This article will walk you through all the basics of recording videos in Explain Everything.
Get started recording
Recording videos is easy! Check out these three short steps to get you started:
- Start recording by selecting Record at the bottom of your screen.
- Select Record again to pause or stop the recording. The Timeline of your recording will automatically be displayed.
- Select Play to watch your recording.
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 possibilities for 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 tapping on 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.
Timeline basics
Each activity performed during the recording will be displayed in the Timeline. Your Timeline consists of Tracks made up of Clips. The clips in the Timeline are there to represent the objects, animations, and drawings in your recording. Once you’ve stopped recording, the Timeline will appear, displaying all recorded interactions. Select the timer to hide or reopen the Timeline.
As seen in the image, the Timeline consists of Tracks, separate for both video (upper track) and audio (bottom track). Each Track contains Clips. These are markers representing recorded interactions both in audio and video. The red Playhead marks the current time on the recording.
You can:
- Tap on the Timer to toggle the Timeline.
- Use pinch gestures to zoom in and out of the Timeline (or use Zoom for web browser users).
- Swipe/scroll the Timeline to see the desired parts of the recording.
- Further modify your recording. Check out our article on editing recordings.
- Independently lock and unlock the audio and video track to prevent them from being altered when editing your recording. The locked tracks remain unchanged during the recording.
Recording modes
Aside from Timeline editing, you can also use recording modes to adjust your recording. To apply these modes, tap MIX from the recording bar once you’ve finished recording and select one of the recording modes: Overwrite, Mix or Insert.
- 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.
- 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.
- Insert 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.
Learn more about Recording Modes.
Working with 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. Learn more about working with 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 want 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.
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