This article will walk you through all the basics of recording videos in Explain Everything. Once you get through them, gear up to edit your recordings.
Recording tips
- You can start with a blank canvas or you can Add media earlier and start recording when you're done.
- When recording a video, we suggest using headphones with a microphone. This will improve the overall audio quality, eliminate clicking/tapping sounds (e.g. from your Apple pencil) as well as get rid of any echo when recording audio and video files on your canvas.
- You don't have to do everything in one go. You can adjust your recording once you've stopped it. Learn more about the possibilities of editing your recordings.
- You can continue to record or extend your recording even after you've stopped recording.
- You can mute your microphone at any time by selecting the microphone. When crossed out, your microphone will not record any sounds.
- You can control which part of the canvas gets recorded or exported. Learn more about controlling the Camera Frame.
- You can Undo any of the edits you made, but only right after you perform them (iOS and Android only).
Timeline basics
Each activity performed during the recording will be displayed in the Timeline. Your Timeline consists of Tracks separate for both video (upper track in the picture below) and audio (bottom track in the picture below). Each Track contains Clips. These are markers representing recorded interactions. Once you've stopped recording, the Timeline will appear, displaying all recorded interactions.
You can:
- Select the Timer to toggle the Timeline once you record something.
- Use pinch gestures to zoom in and out of the Timeline (or use Zoom for web browser users). Alternatively, you can select a zoom level on the right side of the Timeline menu.
- Swipe/scroll the Timeline to seek the desired parts of your recording. The red Playhead marks the current time.
- Independently lock and unlock the audio and video tracks to prevent them from being altered when editing your recording. The locked tracks remain unchanged also during the recording.
- Add audio files to the Timeline of your project via the drag and drop gesture. Touch and hold the track you'd like to add, and drag and drop it into the project's Timeline.
- Include video files in the Timeline of your project immediately when adding or record your interactions with the video later.
- Further edit your recordings.
Here is a quick overview of all available Timeline editing options with some additional tricks that may come in handy later.
Recording modes
Aside from editing your recordings, you can also use recording modes to adjust your recordings. To apply these modes, select MIX from the recording bar once yo've finished recording and select one of the recording modes: Mix, Overwrite, or Insert.
- MIX (Mix mode) — allows you to do separate takes for voice and animations or add layers of animation or camera control. It will cause new recordings to create new clips along already existing clips in the video and audio tracks.
- OVR (Overwrite mode) — lets you redo a recording from a certain point in time so you don't have to start from scratch. It will replace all existing clips in unlocked tracks after the current time.
- INS (Insert mode) — allows you to insert a recording at a certain point in time. This is helpful when you've forgotten to include something in your recording you don't have to go back and re-do the entire video. This will not affect other parts of your Timeline. This feature is not yet available in the Web Editor version.
Tip: To learn more about recording modes, check out how to adjust your recording with recording modes.
Recording and slides
Adding a slide is like adding a new scene to a video. Slides can easily be rearranged, duplicated, or deleted. Each slide has its own, independent Timeline. When the video is exported, the slides will be joined together into a single video.
Tip: Learn about working with slides in Explain Everything and find out more about the continuous recording with a non-linear sequence of slides.
How does Explain Everything record objects?
Recording in Explain Everything is unique in the way that it captures the process of object creation and manipulation in time with the creator’s commentary. While recording, Explain Everything captures their movements along with changes to their contents. If you erase part of the picture or delete a page from the document used on the canvas — this will be recorded, too!
When recording, Explain Everything saves all changes to their position, so it can play them back later in real-time. When viewing the recording — what users see on the screen are not still frames, but is instead a sequence of recorded manipulations reproduced moment by moment. Thanks to this, it’s possible to “mix” recordings, or in other words, to make changes and improve your visuals while maintaining continuity and having the action seem like one, uninterrupted record, eliminating your gaps and polishing your message.
Note: Browsers in the project have limited recording capabilities (e.g. they will not record a YouTube video within a web page). On iOS, you can use the Quicksnap button on the browser to manually capture the moment you’d like to be shown during playback.
How does Explain Everything record audio?
The audio is captured separately on an independent track. If there are more participants in a recording — each source of input will result in a separate audio track. Also, if the recording is composed of several “mixes”, the audio input will be stored as an individual clip which can be accessed separately from the visual record, as well as modified on the project’s timeline.
Audio recordings come from both the microphone, as well as from elements included on your canvas that contain sound. Each of these elements has its own separate volume.