Creating Screencasts with OS X Snow Leopard

Snow Leopard includes all of the tools you need to create a high quality screencast. However, you have to get the settings right or the video quality will be poor.

Steps:
1) Capture Screencast with QuickTime Player
2) Edit with iMovie

Capture Screencast with QuickTime Player

This is pretty straightforward.

First, change your display resolution to 1024x768. You want to capture the screencast with the same resolution it will be encoded and viewed in.

Next, launch QuickTime Player and select: File > New Screen Recording



Be sure to specify your microphone, select High Quality, and specify where you want to save the file. My internal microphone works well, but you may want to use an external mic.





Now you are set to capture the screencast. Do a short test first to ensure the audio level sounds good. Create your screencast clips.

Edit your Screencast with iMovie

The most important step in iMovie is to select the "HDV 720p" format when creating the iMovie project.



I won't go into the details of editing with iMovie. It is fairly easy to figure out.

1) drag your screencast clips into the project.
2) drag them into the correct play sequence editor at the bottom
3) trim your clips
4) add titles
5) Export the video

Trim Clips

In the editor, find the position where you want to trim a clip. Select Edit > Split Video Clip at Playhead. Then delete the piece you wish to trim out.

Add a Title

Click the "Editing" tab on the lower right toolbar.

Export the Video

After your editing is complete you are ready to create the final video. It is important to use the correct settings here.

To start, select "Share > Share" from the menubar. Select "Expert Settings". I export my screencasts as MPEG-4. Most video on the web is currently streamed in flash video. I have Flash 8 on my Mac. However, something is not compatible and the audio cuts out when I encode as Flash. I do the Flash encoding on another machine or allow my video host to do the encoding. You may be able to skip MPEG-4 and encode straight to Flash.



Click on the "Options" button to specify encoding settings. These are the encoding settings I use.



Click the "Video Options" button to specify multi-pass encoding mode.


Audio Settings


That's it. Click Save to start the encoding process. It may take a while.

I am not a video professional. If you have tips on improving this process, your comments are welcome!