Screen Capture Success: Seven Free Ways to Improve Your Screencast

Screen captures, also known as screencasts, have been around for more than a decade. This increasingly popular form of video production is easier than ever to do, and the quality ranges from indecipherable to commercial excellence.

With a little knowledge and effort your screencasts can thrill your viewers and compel them to return for more. The following areas are some of the most commonly seen screen capture issues worthy of attention.

Lower Screen Resolution: While high-resolution allows more information to fit in the screen capture, the sacrifice is a poor quality screen capture coupled with a larger file size. Objects may become unreadable when viewed in smaller dimensions.

Screen Capture Solution: Decide which information in the screen capture is necessary and focus on those areas, using full screen at a minimum. Downsize video resolution to 800 X 600 (16-bit color). Better yet, learn how to zoom (and pan if possible) smaller, relevant areas (e.g. 640 X 480 or 480 X 360) with the capture program or in video editing software.

Quality Screen Recording Software: Screencasts are limited largely to the quality of the screen capture software used, and this varies considerably. While you may get by with free screen capture software, few work very well. Further, price alone doesn't determine the quality of screen capture software.

Screen Capture Solution: Consider TechSmith's SnagIt for a modestly-priced but full-featured screen capture solution. If undecided, download several free and free trial screen capture programs. Evaluate quality and features and compare rather than settle for the first program you try if it's not sufficient.

Bor-ring Presentation: Just as a writer must engage her audience in a few lines of prose, a screen capture publisher needs to grab the viewer's interest within seconds. Beyond 15 is risky and after 30 seconds of boredom, the video is doomed.

Screen Capture Solution: Provide a title screen that brings expectation, use captivating sounds or music, employ good video descriptions that promote a punchline or solution worth waiting for, edit out dead space (long pauses), and avoid some of the worst screen capture mistakes as follows:

Static Screens: Motion is critical to videos and screencasts. How long do you want to stare at the same image?

Screen Capture Solution: Turn off the audio and observe if your video remains at least partially useful or entertaining. If the screen capture means nothing without audio, the presentation is probably unsuitable. Consider what additions will make the video more appealing.

For tutorials: Mouse movement, typing, clear and varied images or angles, zoom and pan, transitions, text callouts, and effective narration will help keep viewer's attention.

Screen Reading: Avoid reading Web pages during a screen capture. By the time you finish the viewer could just as well go to the Web site and read it themselves, and probably will. Product Reviews? Don't read long lists of ingredients unless it is the secret recipe to KFC.

Screen Capture Solution: Review Web sites and products in your own words and narrate useful points during the screen capture. Most viewers expect to know what the label or Web site can't tell them, such as does the product or service work? If the data is important, but boring, consider adding text callouts to your presentation, list the items in a PowerPoint slide, or simply scale down the information provided.

Poor Narration: Most amateur video producers are not voice-over talents, and may be less than comfortable with voice recordings. Consequently, during screen captures, some tend to speak too softly or too fast. Another offense, in the effort to be precise perhaps, is slow, monotone speech.

Screen Capture Solution: Worry less about minor mistakes and more about enthusiasm and relating to the audience at a reasonable pace. Focus on the content. Mistakes can be fixed by retakes and editing.

First, ensure a decent microphone is utilized and that the volume is turned up on the computer and/or microphone. Inexpensive, good microphones are widely available.

If you are concerned that your voice is too loud during screen capture playback, remember that viewers can turn the audio down. Only so much can be done with barely audible words, however. Additionally, not all computers are equipped with good external speakers, particularly laptops, so a higher volume recording helps.

Compression and Codecs:A screen capture may look great until it is compressed, then it may look choppy or out of sync. Sometimes the compression results in too large a file size. At other times it may not work in certain players, such as Windows Media Player.

Screen Capture Solution: Learn about AVI and/or WMV formats to start, or MOV for Mac, and practice with different compression settings. Convert the file with Super Encoder if necessary.

Codecs are yet another issue and a bit complex. One of the best screen capture codecs, called TechSmith, is free and available for download at the TechSmith Web site and works with many screen capture programs.

The Key to Good Screencasts

Edit, edit and edit: Would you read a newspaper article, book or blog filled with poor grammar, little content and illegible words? Video or screen captures contain similar constraints with some additional ones to boot, being both visual and auditory.

Focus on the goal of the screen capture, make concise points, and edit erroneous material. We are not talking primo productions here, but focus on screen captures that are clear, engaging and easy to follow. Perfection is generally not expected, but both effort and professionalism shows.

Lastly, advanced effects and expensive equipment do not ensure a good screencast. But the more techniques you learn with what you do have to work with, the more your screen captures will be valued and viewed.

To learn more about screen capture recording and video tips, check out more of this CP's content and other producers, such as Joniv and Summer Banks.