Using QuickTime to Screencast

Using QuickTime

In this section, you will learn how to screen record in QuickTime Player (which comes with Apple products only). With the process of recording a webcam video and simple audio recordings being similar, you can also follow the steps outlined below without doing too much more.

1	First, open QuickTime Player. Then go to File. You can then choose a New Movie Recording, highlighted here, New Audio Recording, or a New Screen Recording. A movie recording will use your webcam, audio will only record audio, and screen recording will allow you to screencast. In this example, we will actually choose Screencast as there are a few more steps involved in that.
2	When you do that, a window will pop open saying "Screen Recording", similar to what we have here. You will also see a grey circle with a red dot and to the right of it a little carat pointing down. Click on that.
3	When you do, this will bring up a pop-up window allowing you to choose a few options, including the ability to use a microphone and or to Show Mouse clicks in Recording. If you want to record a voice over for a PowerPoint for example, having the microphone on will be useful. If you are not going to talk in your screen-recording, you can select None so that the microphone is not being used.
4	When you are ready to record, click on the grey circle with the red dot to begin.
5	(NOTE: if you are just using the webcam/audio recording you can skip this step and go to step 6) When you do that, you will see a little dialogue, similar to what I have here. If you want to record the full screen, just simply click anywhere on the screen. Otherwise, you can click and drag on a portion of the screen and only record that portion.
6	For those of you recording a Webcam or just audio, this part will be different. You will click on the same area where the grey circle with the red dot (the Start Recording) button was, except you will see that it changed to a circle with a red square in the middle of it. For those screen-casting, when you are done recording, you can click on this symbol, it is a circle with a solid square in the middle, to stop the recording.
7	When you are done, your recording will appear on your screen. You can play it and view it. You can also make Edits to it, like rotate it, flip it, trim it, and so on.
8	When you are done making these quick edits, you can then export it. Go to File> Export and then choose a resolution to export it at. 1080p and 720p are HD. 720p is the norm for current web videos, though 1080p can be appropriate at times. Keep in mind that when you are choosing a resolution, the higher it is, the longer it will take to export. Give yourself some time.
9	When you export it, it will ask you to give your video file a name; unfortunately, QuickTime will only export as a .mov. Some people may not be able to open a .mov file if you send it to them, but we will take care of that in iMovie. This is also where you will choose where to save your newly recorded video; there is a carat to the right of the video name that is pointing down. By clicking on it will open up more options and make the dialogue look similar to what I have here. Hit save in the bottom right corner once you are done.

Exporting from .mov to .mp4 using iMovie

1	First, open iMove. Then click on Create New.
2	When you do that, you will be given two options; choose Movie.
3	You will need to Import some media and you can choose from videos, photos, audio, etc. To do this, click on the arrow pointing down in the upper left corner.
4	You will then need to navigate to where you saved your video file that you want to export. If you are following along with this tutorial, we saved our QuickTime video in the desktop. Select that and the button in the lower right (which currently says Import All) will just say Import instead. You can also import multiple media files by selecting them on this page.
5	When iMovie has imported the video, click and drag it to the time line.
6	You can then make a few edits to the video if you want by going to Edit in the upper-left corner.
7	You can also make some modifications to the video, also in the upper-left corner. If you are interested in editing and modifying your video further, you can follow this video. It is recommended that you preview your video before going on to the next few steps, just to make sure you have done what you needed to do or to make sure none of the edits/modifications have otherwise impacted your video.
8	After you are done making your edits, you will need to export your video. Click on File in the upper-left corner, hover over Share, and choose File...
9	In the dialogue that appears, you can edit the description and tags as you see fit. However, ensure that the following are correct: 1) Format is set to Video and Audio 2) Resolution is set to 720p at 60 frames per second 3) Quality is set to High 4) Compress is set to Faster Then hit Next in the lower right.
10	When you do that, another pop-up will appear asking you to give your file a name and where you want to save it. If yours is not like the dialogue shown here, there is a carat to the right of Save As that might be pointing down; click on that and then the arrow will point up and the dialogue should now look similar to the photo on the right. Hit Save in the lower-right once you are ready to move on to the next step.
11	When you hit save, in the upper-right corner will be a circle. This circle indicates how close your video is to finish exporting.
12	When it finishes exporting, you will receive this notification or something similar. If you click on Show, you will be either taken to the file location or the video will start playing.
13	Before submitting your .mp4 file, it is wise to take another look through it to ensure that the export process did not somehow damage your video.