Creating a video blog

I've never been great with video recording. Sure, we had a camcorder to record those precious moments with our children, but I've never done anything with them yet. When I made a video recording to explain our ministry, it was an agonizing process for me, and that was just a talking head. But we realized that video is the best means for communication in the present, and so I figured that I had better give it another chance.

Well, the process of finding the right software was rather difficult. The one I really wanted was Adobe Visual Communicator.  I tried it out, and it seemed to work OK, but it crashed on me a few times.  Then on the day that I was actually going to put down the $400 to purchase it, I found out that Adobe Visual Communicator is considered to be an End-of-Life product.  Meaning that the current version is 3.0 and there will be no version 4.  That totally scared me away, especially since it was already crashing on me.  So I went back and did some heavy internet research and came up with a program called XSplit.  A more unlikely match, you would never find, because, as advertised, this program is for gamers who want to share there gaming experiences live with others on the Internet. I have no games installed on my computer and wanted to use this for a video podcast, recorded, not live. I had to read between the lines and test it out to know it would really work.  I can't be more satisfied with it.  All of the effects are done live so no post editing is needed.  That is both a plus and a minus. It would be great for me to go back and clean out all the uummmms and uuhhhhhs.  But, hey, the moment I start doing that, I get into my perfectionist mode and I waste all kinds of time trying to sound perfect.  And we all know I ain't ;-)

So, with no further ado, l've created a short video using XSplit that shows how it works and how I intend to use it.

Doug's Studio Setup for Video Podcasting from Doug Higby on Vimeo.