any solution to record ppt

[George2]

Hi guys,

I am looking for soluton to record ppt, which in more details, when a speaker is presenting ppt, I can record speaker audio/speaker video/ppt in the form of html to store it on a web server. And any time later, people could navigate through the table of content of ppt from specific web server URL, to watch for audio/speaker video/ppt.

I have tried Camtasia, but not very good, since it records to an intermediate format called .camrec format, and then we have to render the intermediate format to the desired format like flash or wmv. I want to record to the desired format directly, without any additional intermediate format and rendering/producing process.

thanks in advance,
George

[guns1inger]

One of the reasons Camtasia's output is so good is exactly because it records to it's own optimised format, and allows you to then do quality re-encodes to other formats as needed. I doubt you will get the same quality going directly to highly compressed formats such as FLV or WMV. And given it only takes a few seconds to start Camtasia re-encoding, it hardly seems worth the effort.

That said, if you look in the tools section you will find a selection of desktop capture tools. None are as fully featured, and none have a dedicated powerpoint plugin.

[poisondeathray]

Do you have access to the presenter's original ppt slides? (i.e. how are you getting the timing down? or are you screen recording the presenter's PC). If you are recording the speaker's voice, you probably have an external mic setup anyways, so you would probably want to re-encode the audio to a more compatible streaming format

Camtasia can record directly to avi as well (and any vfw video and acm audio codecs installed on your system), so it might be as simple as swaping containers (no re-encoding, no quality loss, takes seconds)

[mp3superfreak]

The Windows Media Encoder (free from Microsoft) does a good job of screen recordings directly to WMV using the WMV Screen format. However, there are a few caveats:

1) If you are recording the powerpoint presentation during a live event, it works best to have WME installed on the presenter's laptop. (not always an option)

2) The best quality vs. filesize in WME for screen captures is using the "WMV Screen" format, but it does not do well with motion video (you mentioned the presenter's audio AND video).

If you want inexpensive (and don't want any post production), this is your best bet .

[lordsmurf]

The newer versions of PowerPoint have a video export function. It may be an optional component that has to be downloaded from Microsoft.com

Your quality will suck if you try to go directly to WMV or FLV. We're talking big ugly blocks.

[George2]

Thanks lordsmurf,

The effect I want to have is like Microsoft research channel, for example like the below video, it has speaker video/audio/slides, and user could click the sildes to navigate to the exact video/audio section. If there is no speaker video, it is also fine.

http://www.researchchannel.org/prog/displayevent.aspx?rID=21202&fID=4765

I am wondering whether the plug-in you mentioned has could achieve the effects I mentioned? Could you send me an URL about the plaug-in you mentioned? There are a lot of PowerPoint plug-ins and I am not sure which one is the one you mentioned.

The newer versions of PowerPoint have a video export function. It may be an optional component that has to be downloaded from Microsoft.com

Your quality will suck if you try to go directly to WMV or FLV. We're talking big ugly blocks.

regards,
George

[George2]

Thanks mp3superfreak,

The effect I want to have is like Microsoft research channel, for example like the below video, it has speaker video/audio/slides, and user could click the sildes to navigate to the exact video/audio section. If there is no speaker video, it is also fine.

http://www.researchchannel.org/prog/displayevent.aspx?rID=21202&fID=4765

I am wondering whether the WME you mentioned has could achieve the effects I mentioned? I have tried to use WME, but seems it does not have function to let user nagivate related ppt slides to jump to related speaker video/audio?

The Windows Media Encoder (free from Microsoft) does a good job of screen recordings directly to WMV using the WMV Screen format. However, there are a few caveats:

1) If you are recording the powerpoint presentation during a live event, it works best to have WME installed on the presenter's laptop. (not always an option)

2) The best quality vs. filesize in WME for screen captures is using the "WMV Screen" format, but it does not do well with motion video (you mentioned the presenter's audio AND video).

If you want inexpensive (and don't want any post production), this is your best bet .

regards,
George

[George2]

Thanks poisondeathray,

For your questions, yes I have the presenter ppt. Actually what I am doing is in a classroom, I want to record teacher's video/audio/ppt on teacher's laptop, then after class students could play back them. Camtasia could record to avi directly, but in this way, there is no solution to let end user to navigate the slides, i.e. end user could click some slides then video/audio jumps to the related position. For the voice recording, I am using laptop's built-in mic, and the effect is acceptable so far.

The effect I want to have is like Microsoft research channel, for example like the below video, it has speaker video/audio/slides, and user could click the sildes to navigate to the exact video/audio section. If there is no speaker video, it is also fine. Any further ideas or comments?

http://www.researchchannel.org/prog/displayevent.aspx?rID=21202&fID=4765

Do you have access to the presenter's original ppt slides? (i.e. how are you getting the timing down? or are you screen recording the presenter's PC). If you are recording the speaker's voice, you probably have an external mic setup anyways, so you would probably want to re-encode the audio to a more compatible streaming format

Camtasia can record directly to avi as well (and any vfw video and acm audio codecs installed on your system), so it might be as simple as swaping containers (no re-encoding, no quality loss, takes seconds)

regards,
George

[George2]

Thanks guns1inger,

1.

For my requirement, I could sacrifice the quality if I can skip the reproducing process to convert from camrec format to other format, like flv/wmv. The major reason why I can not accept the reproducing process is, it is too slow. I have tried to record 1 hour ppt using Camtasia Studio 6, and it takes me almost 30 minutes to convert to flv format. And it is not just "a few seconds" as you mentioned.

But maybe my usage of Camtasia is wrong. I am wondering how much time do you need to producing 1 hour screen recording to other format? Any ideas to improve the performance of producing process?

2.

Actually what I am doing is in a classroom, I want to record teacher's video/audio/ppt on teacher's laptop, then after class students could play back them. The effect I want to have is like Microsoft research channel, for example like the below video, it has speaker video/audio/slides, and user could click the sildes to navigate to the exact video/audio section. If there is no speaker video, it is also fine. Any further ideas or comments?

http://www.researchchannel.org/prog/displayevent.aspx?rID=21202&fID=4765

3. A dedicated powerpoint plug-in is not necesary, achieve the needs in 2 is what I want and should be enough.

One of the reasons Camtasia's output is so good is exactly because it records to it's own optimised format, and allows you to then do quality re-encodes to other formats as needed. I doubt you will get the same quality going directly to highly compressed formats such as FLV or WMV. And given it only takes a few seconds to start Camtasia re-encoding, it hardly seems worth the effort.

That said, if you look in the tools section you will find a selection of desktop capture tools. None are as fully featured, and none have a dedicated powerpoint plugin.

regards,
George

[lordsmurf]

I've never seen anything like that.
Good luck.

[George2]

No problem, lordsmurf! Appreciate if other people could share some ideas!

I've never seen anything like that.
Good luck.

regards,
George

[guns1inger]

The research channel has two separate sets of assets. The slides and videos are independent of each other. You can watch the video and flick the slides at your own pace, but at any time you can sync the slides back the video, or you can play the video associated with a slide. To do this requires that you film your speaker separately, then edit the video into clips that go with each slide. You would then need an application architecture that would allow you to index the slides and videos so you can pair them up, and also some method to allow the user to control them. No standard screen recording package provides this level of custom output.

[George2]

Thanks, I like your idea of "You would then need an application architecture that would allow you to index the slides and videos so you can pair them up, and also some method to allow the user to control them." -- do you have some reference open source or documents or similar products for me start?

The research channel has two separate sets of assets. The slides and videos are independent of each other. You can watch the video and flick the slides at your own pace, but at any time you can sync the slides back the video, or you can play the video associated with a slide. To do this requires that you film your speaker separately, then edit the video into clips that go with each slide. You would then need an application architecture that would allow you to index the slides and videos so you can pair them up, and also some method to allow the user to control them. No standard screen recording package provides this level of custom output.

regards,
George

[guns1inger]

Flash would be the simplest platform for beginners.

[George2]

Flash is the technology, what I need is a point to start as a solution -- which syncs audio/video/ppt. Any further ideas?

Flash would be the simplest platform for beginners.

[guns1inger]

Each video and slide is a separate flash movie. The rest comes down to scripting and planning. Each video asset has a matching slide asset. This should make is simple to keep it all in sync.

But if you thought re-encoding your video took too much time, then you aren't going to be happy with how much time it will take you to set all this up.

[poisondeathray]

George2 - "Flash" can mean several different things: it's a platform, but can also refer to a video format

One way to do this is through Adobe Flash, as in building a website using Action Script 3.0. You have to learn about flash for websites and scripting, but basically you could add cue points to correspond to the sync points in the video. Since you have access to the original slides, they can be saved as simple jpegs and used as assets.

Here is an example and walkthrough using a template
http://www.adobe.com/devnet/flash/articles/vidtemplate_corppreso.html

The "competing" solution is Microsoft Expression, and you could use Encoder 2 to generate assets, and the combination of Web 2 and and Blend 2 to generate interactivity for the website. The MS solution is based on the Silverlight platform as opposed to Flash

There might be some 1-click retail applications based on templates to help simplify the process, but I don't know of any offhand

[hingis]

you should better buying a mac...
keynote is doing everthing that you need, great presentations...

[George2]

poisondeathray, since I am using wmv as existing format for legacy videos, I prefer to use Encoder 2/Web 2/Blend 2. Are there any good documents or samples for me to start?

George2 - "Flash" can mean several different things: it's a platform, but can also refer to a video format

One way to do this is through Adobe Flash, as in building a website using Action Script 3.0. You have to learn about flash for websites and scripting, but basically you could add cue points to correspond to the sync points in the video. Since you have access to the original slides, they can be saved as simple jpegs and used as assets.

Here is an example and walkthrough using a template
http://www.adobe.com/devnet/flash/articles/vidtemplate_corppreso.html

The "competing" solution is Microsoft Expression, and you could use Encoder 2 to generate assets, and the combination of Web 2 and and Blend 2 to generate interactivity for the website. The MS solution is based on the Silverlight platform as opposed to Flash

There might be some 1-click retail applications based on templates to help simplify the process, but I don't know of any offhand

[George2]

Sorry hingis, I have to use Windows platform. Any ideas or suggestions on this platform?

you should better buying a mac...
keynote is doing everthing that you need, great presentations...

[George2]

Thanks for your great ideas, guns1inger! Do you have some documents or samples for me to start-up?

Each video and slide is a separate flash movie. The rest comes down to scripting and planning. Each video asset has a matching slide asset. This should make is simple to keep it all in sync.

But if you thought re-encoding your video took too much time, then you aren't going to be happy with how much time it will take you to set all this up.

[poisondeathray]

poisondeathray, since I am using wmv as existing format for legacy videos, I prefer to use Encoder 2/Web 2/Blend 2. Are there any good documents or samples for me to start?

Sorry, I'm not too familiar with silverlight or MS's implementation. You can try searching Google, but I doubt you'll find much documentation or help because it's not as "popular" as flash

If you want accessibility for your audience/students etc.., I strongly recommend switching everything over to Adobe Flash. It dominates the market and >99% of machines have it installed compared to <25% for MS Silverlight. e.g. If your PC can access and playback YouTube, it has Flash Player 9 or greater installed. As an analogy, if this was a blu-ray vs. HD-DVD format war, Adobe would be blu-ray and Silverlight would be HD-DVD

This is more of a web programming issue rather than a video issue.

Maybe some "1-click" solutions you might explore which can export to web:
http://www.presentersoft.com/products.htm
http://www.ispringsolutions.com/product_map.html

I would still use the flash method suggested earlier, it allows the most control and much more elegant.

But if you are content with just the speaker's voice synced to the slides, you could just encode the slides to video (by screen recording the presetner's pc to keep the sync timing), and replace the audio with the speaker's voice.

[George2]

Thanks poisondeathray,

1.

I have tried, but both products do not support table of content of PPT syncing with speaker video/audio, i.e. when user click a specific slide of PPT, the speaker's video and audio are jumped to related position of the PPT slide. Correct me if I am wrong.

2.

But if you are content with just the speaker's voice synced to the slides, you could just encode the slides to video (by screen recording the presetner's pc to keep the sync timing), and replace the audio with the speaker's voice.

I am interested how such kinds of software could capture speaker's operation of moving to next slides? (My idea is they have a slides time table -- mapping time range which a specific slide belong to, then sync the range with video/audio, my question is how such time table for slides are generated?)

[poisondeathray]

I am interested how such kinds of software could capture speaker's operation of moving to next slides? (My idea is they have a slides time table -- mapping time range which a specific slide belong to, then sync the range with video/audio, my question is how such time table for slides are generated?)

There's probably several ways, but the most common would be done in Adobe Flash CS4 with cue points, as mentioned earlier. This is basically expanding on what Gunslinger said above: You have your assets, which would include the video/audio, slides, and a drop down menu which contains a description of "events" or "chapters" using cue points to ff/rwd the video to set points. There is virtually no limit to your designs on the web page. e.g. it doesn't have to be a simple drop down menu, it could be a semi-transparent animated floating overlay menu. This is a web programming issue, you will have to be familiar with action script which is part of Flash.

Camtasia has "Camtasia Theater" which can generate html , xml config, js etc.. all the stuff you need to upload to a webpage. It generates a clickable menu on the left (so you could have introduction, topic 1, topic 2 etc...) as individual assets (videos) play in the main window and is super easy to use. The problem in you case is that you have 2 sets of assets (video slides, and speaker video). So what you might do, if you don't care for the speaker's video, is just to screen record the ppt slides and record the voice. Cut this up into segments (post production directly in Camtasia or another application) e.g. introduction, topic 1, topic 2, conclusion etc... and run it through Camtasia Theatre to generate the interactive menu with video. The sync points corresponding to each topic is taken care for you because each is essentially a separate video. The speaker sync to slides is taken care of, because it was recorded as you recorded the screen. You can even combine them into 1 video, by having the slides in 1 box and the speaker in another box on top of each other as 1 video, with the menu to control. It's not as good as doing it in Adobe Flash CS4 where you have unlimited options, but this method is easier to do. Here is a tutorial, but you get the general idea:
http://video.techsmith.com/camtasia/5/edu/newfeatures/enu/theater/theater.html