Video Tutorials added for QuantuDelta System (QDCMS)
Drew Harris
It was high time that we added some video tutorials for our products. With over thirty (30) different modules within the QDCMS and only a text based help system, we found ourselves doing a lot of one on one training, and retraining. It seemed to makes a lot of sense to do this training with a script and screen capture software running. Therefore, we are slowing building a library of video tutorials for our products. The other advantage this has (since the library is public) is that it allows potential clients to see the power of the systems we offer. It can show them truly how easy it is to update your own site and manage your organization's data with the QDCMS.
For those of you who are interested in the process of how we are creating these tutorials, I will share that now. It took me several days to develop the most effective process, and it may not be the best process for you, but it works for us right now.
- Write a Script for Audio
- Download and install the web developer toolbar for Firefox
- Use the Resize feature in the Firefox developer toolbar to create a custom screen size for my tutorials (995x554 viewport worked for me), this creates a consistent size for all of your tutorials
- Use an iSight Camera by Apple (these have the best digital audio recording) with Garage Band Software to record and edit the audio track
- Use Snapz Pro X to record the screen capture while playing the Audio
- Set Snapz Pro X to save Mac Audio Track and reduced the movie to scale to 60% of its original size
- This produces an .mov (quicktime) movie
- Use QuickTime Pro to trim the beginning and end of the new movie
These steps give us a QuickTime Movie, but I wanted to make sure our tutorials covered all of the basis and were super easy to access. So, the following steps outline how to provide the tutorials via youtube (so they can be accessed via an iphone), and integrate the tutorials with our own Video Library software to provide a single source where all of our tutorials can be accessed on our public site via Flash. Not everyone (PC users) will have QuickTime installed, and sure it is a free download, but why limit your online media to one player?
- Use Flash Video Encoder to convert the Quicktime movies to a medium flash video file
- Upload the original mov files to the site and to youtube (placing them on youtube allows people to access the videos from an iphone, and uploading them to the site itself and providing a direct link to them allows people to view the highest quality video with Quicktime)
- Use the Video Management module in the QDCMS to add each video to the tutorials library
It's just that easy ;)