[Peter Malof]

Sounds like a plan. Thanks for walking me through the thought process.

[Peter Malof]

I’m wanting to insert a few short screen captures (mostly scrolling text, with a few curser clicks) into an 80-minute DVD production. The inserts will only cover about 1/2 of the (16:9) screen. They’re really not a major part of the production, so I was not hoping to spend tons of time (or money) on them–but they should be clear and readable. If it gets to be too much of a hassle I could make them stills, but I’d much prefer they were animated…

[Peter Malof]

Thanks for this. So bottom line: sounds like your workaround, Mike — using the Windows File Editor — would still not allow me to successfully incorporate my captures into a larger Premiere project? No way to get them in a format Premiere likes? On the other hand, if I invest in Camtasia I’ll be able to import animated screen captures into a project and they’ll look beautiful and be fully editable? Pete

[Peter Malof]

Thanks much. So far the Windows Media Encoder has worked really well for my purposes. Haven’t tried the others yet (Camtasia costs a few cents!). Pete

[Peter Malof]

Great advice! Got me solidly on the right track. Thanks.

[Peter Malof]

Thanks much! I’ll try some of these suggestions this weekend. I do have After Effects Pro, so I’ll start with that.

On a related note: My next challenge in this project was to figure out how to record actions from a computer monitor (like whatever’s going on in a web browser). Is Camtasia the way to go, or are there other standard options? I would think this is a common task–but I was hoping to get full video quality (rather than the low resolution you see in some computer tutorials).

Peter

[Peter Malof]

Thanks Jeff — the “revert to original” was the ticket. Then it seems I had to assign a low custom transcode setting for the whole project, then go back and set the three individual assets for which I needed higher bitrates manually. With the lesser assets set to transcode automatically I was able to keep raising the bitrates on the important assets until I was happy with the mix (and until “check project” didn’t show an error that the project was too big for the disk). It’s building the disk now–hopefully my pixelation problem will be solved. Peter

[Peter Malof]

Thanks, I’ll try this. I guess Adobe got rid of their modifier key for dragging levels (I don’t remember if it was in 6.0 or Elements), as I looked through all the available shortcuts (but I found some other good ones I’ll have to start using!).

[Peter Malof]

Thanks both of you. I am beginning to see how much work it will be to make everything vectors — especially with the level of detail I was hoping for. I’ll post any breakthroughs I have, but I think it’s likely I’ll have to resort to Plan B: the transition you describe between large and small.