recommended screen capture size for Screenr videos as web objects?

Jul 10, 2012

If I want to use Screenr to make screencasts to insert into Storyline, is there a screen capture size you'd recommend?

I noticed that all of Screenr's options besides fullscreen (1280x720, 1096x604, 980x560, 854x480, and 720x540) are 16:9 ratios except the last, which is 4:3. When I insert a web object into Storyline, it's brought in with the default of 700x520 (4:3), though that's resizable. My screencasts would have mostly things like a simple grammar problem in printed text and then some handwritten scribbling and a voiceover. I didn't know whether I'd achieve the best readability by making the original 4:3 (so using Screenr's 720x540), by using a higher resolution (1280x720) and then scaling it down to a smaller 16:9 or to 4:3, or what. Also, I'm not familiar with the ipad or smartphones, but eventually my students might be using those, so I don't know if there's a best screen capture size for that. I've started trying to make and compare samples at different screen capture sizes, noticing black lines on some of them, etc., but I'm new to all this and would welcome any suggestions.

BTW, I know I can do screen recording directly in Storyline. I was just thinking of using Screenr (published to YouTube and then inserted into Storyline) instead since 1) it would make the screencasts more portable and usable by colleagues who might not want to use the rest of my Storyline elessons and 2) I was a little worried about the fact that my Storyline file was already getting so big that I thought maybe it would be a better idea not to pack a whole bunch of videos right into it-- though I'm wide open to suggestions on the advantages/disadvantages of using Storyline or Screenr for making short lesson videos to insert into a bigger Storyline project.

Thanks in advance for your help,

Dorothy

4 Replies
Adrian Dean

Hi Dorothy,

This thread deals with Screenr sizes with regards to slides in Presenter. Jeanette points out the sizes to use if you want the video to cover the whole slide with a border or without.

http://community.articulate.com/forums/p/15095/87497.aspx

She also goes over the screen recorder feature in Storyline pointing out things like the ability to create zoom areas.

I know that with the newer iPad you are supposed to get 2048x1536 and with the older models you are limited to 1024x768. Both are 4:3 aspect ratio.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_displays_by_pixel_density

Hope this helps,

Adrian

Dorothy Stark

Adrian,

Thanks for the link to different screen sizes/ratios and for the blog suggestion.

I thought from what I read on the blog that the best quality would come from doing a 720x540 screen capture since that would avoid scaling. When I inserted a 720x540 video from website and accepted the default web object display size (520x700), however, the result was much fuzzier than when I used 854x540 or 980x560 (though I didn't have so many black lines). When I changed the display size from the default to the exact original size of 720x540, it was less fuzzy, but I'm still not sure it was better than the higher resolutions. I'm using a player without any left panel and am trying to make the clearest and fullest use of the real estate on the main screen while also minimizing load time.

I think Presenter and Storyline may do things a little differently. I believe the blog about Presenter showed using a 980x560 video filling up the whole screen without the left panel, but in Storyline if I get rid of the player panel and try setting a 980x560 video to its original size for display, it goes off the screen, and if I use the default display size (520x700), it fits on the panel but gets black bars on top and bottom because of the different ratio. I haven't tried playing around with cropping things.

Thanks again for your suggestions. I guess I'll just have to keep playing around before I can settle down to make screencasts for real.

Dorothy

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