Cutting and Splicing
Screen Recordings
You're creating an ultra
cool demo for your web
site. Your screen
recording is perfect …
or that's what you
thought until your boss
wanted you to remove the
discussion of one whole
feature, and add in a
section on the new site
map. With My Screen Recorder Pro you can easily remove
the unwanted section and
replace it with a new
one, without having to
recreate the entire
recording. This
article will show you
how, using the split and join features.
As you probably figured
out,
split lets
you break a recording
into pieces, and
join lets you combine two or
more recordings (or two
of the pieces you make
with
split) into a
single movie. I'll
walk through removing an
unwanted piece from the
demo and replacing it
with new material, then
combining them to make
the finished demo.
I'll start with the
splitting process.
Just right-click on the
file in the list, and
select Split file.
The Split AVI Screen
Recordings window
opens.
From the
Output Folder dropdown list select the
folder where you want to
save the file. Click the
New Folder Shortcut button to make a new
folder. Be sure to
choose the
Select portions of a
file to split manually option. The right
side of the window is a
special preview system,
to select the portions
to cut. If you're
going to use this system
to remove a section (as
I am now), remember to
split out the parts you
want to
keep.
You'll reattach them
later. In this
example, we want to
remove a one minute long
section in the middle.
That means we want to
keep everything up to
the beginning of that
section (Split 1) and
also everything from the
end of that section to
the end of the recording
(Split 2). We
never actually mark the
section we're not using
to be split out.
To begin, I mark the start of the section
to cut out. Since
we want to keep the
section starting at the
beginning of the movie,
and since the recording
is currently at the very
beginning, I immediately
click the Mark In button. The entire
length of the movie is
selected, as you can see
by the blue line that
appears. Now I
click the play button
and the movie plays
back. When it
reaches the end of the
part I want to keep (the
beginning of the part
I'm going to lose), I
click the pause button.
I can fine-tune the
position before
splitting the file, by
using the backward and
forward buttons and to
shift one second at a
time.
When I have the right
area marked, I click
Mark Out. The
blue line now indicates
only the part of the
recording I selected
(from the beginning to
the current location, in
this case). Now I
click
Add To List.
The selected region is
added to the
List of
files ready for
splitting. We
need to cut out the end
of the video as well
(skipping the section we
don't need), so I hit
the Play button again.
I pause after the
unwanted material, and
click
Mark In.
To save time, I will
just drag the slider to
the end of the line, and
click
Mark Out. Click
Add To List once more, and I'm asked
if I want to keep
existing splits. I
answer
Yes, and
both of the still-needed
parts are in the
List.
Now it's time to
actually split the
video. I just
click Perform Split and the splitting
begins. The
process of splitting a
recording takes some
time, because the
program has to
uncompress the AVI file,
copy out the video
frames and audio that
are being split off, and
then recompress them
into new compressed AVI
files. You can
watch the progress in
the List while My
Screen Recorder Pro
works.
When it's done, I click
Finish and two
new files exist in My
Screen Recorder Pro's
Folder Shortcut list. The original
file was
ProductDemo.avi.
The two split-off pieces
are
ProductDemo_Split1.avi and
ProductDemo_Split2.avi.
Before joining them,
I'll
record a new segment on the site map, which
I'll call
SiteMap.avi.
Now it's time to join
the two split sections
plus the new recording
into a single movie for
my demo. I'll work
directly from My Screen
Recorder Pro's file
listing. I just
hold down the Ctrl key
on my keyboard and
select all three (by
clicking on them
individually), then
right-click on the last
and choose Join Files.
The AVI Join File
Wizard appears. 
The Wizard will
join the three files I
had selected. The
trouble is, the order is
wrong. The site_map file
should be between the
two Splits of the
original file. To
fix that, I click once
on site_map.avi in
the list, and click the Move Up button.
Now that the files are
in the right order, I
just click the Next button. I'm asked
to give a name and
location for the joined
file. I'll call it Web_Site_Demo.avi.
I can also select
whether to produce an
AVI or WMV file.
AVI files are desirable
if you're planning to do
additional editing of
the movie, and only AVI
files can be converted to an
executable.
For web distribution WMV
(Windows Media) files
are generally a better
choice. Of course,
once you make an AVI,
you can use My Screen
Recorder Pro's convert feature to make a WMV, too.
In this case I'll make
an AVI file. When
I click Next, the
AVI file is created.
The joining process,
like the splitting
process, does take some
time, as the files are
uncompressed, combined,
and then recompressed.
By default, when I click
Finish, the new
movie is played.
If it is correct, the
task is complete:
I have made a new movie
with the beginning and
end of the original
recording, but with a
segment cut out, and
replaced by new
material.
If you need to do any
more complex editing
than this, or if you
would like other
high-end features like
adding a musical score, using transition effects,
or adding titles and credits,
you should consider
using Video Edit Magic, a
powerful video and audio
editor.
Using
My Screen Recorder's
Split and Join features
let you keep only the
good parts of your
recordings. Did a
feature of the program
you're demonstrating
change? Just cut
out that section and
record a new one,
without having to redo
the entire recording.
You can remove unwanted
pauses or places where
you made a mistake, and
even record twice and
use the best parts of
each "take". These
powerful capabilities
let you easily create
professional, perfect
screen recordings to use
as product
demonstrations, for
training or educational
purposes, or as
marketing tools.