Summary: You can annotate Screenr videos and some others using the annotation tools in Presenter ’09.
Difficulty: Easy.

With the launch of Articulate Screenr , here is a little tip for those of you who like to use the Articulate annotation tools to add impact to your PowerPoint slides and animations. Use them to annotate Screenr videos too !!

Here is a demo built with Screenr, Articulate Presenter ’09, PowerPoint 2007 and the Spotlight annotation:

How do you do it?

1. Record a screencast with Screenr.
2. Download and save the file to your computer.
3. Insert the MP4 file into Presenter ’09 via the Flash Movie icon in the Articulate menu.
4. Launch Record Narration and make sure the ‘Show Annotations’ tool is checked.


 

5. Click the Record Narration button and your video will begin to play. As it plays, you can record your narration AND insert boxes, arrows or spotlight effects as you please.
6. When you have finished adding annotations, then click the Stop Recording button.
7. Close and you are ready to publish.

(see below if you want to add annotations to a video without recording narration).

Things to remember:

• Record narration and annotate at the same time.

The easiest way to add annotations to your screencast is to record the narration to the video inside Articulate. This adds a sound track and makes the annotation timings stick. In the demo above, I recorded my screencast without audio. I then added the soundtrack in Articulate Presenter ’09, adding the annotations at the same time. Once the narration is recorded, I can go back and redo the annotations.

• Delete the narration (if you wish) and the annotation timings will remain.

If you want to annotate a video which already has a soundtrack, then still use the Record Narration tool and annotate your videos accordingly. Articulate will record a sound track. Once you have finished your annotations, go to Articulate -> Import Audio, and delete the narration that was recorded for that slide. When you go ahead and publish, your annotation timings will remain!

• For best results, use 720 x 540 pixels video size.

Annotations work best with a slide size of 720 x 540 pixels. Even though you can display a video at a larger size in No Sidebar view, the Spotlight effect annotation will only darken the central 720 x 540 area.

• Works with some other videos types.

This should work with FLV, MP4 and SWF but the framerate and other video properties must match the Articulate settings. Generally speaking, if you are inserting via Screenr, you will have no problem. Simiarly, videos inserted via the Articulate Video Encoder should annotate correctly. However, extensive testing with MP4 movies created in iMovie showed that annotations were problematic, either not appearing at all, or appearing at the wrong time even with a framerate of 30 fps. So be warned!

• Use Screenr to capture your screens without using Twitter necessarily

If you haven’t tested Screenr yet, now is a good time to give it a try. It is a free screen recording application created by Articulate which you can harness to add screen recordings to your presentations. You’ll need to create a Twitter account but not to worry if you never to intend to use Twitter or have no idea what it is. Screenr can be used without Twitter. You just need a Twitter account.

1. Follow the straightforward instructions to make your screen recording.
2. Do not post to Twitter if you don’t want to. Say that you will Twitter manually later and then click on Post It!.


 

3. Once the video is uploaded look to the right of the video for the Download the .mp4 file and click on it.


 

4. Save the mp4 file to your computer somewhere.
5. Once downloaded, delete the screencast from Screenr if you wish by clicking on the ‘Delete this screencast’ link. It doesn’t need to be online anymore.


 

6. Then import the video as the demo shows at the beginning.

• Not supported.

As is often the case with other suggestions on this blog, this method of recording video with annotations is not supported by Articulate ! That doesn’t mean that it won’t work. It just means that it is not recognized as being a standard feature of Articulate. If you have any questions, please shoot them here directly.

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