Alan Stainer

Tech head through and through.

YouTube videos, what do you use?

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YouTube videos, what do you use?

Last week I started making some YouTube videos under the guise of South Downs Web.

They are all short (so far) and about Google+ (so far). I used a Linux app called recordMyDesktop to – erm – record my desktop, which is really simple to use and appears to work well. I have found a little bit of oddness when recording full screen, in that the desktop background flickers in and out around the edges for no apparent reason. Hopefully a bug fix will sort that eventually.

To enable it to use my webcam’s microphone, I also needed to install PulseAudio Volume Control (which is great anyway, so I recommend using that if you have Linux).

At the beginning of each video, I have animated my logo and done a title screen that fades in. To create those I used a program called Synfig Studio. It’s fairly straightforward to use, although for a beginner I definitely recommend reading some of the documentation and tutorials. In case you are wondering about the possibilities of Synfig Studio, check out this YouTube video. It”ll blow your socks off. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PThy9_RZQ8c

Now, to pull everything together (animations, tittle screens and desktop sessions) I used Shotcut. It’s a simple program to install on Linux, but you can also get it for Windows and Mac too. If you try using it, make sure you watch the tutorials, as they are a great help. You’ll have to excuse the creatore mispronouncing gnome though…

Anyway, why am I telling you all this? Well three reasons really.

1. If you would like to watch the videos and/or subscribe, that would be magic. I am resisting the urge to link to them directly here though, so go and find them. :D

2. All of the programs I have mentioned are free (oh yeah, logo was done in Inkscape which is also free) as they are all under GNU General Public License (GNU GPL.

3. Any constructive feedback about the videos is welcome. It is all new to me and apart from the second video, I have tried to do everything in one take (the second one took two).

Last, but by no means least, I have really enjoyed playing around with videos and animation. Once you get over the initial learning curve, it turns out it is a lot of fun!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PThy9_RZQ8c

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Comments

  1. Edwin Devey says

    Love this article Alan Stainer and very generous of you to share. I found the three videos and like that they are useful, short and informative.

  2. Alan Stainer says

    Thanks Edwin Devey I didn’t want to make them too long, or sound too rehearsed. I think it makes it more conversational and immediate that way. At least I hope it does!

  3. Edwin Devey says

    I think you got the balance right. I hate those ‘how to’ tutorials that start with 4 minutes aimless chatter while folders are being found.