower value will decrease the filesize.

My workflow is the following, but this is for high-quality-results:
- Use MotionMPEG to capture the video (this creates really really huge files with a near to uncompressed quality)
- Convert it using Vegas to h264-movs

If you dont own a software like Vegas or Quicktime Pro you can do it like this, but you will need a newer computer:
- Use h264, Xvid or Divx for capturing. This is much harder to do for CamStudio, so you may suffer under low framerates.

If you dont have this options available in CamStudio's Videosettings, download FFD-Show.

If you got any other questions, let me know.

See you
*Fuchur*

Jeff,
The short answer is: Don't sweat it. Just make the tutorial and pass it on to someone else that can reduce it.

The long answer will depend on what software and compression codecs you have available.
If you have any video editor most com with basic .MOV conversion/compression capability.
Quicktime is the one most common in the forum I'd guess.

I see that Fuchur has already posted before I've submitted this reply.
The H264 settings usually get very good quality to compression ratios.

One thing to consider also it cuttng out any extraneous areas of the video.
It may be worth your while to capture your tutorial a second time (playing your captured video) while just talking through it.
I've found with most of my attempts thus far much of the time is spent thinking of what to do next or talking through something that is easily demonstrated already in the video visually. These areas can be edited out with no loss of comprehension by the viewer.

Audio is often the biggest space waster.
If you can check your video's audio setting you may find you can gain some size saving by adjusting the settings.
In some cases, especially when the video is really basic you can drop the audio track entirely.

When displaying SWF tutorials it may be useful to capture still frames instead of moving images.
When the compressor smashes pixels together the video then has less to compress.

I'm interested in all the comments we'll get here from those with video expertise.

Here is a much older discussion on the subject.
A lot of the information there seems applicable too.

http://www.hash.com/forums/index.php?showtopic=24096

My screencam movies tend to be about 6fps and I resize the A:M window to about 800x600 and just capture that or less.

for codecs H264 has the better quality but is terribly slow to compress. If I need something fast I do MPG4

set a low bit rate and high key frame value


the AAC audio codec is very good. The only satisfactory one, really.



You will spend time experimenting with compression to find the tradeoffs that suit you.

When I record my video tutorials I compress to H.264 and I then upload that to a third party video hoster (I.E. Youtube, Vimeo, etc). So that the file size does not matter, I also use 15fps at 1280x720.

Photoman

Thanks for the help everyone. We'll see if I can get anything going with this. I'll probably work on it a little in between working on my Crystal Apple Image.

Could someone tell me of a good, trustworthy, site to download these codecs you guys are talking about?

Just download the latest version of Quicktime or Itunes. This will give you the .h264 codec. One of the most advanced codecs out there.

You might find some of what you want here aswell codecs.com

I have the newest quicktime, but the codec doesn't seem to show up in the Camstudio codec section. Is it strictly for quicktime and that doesn't work with Camstudio?

Would recording in Camstudio, then re-rendering it in A:M as a camera roto work? That way I could record at high resolution and then render it smaller with the .h264 codec?

Thanks for any answers. I think I have an idea for a very short tutrorial on the way I set my SSS for a character and the lighting set up I use in the Chor.

For initial capturing, I use the Camstudio lossless codec...here. Then, I do any editing using Virtualdub and make a finished master using the same codec (so that it remains lossless up to then). I then take that master and convert it to an H.264 Quicktime using Super. Finally, since older versions of Quicktime have trouble with video converted using Super, I open it up in Quicktime Pro and resave it as an H.264 Quicktime.

I know, it's kind of convoluted, but that's what works for me. Hope that helps.

H264 and other will only show up in CamStudio if you download FFdshow.
You can do it with another workflow using super and the loose-less-codec so.

I recommend using FFdshow with MotionJpeg-Codec and after that using Super, Vegas or Quicktime Pro to make a mp4 from it.

*Fuchur*

PS: FFdshow can be downloaded here: Sourceforge

I wouldn't do that.
While I'm not sure what exactly is going on with this method you are adding in A:M's rerendering of the entire sequence via the camera view. This rerendering is unnecessary unless you are wanting to add new 3D elements to it.

If you wanted to do such a thing in A:M it'd work better to use the converter under the Images container in the Project Workspace.

Steps to convert movies/image sequences without using Rotoscopes in A:M:
Import the movie.
Right Click on its shortcut in the PWS and chose Save as Animation.
Select the type and compression you want to convert to.

There you get the conversion with no rerendering via the camera.

You can do this conversion in A:M but as others have indicated there are dedicated programs for doing the conversion that may be better optimized for you.

Thanks for the info everyone. I'm going to give some of these a try. Right now I'm just trying to get a recording of more than half a minute to come out of Camstudio with the sound working. For some reason it's not working if it's longer than that.

PS: A tutorial thread on tutorials in the the tutorial section is awesome .

EDIT: I installed that ffdshow -- now what? How's it work with Camstudio? I think I need a step-by-step here. Because I am definately missing something. I have no money so I have to use freeware. I have Camstudio, Super, and now ffdshow installed.

Long time ago, so sorry that I didnt answer earlier... didnt see that you asked something again.

Here is a step by step image-tutorial on the subject of setting up Camstudio and Super.
Super doesnt create the best quality-outputs, but it is the best free converter out there, in my opinion, so if you want to get it free, this is the best workflow I have to offer.
(EDIT: Another very good, free converter is Xmedia Recode).

Again: You will need
- CamStudio
- Super
- FFDshow
- VLC or Quicktime (I prefer VLC).

*Fuchur*

Pearls of wisdom- well documented. Thanks Fuchur...I will be needing to be going down this road soon.

I also installed FFDshow and still don't get the ffshow Video Codec option in Camstudio. What did I miss?

Edit: The above link for FFDshow apparently was not the latest one. I searched the web and found this one to do the trick: http://www.free-codecs.com/download/FFDShow.htm

Wow! That is a most excellent presentation! Thank you. Done clearly and concisely.

AND I find it ironic that you did it this way - rather than make a video. (of which I'm glad)

I am one of those who prefer the written step by step with screen captures, way more than the live video tutes - Videos (with real-time screen captures) might be good for providing an overview, and introducing a subject, or critiquing an animation...but I find them very difficult, time consuming to use as a reference, if I need to remember settings, procedures.

Dont know what happend there, but I am glad you got it working.
*Fuchur*

I normally like videotutorials (so you are right, for stuff like precise numbers, etc. they are not that well suited...) but there was although a very easy reason why I didnt create one:
I couldnt. CamStudio can only be started once and I couldnt show of every step without a second instance

Thanks to you all... it made fun to make it and I am glad to help you to help others
I hope there will be lots of good tutorials on different subjects.

Just to let you know: If you need permament webspace for a videotutorial for A:M or anything related to A:M, let me know. I'd be glad to upload it to my server / may give out temporary FTP-accounts for those who want to upload them directly.

See you
*Fuchur*

Thanks for the answers. I got a new job so I've been pretty busy lately, but I'm planning on buying trhe newest version of A:M sometime in January. So I will probably wait until then to try anything.

Thanks again.

Hi Jeff

Could you donate your Alien bust model for the purposes of deconstruction and a tutorial that I am creating? I want to make a video tutorial specifically on SSS, AM paint and incorporating maps like bump, normal and displacement as you have so masterfully done with your model. The tutorial will of course be free and I will make sure you get credit for helping to pioneer AM's abilities.

Anyone tried Adobe Captivate 4? I just DL'd the trial version and tried doing screen captures...it works pretty well but I could not get audio...after reading the help files I learned that you need to record your audio separately in an audio recording app (the Windows utility only records 1 minute) and then marry it up in Captivates editor. Not a good way to do this.

I tried CamStudio and was not too happy with what I got. Maybe I need to try Super or reread all your findings...

EDIT: Now Captivate is taking FOREVER to uninstall!

What didnt you like about CamStudio? If you are going the way I am (recordin to a big file and rerendering it using super) it should work pretty well...
*Fuchur*