Convert WebEx Recordings on a Mac

Using WebEx to conduct webinars and trainings is excellent – lots of collaboration and sharing features, including video of your presenters.  One of the best features for this kind of session is the ‘network based recording’ feature – the ability to record on the fly, and then share your recording from a simple URL link.  For most people, streaming from your WebEx site/account is convenient enough that we don’t do anything other than slap the link out on our website, or in emails to customers and colleagues, and forget about it.  For others, we want to take that recording (which is basically a video) and pull it down, convert it to other formats, and share elsewhere.  WebEx offers a converter – but it only works on Windows.  That’s really painful as a Mac user- even running a VM, it’s just slow and resource-hogging. 

I recently had a customer who had some recordings that she wanted to convert and use elsewhere – but since I only had a Mac to work with, I was stuck.  I went looking for a screen recorder utility in the Mac App store, and ended up choosing Screen Capture-Pro – it was around $5.  Screen Capture Pro lets you recording what’s on your screen – either choosing a selectable portion, or the whole thing – and even choose to record audio either from your mic or the computer audio.  This was key – I needed the audio from the voiceover & discussion in the recordings as well as the images.

Positives

-lets you create an MOV from your ARF

-perfect if you want to edit your results later using FCP or other Mac editing utilities

-great for mobile playback on iOS devices (we have a lot of ipad and iphone users)

-easy to use

-slick interface, simple set of options

-good quality results

-no loss of quality; I usually expect some artifacts when using a format-to-format conversion utility

-reasonable file size

-some of the PPT slideshow-recordings I did were in the 1 hour range, and only about 120mb

-can be used for LOTS of other applications

-recording general walkthroughs for training purposes, screencaps for placement in other videos, etc

also...  It's SEVEN BUCKS.  

Downsides

-minute-by-minute recording – if your Wx is 1.5 hours, you have to let it go for 1.5 hours

-does not let you select something on your 2nd monitor

-I put all my “current” work on the 2nd monitor while recording – email/im/etc 

-even still, be careful- popup windows on monitor 1 will show up in your recording

-time consuming, and you can’t fully use your computer while recording

-crashes if you select the “show in folder” option at the start of recording

-maybe not every time, but often for me

I would also consider using this to do iPad screencaps – by using the Reflection app and displaying my iPad tab-top on the Mac, I can then use SCP to record whatever apps or tools I’d like to show there.  This is HUGE for any of us who have to do customer demos, showing how our different tools work.  

Screen Capture-Pro is completely worth the $5.

HDMI Cameras in WebEx - Update

Cisco/Tandberg PTZ Camera

I have a demonstration that I conduct every couple of weeks – and in this demonstration, I have to show a variety of our Collaboration tools, including a variety of Telepresence Video Endpoints, UC phone-related features, and our mobile apps for the iPad and the iPhone.  We conduct these demonstrations and the related presentations over WebEx – this lets us invite as many interested parties as necessary, and offer them the ability to see not just our slides, but video of my demos.

Originally I was using a simple webcam – moving the camera around to point at different pieces of gear that I use in the demonstration – to show everything off.  This was difficult, because the cameras have a limited field of view, short cords, and are a fixed focal length (they have no zoom).  What I really wanted to do was to use one of the Tandberg Telepresence units in our conference room, with its PTZ (pan-tilt-zoom) camera, remote control, and programmable positions, to make my demo more “free ranging” and the units easier to see. 

BlackMagic Intensity Shuttle - USB 3.0

I’m not alone in wanting to use a higher quality camera in my webinars, so after speaking with contacts at different customers, I found out about the BlackMagic Intensity Shuttle capture device.  This is a USB 3.0 or Thunderbolt accessory (only for the Mac, at this point - and make sure you have USB 3.0!) which allows input from composite, S-Video or HDMI – they have other units with more & different connectors, but for me HDMI was the desired connection. 

Most of the Tandberg Codecs have a 2nd monitor HDMI out – but if you use one that doesn’t (a C20, perhaps) then you can connect the HDMI from the camera directly to the Shuttle, and then go out from the Shuttle to your VC Unit’s monitor.  It’s useful to have an extra HDMI cable or two handy, just in case you need to move things around.

I did have to update the Thunderbolt driver on my Macbook to make this work.  Also, the Thunderbolt cable does NOT come with the Shuttle- so you’ve got to buy one (around $50) – and you want the longest one you can get.  The 6’ one I have is about 6’ too short – being able to really use your VC Unit’s screen as a “selfview” or confidence monitor is nice. 

Cisco/Tandberg C40 - note the outputs!

When you connect the Shuttle, you’ll notice that WebEx “sees” about 15 different “camera” options – all different resolutions.  With the HDMI connected, I use the 720p 29.97 10 bit option.  While you can use this “directly” in WebEx (just like choosing between multiple USB webcams) I have found that using ManyCam for Mac is a good idea.

For one thing, I have noticed that the image seems dark – ManyCam lets you crank up the brightness/gain to get a brighter image – make sure to increase the contrast level as well to keep the image sharp and clear.

I am also a BIG fan of having some “content in my back pocket” – a few recordings to show just in case something goes amiss.  With ManyCam, I can play other video files into the meeting – although without sound – to use as filler material.  Sometimes it even makes sense to show video of a location or device that you don’t always have access to – or, if you’re traveling, it can lighten your load by allowing you to leave those extra devices at home if you have good quality video to share.  That said, I do record videos with my Canon 7D- I will be trying a capture using the Blackmagic at some point, though.

Here is a screenshot from our presentation just this week.  That's me in the top right and bottom left, in the iPad video (calling a TP unit) and the desktop IM video.