User:Torley Linden/Vidtut process

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

Capture

  • Record raw footage inworld using Camtasia or FRAPS. I usually:
    • Set Second Life screen resolution to 1024x768 in Sizer — the actual dimensions are 1032x802 due to window UI chrome.
    • Scale SL UI to 1.200.
    • Set audio volumes.
  • When recording is done, gather raw footage into a template folder and rename it with the title of the tutorial.

Production

  • 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.

Encoding

  • 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: Photo - JPEG
      • Compressed depth: 24 bpp color
      • Quality: 100% (near lossless)
    • 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 the render's done, open in QuickTime Player and export with these settings (NOTE: I switched from "Main" to "Baseline" profile because the latter works on iPods):

Vidtut-encode.png

Upload to YouTube

Free streaming, cheap 'n' cheerful. I may soon be transitioning to TubeMogul.

  • 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 = Education
    • 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", select the MP4, and upload it. Video usually goes live several minutes later.

Upload to Amazon S3

These are the high-quality downloadable versions.

  • Use S3Fox and drag-and-drop the MP4 into the uploader.
  • Right-click the "vidtuts" folder, select "Edit ACL", enable Read for all (green checkmarks), check "Apply to subfolders" (useful for multiple vidtut uploads), then click "OK".

Update the Second Life Podcast

  • Add a new item. (I still want a better RSS editor, text-only is cumbersome.) Use this template:

<xml> <item> <title>Tip of the Week #23: Using SLURLs for easy travel - Second Life Video TuTORial</title> <itunes:author>Torley Linden of Linden Lab</itunes:author> <itunes:subtitle>Video Tutorial</itunes:subtitle> <itunes:summary>Learn Second Life in a fun and fast fashion! Whether you're a newcomer or experienced Resident, you'll benefit from these video tutorials. Watch more @ http://torley.com/vidtuts</itunes:summary> <enclosure url="http://vidtuts.s3.amazonaws.com/SLTotW-23-Using-SLURLs-for-easy-travel.mp4" length="75154554" type="video/mp4" /> <guid>http://vidtuts.s3.amazonaws.com/SLTotW-23-Using-SLURLs-for-easy-travel.mp4</guid> <pubDate>Thu, 21 Feb 2008 4:44:44 PST</pubDate> <itunes:duration>0:10:17</itunes:duration> <itunes:keywords>Linden Lab, secondlife, second life, video tutorial, tip, trick, game, world, 3d, online, virtual, avatar, screencast, help, machinima, love, sl</itunes:keywords> <itunes:explicit>no</itunes:explicit> <description> Learn Second Life in a fun and fast fashion! Whether you're a newcomer or experienced Resident, you'll benefit from these video tutorials. Watch more @ http://torley.com/vidtuts </description> </item> </xml>

Blog about it

  • 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 it

  • Log into blog-like tool.
  • Copy-and-paste earlier blog posting into WLW (to strip font irregularies), then 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:
Getvidtut.png WATCH THE VIDEO
<img height="16" src="http://torley.s3.amazonaws.com/Getvidtut.png" width="16" align="absMiddle" border="0"></a><strong><a href="http://vidtuts.s3.amazonaws.com/****">WATCH VIDEO</a></strong>

Wikify it

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

Add it to inworld movie player

[TITLE], [URL]

Afterwards

  • 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. :)