Camtasia Studio

Camtasia Studio

http://www.techsmith.com

A fantastic tool for capturing your computer screen and anything that is on it.  Camtasia Studio even has a plug in for PowerPoint so you can record your presentations without leaving PowerPoint.  Add annotations, zoom in on the screen and export your finished product to a lot of different video formats including MPEG 4.  Rumors have it that a MAC version will be released sometime this year.

Camtasia Studio also integrates with Camtasia Relay, a lecture capture system for a really cool system for capturing and publishing presentations.  Educational pricing makes this tool a must have for educators building fully online courses and tutorials.

JW Media Player -

JW Media Player

http://www.longtailvideo.com

  A flash based free media player that touts itself as the most popular player on the web.  We are using it at USU now for all of our online videos and we really like it.  It just works and has lowered our technical support issues with students.  It is flash based so students only need to have the Adobe Flash Player installed on their computer (and I bet they all do, but some may need to upgrade).  We love it because it supports closed captioning.

Visit the website for tutorials, information, and lots of examples on how to use it.  

Episode Desktop - Video Compression and Encoding Software

Episode Desktop - Video Compression and Encoding Software

http://www.telestream.net/

Telestream is realitively new to the digital video market but they came in with a bang.  I was first introduced to them at EDUCAUSE when they partnered with Apple to show off their Episode Podcast plug-in for Apples Podcast Producer.

Episode Desktop is a compression and encoding software package that the pros use.  It is easy to use and comes with many presets.  With presests you can tweak them and create your own for the way you want things to work.  This is a fantastic tool, from a fantastic company, who makes a lot of other cool tools.

You might recognize the name from Flip for Mac.  Software for your Mac that allows you to play Windows Media files within Quicktime.

Sorenson Squeeze - Video Compression and Encoding Software

Sorenson Squeeze - Video Compression and Encoding Software

http://www.sorensonmedia.com

Sorenson Squeeze is a great desktop video compression tool for getting video into the format you need and looking good.  It is really easy to use.  It is a professional level tool, but is easy to learn for a novice. There are many presets for you to choose from.  It will even capture video from a camcorder or other video device.

Sorenson Squeeze can even encode one video file to many different formats for you.  Just select the file you want to encode, then choose the presets for the file formats and quality level you want.  Walk away, and the software does all the rest. Easy to set-up watch folders allow you and your staff to simply drop video files into a folder and it will take it from there.

If you are an educational institution, be sure to take advantage of special educational pricing.

Pulse Smart Pen

The Pulse Smart Pen from Livescribe, gets my vote for coolest gadget of the year.  Something a few years ago we would of only seen in a James Bond movie. This pen is amazing.  As you write it will record your strokes and audio if you like. Read more

Camtasia Relay

Camtasia Relay was released in October 2008 as a lecture capture system with both Mac and PC clients.  Relay is client-server based.  The client records the lecture, then uploads it to the Relay server. Read more

Podcast White Paper from CMU

 Podcasting White Paper 

 This white paper from Carnegie Mellon University provides a great in- depth look at podcasting.  Based on research from journals and articles, this white-paper contains sound information.  You will also find a lecture-capture white paper here.

http://www.cmu.edu/teaching/technology/research/ 

PodcastBlaster - Create the RSS online free

PodcastBlaster (http://www.podcastblaster.com) is a website that will create the RSS feed for you.  You simply create an account, enter the info for your podcast and then episode information.  As you add episodes you can log back in and add them to update your RSS feed.  A simple, easy to use and free tool

FAST Track Ultra - USB audio

The FAST Track Ultra from M-Audio (www.m-audio.com) is a handy device to have. the large majority of microphones are analog. While your computer may have an 1/8 mini audio in device, you might need to get two or three microphones into your computer. This device will do it. The interface to the computer is USB, so this acts like a sound card. You have independent volume control along with a monitor out to listen to what is going on with your headphones.

M-Audio makes this in several versions including the Fast Track Pro and Fast Track Ultra.
Kevin has this device and loves it.

www.m-audio.com

ePresence - Webcast system - open source

ePresence is an enterprise level webcast or lecture capture system.  It is listed as open source.  You can download the source code etc.  They now offer packages ready to go that you can buy along with support to get you up and going.  ePresence captures video, audio, and slides.  Does the indexing and archiving and outputs to many popular media formats.  

Read more

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