20% Project Update: Screencasting

I have a powerpoint that I would like to easily convert into a presentation on youtube with my audio lecture recorded. I have investigated some of the screencasting options that were suggested to me by my professor, and I also have researched some on my own. Here are my findings:

Screencasting Research
Screenr and Jing allow you to record for up to five minutes and seem to be very user-friendly.
I didn't like the five minute time constraint, because my powerpoint presentations usually take a little closer to ten minutes for various historical topics. Therefore, I decided to go with Camtasia which is Jing's "older sibling" according to the company website. What I liked about Camtasia is that they offer you a free 30 day trial, and to get it all you have to do is give your e-mail. Some other screencasting options offered free trials, but they involved giving them your credit card number, which I didn't want to do.

Camtasia Tutorials
I received an e-mail from Camtasia that gave me the direct link to the tutorial videos for Camtasia. I watched the first four videos which each averaged about 2 minutes. The first 4 videos are the basics of Camtasia, preparing to record, the actual recording, and the editing options. I also watched the tutorial videos on "smart focus to zoom and pan" and "callouts." The zooming option is similar to what happens on Prezi, but since I am doing a powerpoint, I don't really anticipate using it. What I was excited to discover was the addition of "callouts" which in essence are arrows that can focus on certain aspects of your presentation. I do anticipate using that during my powerpoint lecture. I also watched the "sharing" tutorial which discusses how to share the video through screencast.com, but it shows that one of the options is to share through youtube. I imagine that steps would be similar, so I am excited to see that it seems easy to share the video on youtube once I am done.