How can I record a movie of a Keynote presentation with my commentary

One option might be Snap-Z-Pro

http://www.ambrosiasw.com/utilities/snapzprox/

Hi Chris,

You can do this with the built-in Record Slideshow feature combined with the Export to QuickTime feature.

Get you mic hooked up and tested, then launch your Keynote presentation and set your slide to where you want to start your recording (probably the first slide). Under the Play menu, pull down to Record Slideshow. Your slideshow will appear with a red button and a VU meter in the upper left of the screen. This means you are in record mode and you can start your commentary. Click through the slides as per normal, adding your narration. When you are finished, click Escape, and you'll be returned to the edit mode.

Your presentation is now in a different state than normal, so it can be a bit confusing at first, but then it makes sense once you figure it out. To illustrate, go to the Inspector, click on the Document tab (left-most), and make sure the "Document" button (left-most) is selected, and halfway down that window you'll see the heading "Presentation" with the pull-down selection set to "Recorded." If you reveal the other pull-downs you'll see other entries like "Normal", "Hyperlinks Only", etc. "Normal" is probably what you're used to, and it is the most flexible. In the "Recorded" state, Keynote is considering your recorded program as the normalized state, so if you make any changes to your presentation, you'll get warning dialog boxes asking if you really want to make the changes. This is because the audio track you recorded to your slideshow could get out of sync with your slides if you change some of the timing of the slide visuals (such as changes in Builds or Transitions). All of this to say that you change the slides if you need to make some visual corrections (pictures, layout, spelling) but be careful if you change the timing.

In this "recorded" state, if you now play your slideshow, it will play your recorded version, and the slides will advance automatically based on the commands you gave it when you initially recorded it. If you want to re-do the narration, you can do it all over again, just follow the same procedure and respond to the warning dialogs accordingly. If you want to trash your recorded version altogether and do a major re-work on the slides, go to the Inspector - Documents tab - click the Audio (middle) button and under the Slideshow Recording heading click "Clear." This will get you back to normal and you can edit at will.

When you have a recorded presentation that you're happy with and you want to make a QuickTime Movie from this to post on MobileMe, go to the Share menu, pull down to Export... and select the QuickTime option at the top. In the upper section with the heading "Playback Uses..." choose "Recorded Timing". This will make a silent slideshow (linear movie) based on the timings you set during the recording. You'll probably want to set the Format to "Full Quality - Large" at first, to get a feel for how large your file will be. You can always repeat this procedure and choose a smaller Format if this one is too large, but start with this one. To include your recorded audio track to accompany the move, be sure to click two boxes under the Audio heading: "Include audio" and "Include Slideshow Recording."

Clicking Next will take you to a name and location dialog, and when you've set that up click Export. Keynote will then render out the QuickTime version of your recorded slideshow. One caveat - the rendering progress preview that Keynote provides only shows a 4:3 aspect ratio of the rendering. If your slideshow was in a widescreen format, it will look compressed in the rendering preview, but don't panic. Keynote is smart enough to render the final movie properly, Apple was just a little lazy in how they built the render preview window.

Hope this helps...

Best,

Craig

This is a great description of how it >should< work. When it doesn't ....... search these discussions in vain.