Progress has been a little bit slow on my project over the last few weeks. I came to a stand still over a few technique problems that I have been having. I thought it might be helpful if I shared some of them. Despite getting hold of a webcam fairly easily to record the video part of my project it has been much more difficult to begin the process of recording the footage. It was very easy to record a test with no sound and save it on my computer. However then came the realisation that in order to include it in my Captivate project I would have to change the file format from WMV to AVI! I am no technology wiz so this completely stumped me. However thanks to our wonderful resident IT expert who found a program that converts files from WMV to AVI on the internet which is free to download I was able to convert the file into a format that Captivate could recognise. The site that we downloaded it from is www.freewarezoom.com/archives/free-wmv-avi-mpeg-converter .
So once I had a video file in the correct format my next challenge was to find out how to add it to the Captivate project. Once again I was rescued from going round in circles by our IT expert who explained that you have to add the video as an animation. I also discovered for myself that if you want to record just one video for the whole project, rather than a video for each slide, you just need to add the animation to your first slide and then choose the option for the animation to play for the whole project.
I was excited because I thought I could finally start to move forward with the project so I booked a room at the Said Business School ready to make my first attempt at recording the actual video. However I quickly realised that the sound from the external microphone I was using wasn’t being picked up and recorded as part of the webcam video. So here I am ground to a hault again but with our resident expert on the case it shouldn’t be too long before I can record the video with sound!! I am currently on the hunt for a good desktop microphone as using a headset microphone didn’t look very professional. I also found some very useful information from the links in Laura ’s post on her Law library trainee project blog relating to screen capturing (http://lawbodtraineeproject.wordpress.com/ ). Hopefully my next post will tell you how I have completed my first video guide.
It’s good to hear that your project is progressing well. I’ve finally got Captivate so I’m currently using our team laptop to work on my first tutorial. I love how Captivate makes creating something with a professional look so simple, just the little things like being able to alter the mouse properties to make it look more slick or add in a highlight box. Really loving working on it! Hopefully my project will move on a lot quicker now. Just not looking forward to recording the audio, hate the sound of my voice!
Great to hear that you are liking Captivate. It really does make things look so professional. I am just waiting to sort out my video and audio too. I hate the sound of my voice too not sure why I choose a project that meant i would have to record my voice. Anyway hope it all goes well for you!
I suppose we won’t be the people listening to our voices so it’s ok. Maybe Captivate has a ‘make voice sound more pleasent’ feature…? I do really love Captivate, makes working on my project a lot of fun!
Hi laura
I think there is a function which will turn text into a audio so you don’t have to use your own voice if you don’t want to. I will have to as I plan to record video footage along with the Captivate screen recording. I think, in edit view, if you add notes to each slide in the box below each slide you can select text to speech there. Also I think there is a way of doing it for captions added to each slide.
This reminds me Charlotte, do show me your microphone problem when we are both in next time. I tend to forget things so feel free to ask me any time 🙂
Best wishes.