Ok lets say you want to video a talk or lecture, how do you go about this? Here is my 10 step guide
1. Permission
Get permission of the lecturer (and possibly the organizer / venue) so they know what to expect
2. Equipment
To record a lecture you need to a video camera, ideally one with audio inputs. You also should have a sound recorder or wireless lapel (lavier) microphone
3. Video
The easy bit is actually the video footage. Careful with the lighting. I recommend an LED light from the camera to the speaker. To record in high definition you need a HD camera. Medium HD (1280x720) is usually more than sufficient and would be 1gb per hour. If you want to show off, 1920x1080 is full HD and thats going to be 5gb in one hour. 5GB is going to take quite a few hours just to upload, so I wouldn't master in 1080p unless you know what you are doing. I recommend a frame rate of 25p (or 50i) rather than 50p which is overkill for a lecture.
Which camera? Any camcorder on the market will do 720p, most will do 1080i or 1080p. Panasonic and Sony are very good even at the £200-400 mark.
4. Sound
The sound is critical. Big rooms sound terrible from the on-board camera mics...too boomy and full of background noise. Therefore you have to record as close to the speaker as possible. Ideally with a good quality wireless lapel mic. These can be very expensive but there is a good value Audio technica one here Amazon. Without a wireless system you can capture the audio onto a good quality soon recorder (tascam, marantz etc) or even a good dictaphone (use one with an external mic)
Run a test piece if possible, check the sound, lighting and coverage. Generally there is no need to capture the slides and the speaker at the same time, but this does help when editing.
> Now record the lecture always keeping the speaker in shot, leave some space either side if they move, but be prepared to pan. Oh yes, don't even think of recording without a tripod.
> iPhone recording? It can be done but use a mini-tripod and record the sound seperately
Ask the speaker for a copy of their slides if possible. If not, you may have to take a seperate footage of the slides, or still photos. If possible grab a couple of shots of the audience.
6. Editing
I recommend editing together the speaker footage with fades into jpgs of the slides. Keep to audio seemless. Which video editor? Thats personal choice. I hear it can be done with several free online programs now, even Adobe Premier CS2 is free if you search google. However I personally use Sony Vegas.
7. Converting Powerpoint slides => JPG
This is pretty easy, just select save as jpg and PPT will output to photo type jpgs. Sadly these are pretty horrible 960 × 720; usually the wrong format and resolution! At first it appears there is no way to change PPT to output to 16x9 (eg 1920x1080) but there is a trick explained here. If you want 1080p from PPT you have to change the PPT registry defaults as follows. The usual cautions apply.
- Exit all Microsoft Windows-based programs.
- Click Start, and then click Run.
- In the Open box, type regedit, and then click OK.
- Expand the registry to the subkey for the version of PowerPoint that you are using:
PowerPoint 2003PowerPoint 2007HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\11.0\PowerPoint\Options
Note The registry subkey for PowerPoint 2007 will not work with Office 2007 Service Pack 1.PowerPoint 2010HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\12.0\PowerPoint\OptionsPowerPoint 2013HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\14.0\PowerPoint\OptionsHKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\14.0\PowerPoint\Options - Click to select the Options subkey, point to New on the Edit menu, and then click DWORD Value.
- Type ExportBitmapResolution, and then press Enter.
- Make sure that ExportBitmapResolution is selected, and then click Modify on the Edit menu.
- In the Value data box, type the resolution
value that you want, based on the following table.
Note The maximum resolution setting that PowerPoint 2003 exports is 307 dpi.Decimal value Fullscreen Pixels (horizontal × vertical) Dots-per-inch (horizontal and vertical) 50 500 × 375 50 dpi 96 (default) 960 × 720 96 dpi 100 1000 × 750 100 dpi 150 1500 × 1125 150 dpi 200 2000 × 1500 200 dpi 250 2500 × 1875 250 dpi 300 3000 × 2250 300 dpi Decimal value Widescreen Pixels (horizontal × vertical) Dots-per-inch (horizontal and vertical) 50 667 × 375 50 dpi 96 (default) 1280 × 720 96 dpi 100 1333 × 750 100 dpi 150 2000 × 1125 150 dpi 200 2667 × 1500 200 dpi 250 3333 × 1875 250 dpi 300 4000 × 2250 300 dpi - Click Decimal, and then click OK.
- On the File menu, click Exit to exit Registry Editor.
So now you output your file as a video file, usually that would be in mp4 (or maybe *.mov) on a mac. It usually takes a PC 1-3hours to render a 1 hour video. You need the space on your HD as well. Say 5gb for the raw footage and 1-2gb for the master....and thats for one lecture
9. Uploading
Check the rendered file for errors and comedy moments. Now, once happy, you need to upload the file to a friendly popular video server. OK, youtube. Youtube will accept any size file, any resolution, any length.....but you might need an account in "good standing" with some small uploads first. Vimeo is a nice alternative and videos can be password protected on vimeo but not youtube.
10. Advertise
Once youtube has your file, it will compress it internally and give you the link. Choose a good title, and description. You can add comments and links on top of the youtube file in post-post processing. Test the link, then finally send the link to your intended audience.
ALTERNATIVELY, all too much trouble? Ask you friend audio-visual team to do all this for you!
