Tools

Within this article you will find all the informations about video creation for YouTube publishing. Not just tools anyway but all the process to arrange your video for the new 16:9 resolution. I will speak also about video produced by your PC, that means screen capture an powerpoint presentations.

Let’s see the tools first.

	Audacity (Mixer Audio)	Audacity is audio editor program. If you think that you don’t need a such sophisticated tool I suggest a couple of simple task. First clear the sound from unwanted sound. The second is related to the possibility to prepare the audio comment separately from the video capture.
	CamStudio (Screen Capture)	CamStudio is simple the best free screen capture program around. My second choice is Windows Media Encoder but you get a more complex program not specifically written for screen capture.
	Movie Maker(editing)	MovieMaker has not competitor for easy to use. Out of the box doesn’t not support the 16:9 format but I will explain how to resolve this problem.
	Super (video conversion)	Most of the time you need to convert you material from one format to another. One of the most frequent case in the DVD extraction process. This is the best free program though the user interface could have a better design.

Further this program you need a picture editing tool. You can use everything you like from Photoshop to Paint. No particolar requirement for  SlideShow program(Microsoft PowerPoint or OpenOffice).

Don’t forget another import resource as a bunch of site to get royalty free music. Some tips:

• Powerpoint Music
• Music for video
• IBeat
• Zen Music
• Partners In Rhyme
• Free Soundtrack Music

Integration

MovieMaker doesn’t support the 16:9 format for YouTube. For that you need a profile. I found for you 3 different options: two of them have been made by Steve M and the third one by me and the one we use for all our video on YouTube. Hereunder the links:

• Steve M profiles
• Custom 1280x720 made by Softgens

After downloding the profiles you like just copy them to the directory that has 99% chance to be C:\Program Files\Movie Maker\Shared\Profiles. If you don’t see the “profiles” directory create it.

NOTE. You want to create a Movie Maker custon profile you need an utility of the free "Windows Media Encoder" suite. The name of the program is "Windows Media Profile Editor". Using WMPE we have prepared the custom 1280x720 profile.

If you plan to user Powerpoint you need another important file. In fact to import a 16:9 slideshow you need to prepare the slideshow itself in a 16:9 format. To have more information read this article and download the example.

Guide

The first thing to remember is to produce all your stuff in 16:9 aspect ratio. It seems a stupid tip but was not for me. For example my portable PC ha a 1280x800 screen and I never notice that it has a 16:10 aspect ratio. This was the reason why I had problem during screen capture.

Using CamStudio set always a 16:9 screen capture area. Hereunder you can see the result of a screen capture of 1280x720 that has been transformed by MovieMaker using our Softgens Custom Profile.

CamStudio 1280x720 + MovieMaker 1280x720 (Softgens custom profile)

The resolution is good an can be better viewing the video directly on YouTube. Just try to see the result.

A little trick for the link to you video. The original link on you tube was

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VPC2-KAl5FY

Add &fmt=22 at the end

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VPC2-KAl5FY&fmt=22

Hereunder the same video using the Steve M custom Profile.

CamStudio 1280x720 + Movie Maker 640x360 (Steve M custom profile)

Let’s finish showing the result for 3 different screen capture area. All format has been produced by movie maker using our Softgens Custom Profile