Here is a question that I received recently and since this seems to be a universal problem I thought I’d include it here:

Is it normal to have a tutorial of 20 min duration- (with no audio, only mouse clicks and keyboard clicks and callouts to direct the user) - to have a file size of 51 MB? Is there any trick to make it smaller? (I tried to decrease the capturing screen size, and it does make the file size smaller, BUT it makes it low resolution!)…so I am sure there’s another way to solve this, since everyone uses it and don’t end up with extra huge file size!

And here is my rather long answer:

WOW! 20 minutes with no audio and a file size of 51 MB is huge! My videos WITH audio would be in the order of 10 to 20 MB. Usually when someone has too large of a video file it means they tried to capture too large of a window (like full screen).

First, I don’t believe in mouse and keyboard clicks. That makes a bigger file and adds the audio layer to the videos. Movement of the mouse also makes bigger files so try to keep it to a minimum.

Next using smaller screen capture makes smaller video files. I’m not sure why the statement: “I tried to decrease the capturing screen size, and it does make the file size smaller, BUT it makes it low resolution!” If you capture smaller screen sizes (like 640 by 480) and then play them at that size there is no change in resolution. If you try to capture the full screen and then play back at 640 by 480 the resolution does get worse.

Playback videos should be 640 by 480 pixels. That will work for just about anyone’’s computer monitor. The smallest setup for computer monitors today is 800 by 600 pixels. With the browser that allows a video of about 640 by 480 pixels without having scroll bars. I have experimented (and actually use in my software tutorials) recording up to 840 by 630 pixels capture window and then making the final videos at 640 by 480 pixels and still have good enough resolution to read the screen. I also use a ratio of 4:3 for my capture windows (e.g., 840 by 630, 760 by 570, 740 by 555, 640 by 480, 320 by 280, etc.).

Another question, what frame rate are you using? For the Internet I usually use 1 frame per second. Don”t use the automatic setting. You can use the automatic setting for video capture but in Studio set it to either 1 frame per second or 5 frames per second (max). Set the colors to 16-bit in Studio. I also try to keep my videos under 10 minutes. That keeps the file sizes smaller too. So I would split a 20 minute video into two or more. Also, zipping a video file will not get you much advantage. About the only reason to zip them is when you have multiple files and want to keep them together. Videos are already compressed to the maximum… that’s why you don’t get much reduction when using zip.

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Today I was asked if there is a way of putting Camtasia 4.0 videos on a wordPress Blog. I had not done it before so I started researching the various wordPress Plugins. There are a number of them that will let you put your Youtube videos on a blog, or your FLV or SWF. But nothing for Camtasia. So I used this page to invent my method of doing that. 

Would you like to add Camtasia screencast videos to your blog? There is a way. No, you can”t have the video directly in your blog page for several reasons. One is the width of your Camtasia video. If you are using a two column WordPress page your column width is about 440 pixels. And most Camtasia videos are 640 pixels. Another reason is that there are ten files that are needed to open Camtasia. You would need to have them all located with your video to make sure it would play. The simple solution is to use a hyperlink to the Camtasia video in your WordPress post. You could either use a simple text link to your video’’s location or add an image with a link to your video. And I suggest you open the video in a separate window.

So the hyperlink would look somethiing like this:  

Here is what it would look like:

Click the image or here to watch the movie

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One of the biggest pitfalls of working for yourself is that you can easily get sidetracked on a project and forget to do those other things that need to be done.

I know I fell into this situation recently. A while ago I decided to convert Multimedia Profits Revealed website into a Butterfly Marketing (BM) site. Seemed easy enough to do. I had already invested in the software. It would work for a membership site like we already had.

And I was not too pleased at the support for Membership Client Pro (MCP), the software that I was using. I have been using the monthly plan for MCP. Which is supposed to keep me up to date with no effort on my part. Except support is only for 30 days from your initial order. Any further support must be paid for.

So with that in mind I decided to learn the BM script and use it instead of MCP. Which turned out to be easier said than done. Three months later I was still fighting bugs and learning. Several times I was almost done only to find an update to the script. I soon learned that once the site is running, DO NOT UPDATE. But it took me some time to learn that valuable lesson.

During that time I tried another similar script only to find that it didn’t work well plus their tech support was non-existent.

Which drove me back to BM. Yes, there are some problems with it. Partly because of the number of features it has. And often I was beta testing the script. But the big difference is that Mike Filsame, owner of BM, has invested in some top notch tech support. And once I realized that and started using them things started to work.

If you have not seen our new Multimedia Profits Revealed site you might want to take a look. Just go to Multimedia Profits Revealed.

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