My Screen Recorder Pro v2.67

Distributing Screen Recordings

It's easy to create web site tutorials, software  marketing materials, or sales presentations using My Screen Recorder Pro.  In this article, we examine the different ways of distributing your recordings using My Screen Recorder Pro and Video Edit Magic.

Distribute by Generating an Executable

Screen recordings created as AVI files can be packaged into an executable file using My Screen Recorder Pro.  This executable includes a built-in player that displays the screen recordings—the viewer doesn't need any player or viewing software.  Once an executable has been generated, you can use any CD or DVD burning software to copy the newly-created executable onto a CD or DVD disk.

Distribute Through Streaming Web Servers by Converting to WMV

Let's look at other ways to distribute your screen recordings.  You can place your screen recordings on your web site or use a video streaming service such as Video Desk.  First, you should convert your AVI screen recordings to WMV or SWF format.  For more information on how to do this please refer to Creating Screen Recordings for Web Streaming.

You can create an HTML page with your screen recordings embedded in it.  All you have to do is:
  1. Click Convert on the Tools menu.
  2. The Conversion Wizard opens.  Select WMV or SWF format, and go to the HTML Embedding (Optional) page.
  3. Check the Embed video into a HTML file option.
  4. Select Video Alignment as Left, Center or Right to control where you want the embedded video to appear on the HTML page.
  5. To customize the video player, check the Show play controls box.  For conversion to SWF, you can choose Play controls alignment as Top or Bottom.
  6. Check the Start playing when page is opened box if you want the video to play instantly.  Otherwise the viewer will start the playback by pressing the Play button.

It is recommended that you convert AVI-format recordings to WMV or SWF before embedding, because files in these formats are much smaller, which results in quicker downloads.  Both WMV and SWF files are also designed for streaming, which means that playback will start much more quickly.  AVI files must be downloaded completely before they can be played.

Distribute Videos on a DVD For Playback on a PC or Standard DVD Player

To distribute your recordings on a standard DVD, you will need Video Edit Magic.  Typically, the display resolution of a PC is 1024 x 768 pixels or higher.  On the other hand, standard DVD video uses a resolution of 720 x 480 pixels (NTSC) or 720 x 576 pixels (PAL).  When making videos for DVD distribution, Video Edit Magic will resize a screen recording to 720 x 480 pixels (or 720 x 576 pixels for PAL) with only a very small loss of video quality.  The following steps explain how to create screen recordings for playback in DVD players:

  1. On the File Menu in Video Edit Magic, click on Make Movie.  You will then see the following screen.

  2. Video Edit Magic make movie option
  3. Select either MPEG 2 DVD (NTSC) (for distribution in the USA) or MPEG 2 DVD (PAL) (for distribution in Europe).
  4. Click on Next and configure format specific settings.
  5. Click on Next to start the Make Movie process.

Editing Recorded AVI Video

You can also edit recorded videos before distribution using Video Edit Magic to add professional effects and narration.

  1. Launch Video Edit Magic and open a new project by clicking on New Project under the File menu (CTRL + N.  Import your recordings by clicking on Open File in the File Menu (CTRL + I).
  2. Drag the video clip on to the Timeline.
  3. If you do not want to retain the original audio track and want to add narration of your own, click on the audio track and press the delete button.  Connect a microphone to your PC.
  4. Click on Narration from the Tools menu.  Position the slider on the Timeline at the point you want the narration to begin and click Record.  Click on Options to change the Audio Device and the Audio Frequency used for recording.  Click Stop when you are finished narrating.  You'll be asked to give a name, and  your narration will be saved as an AVI file, and automatically added to one of the Audio Tracks.
  5. You can also add Effects and Transitions to your video.  You may need to synchronize the audio and video on the Timeline before saving the project.
  6. Output the edited video in an appropriate format for the distribution medium you have selected.

If your audience is relatively small and has ready access to computers, it is recommended that you create executable files and distribute them on CD or DVD.  To reach a wide audience, it's better to convert your screen recordings to WMV and then host them on a server for streaming.  If your audience does not have access to computers, you can convert your screen recordings MPEG-2 format and create DVDs for distribution.  If your audience doesn't have high-speed access to the Internet, either DVD or executable files may be the correct choice.