[Web4lib] responses to questions about tutorial creation

[Ellie Dworak]

Colleagues -

Thank you so much for all of your helpful responses to my questions about
software and hardware for tutorials creation. Following is a compilation of
the answers I received.

(1)    If you have the budget, try to get two laptops and duplicate
software, and maybe even other hardware.  That way you're covered if
someone has a laptop locked in her desk, if he took it home with him,
etc.  Plus, two people/groups can work on things at the same time.  (2)
Don't skimp on the microphone.  It's probably the cheapest item on the
list, but if you use a cheap microphone, it will sound like it.  We made
that mistake where I used to work.  (3)  I've used Camtasia and I like
it, but Captivate also comes highly recommended.  (4) A good tripod can
help a lot if you're shooting videos.  You can hook the camera controls
on to the some tripods, so you don't have to touch the camera while
shooting.

By the way, if you're shooting videos, you can make cue cards with
printer paper taped on paper box box tops.  If you hold the cue cards
directly above or below the camera, the speaker can read the script and
it will look like he/she is looking directly into the camera.

 (2)    Make sure you have a full 4G of memory.  Or more if the operating
system will support it.

 (3)    Unfortunately I don't have too much to add, but you can probably get
a high-end laptop with a built-in webcam. Hopefully you'll have fewer
technical problems with the camera that way, and hopefully it will be easier
for the librarians to use.

 (4)   I bought a laptop to process video, and the problem that I have is
since I am shooting HD Video, the video card in the laptop, which has 4 gb
of ram and an 8400 nvidia video card,  takes 14 hours to render a 1.5 hour
lecture.  My tower pc, which has a 2gb video card,  with 6 gb of ram, takes
about 4 hours to render the same size video.  If you shoot HD[high
definition] video, you probably want to get a desktop/tower pc with a good
video card, 1.7 to 2 gb card with 6-10 gb of ram and an I-7 cpu to process
the videos.  If you are shooting low resolution videos that will be viewed
only on the Internet, then a laptop will probably work but I would get the
best video card offered and at least 4 gb of ram.  You can get your laptop
to recognize the 4th gig of ram by having a 4 gb flash drive and use it for
memory boost, this lets the computer find that 4th gig of ram, otherwise,
with 32 bit Vista, your computer will only see and use 3 gigabytes of ram. I
use a Cannon HF10 video camera and it takes beautiful video but it uses
avchd compression codec, so some software won't process it,  Adobe Premiere
CS4 and Sony Vegas Movie Studio will.  I hope this helps.  I would reccomend
getting Vista 64 bit operating system so that your computer can work with
all the ram that is on your system, assuming you put 8 or more gigabytes on
there.  I like the Sony Vegas Movie Studio Platinum 9, it has audio
rendering software, and music soundtracks that you can customize for your
videos included.  Here is a link to that software.
http://www.sonycreativesoftware.com/moviestudiopp


Ellie Dworak
Reference Services Coordinator
Boise State University, Albertsons Library
208-426-1623 | elliedworak at boisestate.edu