best production format for youtube?

[patm...@gmail.com]

I'm trying out some screencasts for YouTube and would love to hear if
anyone has experience with screencasts on that service. They suggest
the following format for best results:

We recommend the MPEG4 (Divx, Xvid) format at 320x240 resolution with
MP3 audio, at 30 frames per second.

[John Kirk]

Here is one that I posted early last year
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yO_lvuE8uZU

It is 320x240 AVI (MPEG4 Xvid).  I will double-check.  Worked in both Camtasia and PowerDirector.

[patm...@gmail.com]

On Jan 14, 3:55 pm, "John Kirk" <coffeegul...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Here is one that I posted early last yearhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yO_lvuE8uZU

> It is 320x240 AVI (MPEG4 Xvid). I will double-check. Worked in both
> Camtasia and PowerDirector.

Thanks - I tried a similar setup, exporting to a Quicktime MOV using
MPEG4 @ 320x240. The end result seems reasonable (at least by YouTube
standards).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5SkBIrgwNz4

-fitz

>
>
> On 1/14/07, patmf...@gmail.com <patmf...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>
> > I'm trying out some screencasts for YouTube and would love to hear if
> > anyone has experience with screencasts on that service. They suggest
> > the following format for best results:
>
> > We recommend the MPEG4 (Divx, Xvid) format at 320x240 resolution with

> > MP3 audio, at 30 frames per second.--
> Thanks,
> John

[Steven...@gmail.com]

I recently did some investigation into the displaying of screencasts on
free hosting services such as YouTube and Metacafe, you can read the
first section of my report here -
http://www.screencastcentral.com/public/119.cfm.

Overall, I found that in most cases, the dimensions allowed by YouTube
of 320 x 240 pixels, were insufficient to display screencasts clearly.
Given the minimum resolution of a modern day computer screen is 800 x
600, by shrinking to 320 x 240, you lose approximately 80% of the
information. Any text is so small that it is impossible read.

For example, compare the following two screencasts - the first is
hosted at YouTube, and the second on www.ScreencastCentral.com

YouTube - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V92CDy5P1aU

ScreencastCentral - http://www.screencastcentral.com/members/115.cfm

Regards,

StevenH

[patm...@gmail.com]

Thanks; I agree that YouTube is not the best delivery method; I
generally like to publish in Flash to my own site. But if you can get
away with recording a smaller portion of the screen it might be doable.

[cjmc...@gmail.com]

This seems to smell like a covert advertisement for ScreencastCentral.
If you really wanted to use YouTube (or its many derivatives) you can
plan your screencast such that you zoom-in on the important portions
with text. If you're going to plug a screencast hosting company, we
should at least mention TechSmith's Screencast.com, since it will let
anyone view your screencast without a 'student' membership of $15.00 a
month like ScreencastCentral.com.

So, the moral is, either plan your video such that you can use a free
service (I prefer Brightcove.com), or use a service that doesn't cost
your audience money (Screencast.com).

- Chris McQueen

[coffee...@gmail.com]

There are so many "video sharing" websites. Are there any sites that
are similiar to Screencast.com that are free?

Here are a few video sharing sites that I have found.

Gotuit
Gofish
Youtube
Metacafe
Livevideo
Brightcove - thanks to Chris

Feel free to add your favorites to this list.

[cjmc...@gmail.com]

Great list there. Thanks for looking those up.

- Chris

[TomC]

Hi Chris

Thanks for your observations

When you say "use a service that doesn't cost your audience money" -
where should the payment come from to fund the presentations?.

How do screencasters share and monetize their presentations?

At Screencast.com you are charged for hosting your screencasts and
there is a sliding scale for bandwidth and hosting - more views and
content = more charges, therefore you are 'penalised' for posting a
truly successful screencast.
There's no clear path as to how you will ever earn revenues from your
work.
But their player skin shows your screencast to it's original glory
Free to the audience, because you pay for it (!)

At the video hosting sites, (YouTube, Metacafe, Uncutvideo etc.) there
is a compromise with the player formats not suiting the screencasting
recording format. So though, it's free to the audience, the quality
suffers.
There's also the problem with adult content - with either previews
showing in the options at the end of a screencast or the comments area
being spammed
However, they have sorted out revenue sharing schemes.

(I prefer to use www.veoh.com as a way of distributing video to
multiple hosts)

I own ScreencastCentral and it's a 'work in progress'
I feel that there is real value in the materials we have posted there
and I know there is a real cost for the bandwidth and traffic :-)
There is a 3 day trial where a person can look at any of the
screencasts hosted there for free
We send out a free screencast of the week to our list and include
presentations by other screencasters
Ultimately, it's not a free site - for the reason that the people who
watch the presentations will be vested in them and pay toward the
hosting and bandwidth costs of providing them.
This creates an opportunity to offer affiliate income to the
screencasters who provided the content
The aim is to provide ad revenue sharing with the Screencast Coaches -
but it is early days.
So it's free to the audience for a limited time.

Over at www.shoresmedia.com - Mike offers a fee for screencasts and
pays a percentage of his sales to those who have contributed to his
library.
Eg - if your 'thing' is Acrobat and you have contributed 50% of the
material to his library on Acrobat and he gets an order from a
corporate client - he pays half that order over (which I think is
excellent)
Mike tends to deal with corporate clients who have 5000 or so
employees.
He shows off free examles of his library and charges an annual fee to
access the whole lot (over 6 gig of training)

Brian at www.tubetorials.com has a very nice looking site and he asks
for screencasts offering to host them on your behalf and give you all
the glory.
They have ad deals to fund their hosting etc.
There's no mention of revenue share

Lynda - http://www.lynda.com/authorsnew.asp - are after new 'authors'
- but I think I am getting off the track here as it's getting more
specialist.

Most everyone else hosts their screencasts on a blog or web-site.
There's no aggregation of content or audience base.
It's free to the audience. but the hosting/bandwidth is down to the
screencaster

Should the audience get used to and "expect" free screencasts?

If so, how will screencasters fund their presentations - IT,
screencast software, application upgrades etc.?

Regards

TomC