PowerPoint to Video - HELP!!

Out of curiosity, I recorded a couple of published courses using SnagIt 11. The quality was quite good, even for a video that was embedded in a Media Tour Engage interaction.

The file sizes for the MP4 video were reasonable as well. An 8 1/2 minute module (without embedded video) came in at 22 MB, or about 2.5 MB per minute. That sample included music in playlists and narration. A sample of a module with embedded video came in at 3.5MB per minute.

I did learn a few things in setting up in Presenter for the recording:

1. The slide view should be the same for all screens. This will keep the images that you're recording in the same place in the capture window you've defined in SnagIt. The Starting View, of course, must match whatever screen view you've chosen.

2. Since I set up each screen to auto advance, the transition happens as soon as the narration is complete. Because of that, the transitions between screens seems hurried (but easily fixed by adding a bit of silence ot the end of the narration).

3. I didn't think of it at the time, but it became obvious that any on-screen hyperlinking in PPT will not translate to the video, so these should be avoided.

4. Getting the timing down for the beginning of the recording can be tricky, matching the SnagIt countdown to when the first screen begins to play. Adding a simple solid black screen at slide 1 eliminates that problem.

I also tried capturing video from PPT by putting the PPT in Presentation Mode. I used the quarter-screen option by holding down the control key while clicking on the Presentation Mode icon in PPT. This worked okay too. The one thing I noted was that either the cursor had to be eliminated from the recording, or the page up-down keys should be used when triggering animations or advancing screens.