Recording Screencasts for Technology Training

So my Hauppauge HD PVR rocket HDMI recorder turned out to be a really useful little screencast recorder. Works like a charm without the need for a Windows host. I'm using the HD PVR rocket for recording illustrations for technology trainings. These are then used for my day job.

The HDMI recorder records raw screencast footage as H.264. I next do the voice over recording completely separately from the screen recording. I'm doing the audio recording in Audacity. My audio equipment consists of an analog Shure quality voice microphone connected to a Behringer QX1202USB mixer that doubles as a quality USB soundcard. Please, no USB podcaster microphones: they're ridiculous expensive, are often of questionable quality, and they often can't be used with a separate post. After the voice recording session I apply noise reduction and level normalization.

Raw screencast footage then gets edited in Kdenlive according to the voice over audio. That is, scenes of stepwise appearing illustrations with intermediate stills. One reason for this offline voice over recording is that I find it difficult to keep a good speaking performance while having to correctly draw illustrations at the same time. Doing it simultaneously heavily sucks, both in illustrative quality and voice.

There's even another benefit of doing video and voice separately. I can easily add in video footage later in case I recognize the need for it during voice recording. And I can also easily edit out voice sections when the overall projects turns out to get too long.

Quest for Screencasting Tools

My quest for screencasting tools takes another level: what is so difficult about creating decent screencasts? There are now several Android/iOS/Windows tablet whiteboard apps available, so no need for an HDMI recorder anymore, right?

Wireless Diva

Microsoft diva(tm)

Microsoft's wireless display adaptor is like a diva: having it stored securely in its bag together with other video adaptors and cabling I recently wanted to check its firmware status. To my dismay I couldn't connect to the wireless display adaptor. Not really the first time this diva turns a back on me...

Kdenlive for Fun ... and Profit

So far I've worked with Kdenlive only on my hobby projects. But lately I could put my experience gained at home to good use at my day job. To better and simpler explain a research project me and my colleagues are working on I decided to go for a short video instead of the usual slide presentation.

White New Year's Eve Diving

Ending 2014 with a quiet dive is a pleasant thing to do: the world above the waterline was covered with some snow resulting in nice scenery. Doning the full face mask...

...and then submerging into the cold waters, experiencing again the silent world below the surface was really relaxing. It's such a pleasure to know that there's only 4°C outside the mask, as opposed to feeling these 4°C.

In case you wonder ... always take that backup set of fins with you, just in case. Safe diving also in 2015!

Display Beaming Woes in the 21st Century

Beaming display content over standard WiFi LANs has been with us for some time now. Unfortunately, there are still several slightly incompatible standards for wireless display functionality. While on Android things at least work to some extent, Windows support is rather new and Microsoft obviously has some homework to do, especially when there is VirtualBox involved...

Kdenlive Timeline Illustrated, Part 3

Kdenlive timeline illustrated...

In my third blog post about Kdenlive's timeline I will finally show you several real-world examples from my own projects of compositing clips. If you just came in fresh, please head over to part 1 and part 2 first in order to get the necessary basics before reading on here.

Kdenlive Timeline Illustrated, Part 2

In my second blog post about Kdenlive's timeline we now learn how to find the topmost track that gets rendered as well as where the «rendering pipeline» of tracks chained by transition actually ends. In case your haven't yet read my first blog post of this mini series, Kdenlive Timeline Illustrated, Part 1, then please read it first as it sets the context to understand this second post.

Kdenlive Timeline Illustrated, Part 1

A lot of people starting to learn Kdenlive quickly get frustrated by the seemingly unintuitive and unexpected behavior of the timeline. Me too.

Probably much confusion simply arises because people expect the video tracks in Kdenlive's timeline to act like image layers – the image layers that can be found in so many graphics programs. Unfortunately, Kdenlive's tracks work quite different, but this isn't immediately obvious.

So for better insight into Kdenlive's timeline please follow me on a little journey...

Previewing Protune Footage in the Field

For years I don't take any notebook or netbook with me when travelling. Instead, my Android tablet needs to be sufficient. Especially, as it has a much better display (2560×1440) and much more processing power than my netbook. However, there's one piece missing in order to check my raw footage from the Canon HF G30 and GoPro HD Hero 3 while in the field: a suitable video player...

Big Frame Hunting, Or: Dive Vader's Shootout

Dive Vader's Shootout? Well, sort of. Christian, a dive instructor and (despite this) friend of mine finally unearthed some underwater video shootout footage taken in 2013 and which we thought to be lost. Usually, I'm the one behind the camcorder eyes and shooting video. So this surely is a rare incident where I was shot myself.

As I still had my own footage with the same shootout scene from my perspective as well as some more funny footage about a hungry perch that wants to get a fair share of crab but simply can't.
So I made this small video about Big Frame Hunting in the Austrian lake Plansee. Enjoy!

Big Frame Hunting / Dive Vader's (Video) Shootout (view on YouTube)

Green Lake

The Green Lake in Styria, Austria, is a mountain lake renown for its crystal-clear waters. Of course, under water sight thus is great. And when you get a samlet succession in front of your camera, it's such a beautiful sight and you've got a great dive.

The samlet succession (view on YouTube)

This film marks the point of me turning away from the unreliable GoPro cameras. After I lost video footage completely on several occasions the new camera is a Canon HF G30. The Canon works reliably and produces great footage, as you can see here for yourself. Thanks to the fine optics of the HF G30 I could shot from distance, not disturbing the samlets. Additionally, the Canon doesn't have any issues with reliably writing video streams to memory cards, as the GoPro cameras do. This is the way cameras need to be. GonePro.

GonePro Part 2: Krazy Kraken Cannon

In the meantime I could gain some first experience using the Canon VIXIA/LEGRIA HF G30 in open water under real life conditions. So, in this second and follow-up post I'm going to analyze the footage taken with both the HF G30 and GoPro HD Hero 3 Black Edition. This post follows in the steps of GonePro Part 1: Krazy Kraken Cannon.

GonePro Part 1: Krazy Kraken Cannon

G30 cannon and krazy kraken

In the meantime I've got the Ikelite dive housing delivered fro my video cannon, erm, Canon VIXIA/LEGRIA HF G30. The cannon finally got a krazy kraken as its sidekick.

But how does this new krazy kompany of a cannon and a kraken perform under water in practice? So it's time for some first reports, fresh from a flooded gravel pit...

100 Safe and Comfortable Full Face Mask Dives

What else can be more fun than celebrating my full face mask dive #100 in an exceptional beautiful diving spot, such as the Green Lake in Styria, Austria?

100 safe and comfortable dives with the Dräger PND full face mask.

The Green Lake is a clear, cold mountain lake with mindblowing sight. The water temperature was 6°C, so diving with the Dräger Panorama Nova Dive full face mask was a real pleasure. Over the past two years, the Dräger has proven to be a rock-solid and highest quality full face mask. In combination with the Apeks regs you get a dream team. This ain't a once-in-a-while full face mask. You either dive the Dräger as often as possible, or you don't dive full face masks at all.

I won't like to miss the unique features of the Dräger, such as the damn easy to operate nose clips for pressure equalization, the quick release handles, the easily switchable regs, and its good visual field. This quality comes at its price, but I find this mask to be worth every nickel. The Dräger Panorama Nova Dive makes diving with a full face mask such a great and relaxing experience. No stupid marketing gimmicks and cheap compromises, but instead a safety-first design. The Dräger mask pays back its price in its superior handling and good field of vision without annoying distortions and reflections. That is, units of safety that really count. And which cheap full face masks miss by a wide margin.

On a final note ... as usual, I'm diving here with my double reg set with full double reg redundancy. Ah, there's that «lifestyle» full face mask that yet needs to integrate this level of intrinsic safety, me thinks...

PS: this awesome photo was shot by my buddy Axel Eisele.