We hope you found the information we provided useful during your recent workshop. Below are some helpful resources which you may find useful if you wish to begin developing training videos for your internal staff.
Important Disclaimer: Note that most of the links we provide in this article are from independent web sites. We have no control over the content nor interactions you will have on these sites. If you choose to click on a link we’ve provided, please do so at your own risk. We offer these external web resources to you as we found these to be useful to us and have not received nor will receive any compensation or special favors from any vendor, product or service we mention in this article.
Recording Software
Although we often refer to this software as video recording software, the actual term for video recording your screen is “video (or screen) capture”. There are numerous video capture software applications on the web for you to choose from. We tested several free open-source and commercial products and found Movavi to be the easiest for our end users at a price we could afford. Here’s a link with some initial options for you to consider and there are several additional products you will find by performing a web search on “video capture”.
If you decide on Movavi, we would like to again indicate that we have not received nor will receive any compensation or special favors from this vendor. Movavi is simply the product we decided to use for recording our videos. If you find a better product than Movavi, please feel free to share this with us by choosing one of the “share” options at the bottom of this article or by emailing us at mis@sccmail.org. We are always interested in improving our videos and suggestions are definitely welcome.
For Non-Profit Organizations – No matter the product, we recommend that you reach out to vendors first and obtain the best price possible for your organization. Some vendors offer non-profit discounts and/or state, local and/or federal government pricing (if you qualify). If you decide, please note that we made contact with them and were able to save 40% off of each business license for their Movavi Screen Capture product. We ordered 12 licenses at that time, so there may be a quantity limitation in order to receive this discount.
Movavi Links
Movavi Screen Capture – This is the video capturing tool we demonstrated during the FCOA workshop. For most of your users, this version is all you will need. However, if you have users who wish to get into editing their videos (video editing), then we recommend obtaining Screen Capture Studio licenses which includes both their Screen Capture and Video Editor appliations. Web pricing for businesses is $59.95/user (call for discounts).
Movavi Video Editor – This is a separate application which allows you to modify videos you record with Screen Capture as well other video files you may already have. Here’s a link to their how-to guides and articles which helped us with learning how to perform video splits, trims, joins, and other useful edits to our videos. Web pricing for businesses is $39.95/user (call for discounts).
Movavi Screen Capture Studio – This includes both the Movavi Screen Capture and Video Editor applications described above. Most of your users will only need the standard version of Screen Capture (without the Video Editor); however, you may have some users with video editing experience (or are interested in learning) where obtaining this version will make more sense for them. Web pricing for businesses is $99.95/user (call for discounts).
Movavi Support Center – We have utilized their support center when needed to find answers to common questions. At the bottom of this page, you will find contact options to submit an email to Movavi tech support or reach them by phone. We had a few situations where we had to contact their support team. They were able to resolve our installation-related issues in a timely manner.
Headsets
Once you know the video recording software you would like to use, it’s time to find a nice headset to record audio during your recordings. Here are some details which may help you find the right headset for your staff:
Numerous options – You’ll find there are many different headset options. First, do you want wired, wireless or Bluetooth? Next, do you want your headset to be monaural or stereo (binaural)? Finally, you’ll want to look at more specific options such as weight and comfort, quality, etc. Once you have a model in mind, we recommend checking a popular website offering the model (such as Amazon) and reviewing their user comments for any potential negatives.
For our agency, we decided on a quality wired headset (the Plantronics Blackwire 720 or 720-M) since it had excellent online reviews from several sources, is very well made (real leather ear pieces and headrest) and extremely lightweight for extended use. There’s no major difference between the 720 and 720-M models, so if you’re interested in this headset, we recommend searching for both and finding which model has the best sale price. If you decide on a monaural headset (one ear piece instead of two), then you should obtain a Blackwire 710 or 710-M model instead. For us, we typically find Blackwire 720-M headsets in the $105-110 range. If this price is too high for you, then you may want to check out this site which has several alternative options worth considering.
Workshop Materials
Here are links to the workshop materials we provided or presented during our workshop:
- Ready, Set, Record! – Slide Presentation
- Ready, Set, Record! – Handout
Example Videos
Here are the example videos we demonstrated during our workshop:
Thank you for attending our recent workshop and feel free to share this information as needed.