How to Film PowerPoint Slides Using Jing vs Camtasia

This is Part 6 of a series about how to create marketing videos for your business using Powerpoint slides. Here are the first five installments:

Part 1, How To Design Powerpoint Slides for Videos
Part 2, How To Choose a Topic for Your Marketing Videos.
Part 3, Adding Animation to Powerpoint Slides
Part 4, Choosing Music or Voice Over for Your Powerpoint video
Part 5, Testing Your Powerpoint Slides with a Slideshow

Now that you’re ready to record your powerpoint slides, you need to decide which recording program fits best into your budget and which features you need the most.

Jing is a free recording program that allows you to shoot short, 5 minute screencast videos. It’s very simple to use and is available for both PC and Mac but there are no editing capabilities. There’s no way to cut out mistakes or to add music (unless you have the music playing in the background but you might lose some sound quality).

You are also limited to recording a maximum of 5 minutes, which is actually helpful. Your audience members are likely to start losing interest after 2-3 minutes so forcing yourself to get your message out in less than 5 minutes is a challenge worth taking.

There is a very affordable paid version of Jing for $14.95 per year, which allows you to film via webcam, produce an Mp4 video file and automatically upload to YouTube.

Camtasia is a full-service recording and editing software which allows you to film, edit and add special effects to your video. There are no time limitations, you can produce your video in many different formats, and you can edit your voice over and/or add music to the video. You can even splice multiple videos or photographs together to create something new. Keep in mind, however, that all these features come with a $299 price tag.

If you’re new to video production, certainly try out Jing first. Once you’re convinced that video marketing will become a part of your marketing plan, then invest in Camtasia.

How to Record with Jing

I’ve had difficulties recording a full-screen video using Jing so first you want to set up the slide show to play in a smaller window instead of full screen.

In Powerpoint, click on the Slide Show tab, then click on Setup Slide Show. In the popup box that appears, choose Browsed by an Individual (window). Also be sure that Using Timings (if present) is checked off.

Play Slide Show in Small Window

Open up Jing. When it opens, it will appear at the top of your screen as a yellow sun. Place your mouse on the yellow dot and click the left icon, which is the Capture command.

Capture a Jing Screenshot Video

Now you’ll see two gold rulers. This is to set up the recording area on your screen. I find them a little clumsy to work with but basically the brightly highlighted part of your screen is what will record. Anything in gray is outside the recording margins. Click the Enter button on your keyboard to set the margins.

Setting the Recording Area with Jing

Note: if you need to adjust these margins after you clicked Enter, just mouse over the outer edges of the margin and you can drag it to any size you want.

Once your recording area is set, you will see a small box with icons, either on the bottom or the top of the recording margins. The one that looks like a video strip is what will start the recording.

Recording Video with Jing

It’s very important that the Powerpoint tabs at the top of your screen are NOT within the recording margins because once you hit that Record Video icon, you have a 3 second pause before the video starts. During this pause is when you need to press the From Beginning slide show button to get that started.

Countdown to Start Recording with Jing

You will also see whether your microphone is muted or turned on. There is a small mic icon next to the video icon in the control bar so if it’s not at the setting you want, simply click that icon to make that change.

Once the countdown is finished, your slideshow should be playing automatically with your rehearsed timings. If you’re narrating the video, begin speaking now.

Next to the control panel is a timer. This is how long you’ve been recording. If you run right up to the 5 minute mark, Jing will stop recording by itself and you can then save the file to your Screencast account. If you finish earlier than 5 minutes, simply press the square stop button on the left. The video will open up in a new window to replay and this is where you can name the file, save it, and upload it to Screencast.

Recording with Camtasia

A very handy feature built in to Camtasia is the ability to start it from Powerpoint. Once your slide show is ready, click the Add Ins tab. Here you will see a Record link with a few different icons. Clicking the red dot will automatically start the Camtasia Recorder.

Start Camtasia from PowerPoint

Or you can open up Camtasia and choose the Record PowerPoint option. Both ways will get you to the same spot.

When the recorder opens up, you will see a highlighted space surrounded by dotted lines. These are your recording margins that you can set to any size by either dragging the margins with your mouse or by entering the dimensions into the size box. You can also choose if you want your webcam on and/or your microphone.

Setting Recording Margins with Camtasia

Start your slide show and then press the red Record button. There is still a countdown before the recording starts and then you will see a green flashing border at each of the four corners of your recording space, indicating that everything inside that space is being recorded.

When you record with Jing, you need to do the voice over at the exact same time. You can also do this with Camtasia but it’s not mandatory. Since Camtasia has editing capabilities, you can record your voice over separately and then simply add that track to your video during the editing process. The same is true for adding music.

You will also see a control panel just outside of the recording area. This allows you to either stop or pause the recording. When you press stop, the video immediately starts to replay and you have the option of saving or deleting it. If you need to make edits, click that option; or if you got it perfect on the first take, click the Produce option.

Saving Your Camtasia Video

If you choose to Edit the video, Camtasia will open up and you will see your video on the screen, ready for it’s music, graphics, voice over, or other special effects. There are really too many things to explain about Camtasia that I can’t possibly cover all of them here.

Editing Your Video with Camtasia

Two notes to remember: when you’re ready to produce your video, choose the Mp4 format unless you have a specific need for a different format. Also, the longer your video is, the longer it will take to render into the finished file.

We’d love to hear about and see your completed PowerPoint videos so please leave us a comment below if you’ve followed the steps of this series. The last installment of this series is how to syndicate your finished video.

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