User:Torley Linden/Vidtut process

How my video tutorials reach the world. A behind-the-scenes glimpse at the step-by-steps:

Creation

• Record raw footage inworld using Camtasia or FRAPS. Current hot key to start/stop is F8. I usually:
  • Set Second Life screen resolution to 1024x768 in Sizer.
  • Scale UI to 1.200.
  • Raise UI sounds to full volume.

• When recording is done, gather raw footage into a folder and rename it with the title of the tutorial.

• Load "Video Tutorial Template" in Sony Vegas, containing basic outline and track setup. (Continues to be revised over time.)

• Drag-and-drop movie clips on master video track. Trim ends and crossfade into each other as desired.

• Move around ending bumper to fit.

• Use "Video Event Pan/Crop" at appropriate places in the timeline to provide zoomed-in focus on UI elements.

• Ctrl-drag to copy text media template to appropriate places in timeline and customize it. (Sometimes I customize start + end titles at this point too.)

• Reword captions as I go along. Stretch text media if some needs to last longer. Other settings, like Placement, can also be changed to provide optimum visibility without impairing other stuff.

• Solo stereo audio voiceover track, export as mono WAV.

• Open audio in Sony Sound Forge, open "Torley's Video Tutorial processing" setting and process the WAV in the Batch Converter.

• Drag-and-drop the WAV back into Vegas in the "MASTER" voiceover track, mute original (non-processed) voiceover.

• Add MP3 music (often one of my own compositions so I don't have to worry about licensing) to the -21 dB (I found this provides a good balance, audible without being too intrusive) audio track.

• Fade and trim ends as appropriate.

• Add some extra gloss (transition effects) — I like to experiment, sometimes obviously, sometimes more subtle, with different techniques in each vid.

• Re-watch vid a couple of times to make sure everything's in its right place. Polish anything else stray I find.

• Render vid to "QuickTime 7" with these settings:

** Project tab:

• • • Video rendering quality: Best
  • Video tab:
    • Frame size: 640x480 (square pixel, meant to be played back on computer screens)
    • Frame rate: 24
    • Field order: None (progressive scan)
    • Pixel aspect ratio: 1.000
    • Video format: Animation
    • Compressed depth: 24 bpp color
    • Quality: 100% (lossless)
    • Keyframe every (frames): 150
  • Audio tab:
    • "Include audio" checked
    • Audio format: Uncompressed
    • Sample rate (Hz): 44,100
    • Bit depth: 16
    • Channels: Stereo
  • Streaming:
    • "Prepare for streaming" checked
    • Optimization: Fast Start

• When rendering's done, upload it to my YouTube page. Keep in mind YouTube reduces resolution further, drops frame rate to 15 FPS, changes audio from stereo to mono (ugh!), etc. so I like to have a higher-rez version to distribute. Remember, you can easily degrade quality, but it isn't so easy to upsample.

• While uploading's happening, work on accompanying blog post or fill in other info that could usefully be multitasked.

• Shortly after uploading's done, I sometimes watch the vid to make sure things turned out alright, then I post to the blog or otherwise further communicate about my new vidtut.

The above is subject to iteration, but hopefully provides a wealth of insights into how I do what I do. :)

Sony Vegas

• Export video as

YouTube

• After vidtut is rendered to .MP4, upload it to YT.
• Fill out Video Upload form thusly:
  • Title = "Second Life TuTORial - " or "SL TuTORial - " (if tip title is too long), followed by tip title.
  • Description = Some minimalist variant pointing to http://torley.com
  • Video Category = Howto & Style
  • Tags = second life secondlife tips tricks school tutorial knowledge base learn education teach online world tech community love (in the future, I may want to vary these further).
• Click "Upload a video" then select the .MP4 and upload it. Video usually goes live several minutes later.

Blog

• Open up template, craft blog post in Windows Live Writer, and set it to publish in the future on Thursday (when Tip of the Weeks tend to show up).
• Include supplemental pictures, word explanations, and other relevant content addendum that didn't make it into the video. Related resources links always a plus.
• Test pre-published link to assure quality.

Showcase

• Log into blog-like tool.
• Copy-and-paste earlier blog posting into this, and publish it. NOTE: This tool can't publish in advance yet, so this is done nearer to the time or shortly after the aforementioned blog post appears.
• Check for any significant content inconsistencies, most notably that embedded videos don't work, so I'll need to replace them with links like this:

Watch the Tip of the Week video here

Wiki

• Update Video Tutorials with the newest, most likely a new "#" under all the previous TotWs.

Afterwards

• Embrace incoming feedback from my beloved community and use lovely ideas to fuel future vidtuts .