The University provides three products that can record your lectures for subsequent (or simultaneous) web access by your students. Each has advantages and disadvantages. All three products do a reasonable job of delivering a PowerPoint-based lecture. If you are recording a live class, use UMConnect. Adobe Presenter and Camtasia offer similar approaches to delivering a PowerPoint presentation; Presenter is less complex, while Camtasia is very flexible. All of these products can capture sound, but only using an external microphone. If you have additional questions or need help with recording and deploying presentations, please send an e-mail to cfans.help@umn.edu. UMConnect
Many of you have had some experience with UMConnect. UMConnect is really an Adobe product, Adobe Connect. UMConnect allows you to provide a web cast, in real time, to your students, centered around a PowerPoint presentation (although you can also share your desktop). To use UMConnect, you will need a microphone and, possibly, a web cam. A microphone is essential if you want your audience to receive sounds. If you have a camera, the video shows up in a small pod or window, large enough for a head shot. Presentations can be recorded and posted to the UMConnect site. UMConnect is available to faculty and staff:
http://www.oit.umn.edu/umconnect/ The good: UMConnect allows live broadcast of your lecture along with recording and archiving for future use. The limitations: UMConnect streams directly to the UMConnect server. The quality of your broadcast and recording depends on the quality of your connection to the server. An update to University hardware and software is due in January 2010, but recently we have been experiencing problems with the quality of the stored product. UMConnect recordings cannot be edited. In addition, the current version does not support PowerPoint files saved in the default ".pptx" format used by Office 2007 (Windows) and Office 2008 (Mac); the file must be saved using the previous version's format, ".ppt". This can be done by choosing File > Save As... and selecting "PowerPoint 97-2003 Presentation" from the "Save as type:" drop-list. Adobe Presenter add-in for PowerPoint
The University provides the Adobe Presenter add-in for PowerPoint to faculty, staff and students. This add-in allows you to add audio narration to your PowerPoint slides. For this, you need a microphone. Faculty and staff can convert and publish recordings to the UMConnect site. Students cannot publish to UMConnect, but can record locally. Students can also access published presentations via the web. Adobe Presenter is considered part of UMConnect and is available to faculty and staff at the UMConnect site:
http://www.oit.umn.edu/umconnect/ Students may download Adobe Presenter here:
https://netfiles.umn.edu/oit/UMConnect/dropbox/presenter.exe The good: Presenter allows you to add, edit, and save a soundtrack to your PowerPoint presentation, slide by slide. While Presenter files can be stored on the UMConnect server, the file is saved initially to your computer. Sound quality depends on your computer. The limitations: The major limitation is that the current version requires your PowerPoint files be in the ".ppt" format, rather than the ".pptx" format. You may experience problems if you are using Windows Vista or Office 2007. Until the software is updated in January, your best bet is to use a computer running Windows XP and Office 2003. Camtasia Relay
Camtasia Relay offers another way to record your class lecture. With Camtasia, you can record video of whatever happens on your computer and capture audio with a microphone. As with Presenter, the recording is saved to your computer for subsequent upload. Camtasia is available to faculty and staff. The link is available here:
http://oit.cfans.umn.edu/camtasia The good: Camtasia records your lecture in normal flow. You do not need to pause, slide by slide, if you are using PowerPoint. Recordings can be saved in a wide variety of formats. Files can be edited to a limited extent. An excellent tutorial describing the Camtasia experience, from signing up for a Camtasia account to uploading files to MediaMill, is available from the University Office of Information Technology. The limitations: The setup is a bit more complex, but the tutorial does a good job of walking you through this. Editing is possible, but limited. Playing and recording videos
All of the products can capture sound via microphone. None of these products will directly record the sound from audio or video recordings playing on your computer. However, if you broadcast the sound through your speakers, the microphone will pick it up and Camtasia will record it. | 
