A Quick Tutorial on Making a Video Podcast of a Lecture in High Definition

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)

5 On location
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.

1. Exit all Microsoft Windows-based programs.
2. Click Start, and then click Run.
3. In the Open box, type regedit, and then click OK.
4. Expand the registry to the subkey for the version of PowerPoint that you are using:
   
   PowerPoint 2003
   HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\11.0\PowerPoint\Options
   PowerPoint 2007
   
   Note The registry subkey for PowerPoint 2007 will not work with Office 2007 Service Pack 1.
   HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\12.0\PowerPoint\Options
   PowerPoint 2010
   HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\14.0\PowerPoint\Options
   PowerPoint 2013
   HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Office\14.0\PowerPoint\Options
5. Click to select the Options subkey, point to New on the Edit menu, and then click DWORD Value.
6. Type ExportBitmapResolution, and then press Enter.
7. Make sure that ExportBitmapResolution is selected, and then click Modify on the Edit menu.
8. 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

9. Click Decimal, and then click OK.
10. On the File menu, click Exit to exit Registry Editor.

 8. Mastering
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!