Wednesday Workshop #1 Recording

Hi! I’ve uploaded the recording from my first Wednesday workshop. It’s below:

[popup url=”http://www.erica.biz/videos/index.html”]Play Wednesday Workshop #1 (1 hour, 37 minutes)[/popup]

NOTE: The video may appear “frozen”–it doesn’t start moving until about 10 seconds in.

If you’re having trouble viewing this, you’ll need Windows Media Player installed to view it. If you’re on a Mac and it’s not working, download the free Windows Media Player components and restart your browser, and then everything should work.

If you don’t want to watch it in your browser, or it is not working in your browser, you can download the file here (.wmv, 93MB.)

Things You Can Safely Ignore if You’re Not A Geek

Now I know someone will ask, so I’ll answer it right here. Why a .wmv file? Windows Media, proprietary, Microsoft, blah blah. Yeah, okay, we can’t blame Microsoft for this one: Citrix (makers of GoToWebinar) do something really idiotic in their software.

GoToWebinar has a great “Record” button, and in the preferences, I told it to record as a Windows Media file. I have plenty of .wmv->.flv or .mp4 (h.264) converters on my system. I record video all the time, so I’m well equipped.

Ah, but Citrix, in its infinite wisdom, decides to encode the .wmv with its own proprietary codec, called G2M3. What the heck?! This is a terrible idea! So it’s a .wmv, but ffmpeg and every other encoder on the planet doesn’t recognize it. (My video editor just crashes every time I try to open it.) Brilliant. Thanks, Citrix.

After wasting some time on the Internet, I find a blog post from some other poor frustrated soul called Just Say No to G2M3. He says Windows Media Encoder works. Great! I run Windows Media Encoder and let it go overnight.

I come back in the morning and I have a perfectly usable file, except that it’s 996MB! Uh. Shit. I then find out that I’ve recorded the whole screen. My monitor (a HP LP2475w) runs at 1920×1200, which is a 16:10 ratio. Most video encoders can’t handle anything except 4:3 and 16:9. More failures.

I run Windows Media Encoder again, and divide 1920 and 1200 by 2, which means the video is at a bizarre resolution. I drop the sound quality to “mono” and use Windows Media Voice to encode it. Down to 93MB. Still can’t edit it anywhere, and ffmpeg chokes and dies for reasons I don’t understand. At this point I figure I’ve wasted enough time, so I uploaded it. And that’s what ya get.

Notes for next time (and for you, if you ever want to use GoToWebinar and record it):

• Drop your screen resolution. 800×600 is a good choice. Stick with a 4:3 resolution.
• Use Windows Media Encoder. Re-encode it into a straight .wmv with the Windows Media codecs. Then play around with your encoded wmv in a video editor (or try SUPER) to get it into a more usable format.

Citrix, I curse thee. You suck.