Using Screencast-O-Matic

SNL provides a free Premier Screencast-O-Matic account to all presenters to help you create and caption your video presentation. Screencast-O-Matic provides tools for recording, uploading, and captioning your video. For information, see the Screencast-O-Matic Training Videos.

You are not required to use Screencast-O-Matic to create your video. However, you will need to use the Screencast-O-Matic captioning tool to add captions to your video prior to uploading your video file.

Installing Screencast-O-Matic

Instructions for installing Screencast-O-Matic were emailed to all presenters and are shown below.

1. Go to https://screencast-o-matic.com/SNL2020.
2. Click “Download Install” to initiate the download of the application.
3. Install and launch the Screencast-O-Matic application.
4. Click the “I have a Team Plan” button.
5. Enter the Access URL: “SNL2020”.
6. Enter the Password that was emailed to you. If you don’t know your password, please contact us at info@neurloang.org.
7. Screencast-O-Matic is now installed and running. See the instructions below for information on recording, captioning, and uploading your presentation video.

Recording Video

Screencast-O-Matic has a screen recorder for creating presentation videos. Note: You may use another method for creating your video, and then import your video into Screencast-O-Matic for captioning (see “Importing Video” below).

1. From the Screencast-O-Matic desktop application, click the Record button.
2. Set your recording preferences, such as screen size, audio, and embedded webcam.
3. Click the red Record button to start recording.
4. Click Pause and then Done to save your recording.
5. From the menu that automatically pops up, click Edit Video.
6. Make desired edits to your recording, then click Done.
7. From here you can go Back to Recordings (upper left) or proceed to captioning your video following the instructions below.

Importing Video

If you don’t use Screencast-O-Matic to record your video, you can import a video from your computer.

1. From the Screencast-O-Matic Recordings screen, click Import (upper right).
2. Select a video file from your computer.
3. The selected video is imported into the Screencast-O-Matic desktop application for editing and captioning.

Editing Your Video

1. From the Screencast-O-Matic Recordings screen, select a video.
2. Select Edit from the pop-up menu.
3. You can crop your video and make other changes.
4. Save your changes by clicking Done.

Captioning Your Video

All SNL presentation videos are open captioned. Open Captioned means the captions are embedded into the video and are visible on a black bar below the video frame. Screencast-O-Matic’s auto-caption feature uses machine speech-to-text translation, which can have difficulty getting scientific terms correct, so you will need to carefully review your captions for accuracy. This can take time, so don’t leave this to the last minute.

Be sure your video is in its final state before captioning. Making changes to your video after you caption it could result in having to start the captioning process over.

1. From the Screencast-O-Matic Recordings screen, select a video.
2. Click the CC (Closed Caption) icon.
3. Select Speech-to-Text (EN-US), then click Start.
4. Screencast-O-Matic will start to auto-caption your video.
5. Wait until auto-captioning is done. You can verify by scrolling to the bottom of the Captions Text sidebar.
6. Review the captions in the Captions Text sidebar and make corrections.
7. Click OK to save your captions.
8. You can crop your video and make other changes.
9. Save your changes by clicking Done.

Saving Your Video File

To complete the video process, save your captioned video to your computer, and then upload it following the instructions below.

1. From the Screencast-O-Matic Recordings screen, select a video.
2. Cick Save as Video File from the Options menu (lower right).
3. Set your publishing options:
   1. Type must be MP4.
   2. Enter a Filename. Your video filename should have your name in it so we can identify it when you upload it.
   3. Enter the Folder.
   4. Indicate if you want your screen Cursor to appear in your video.
   5. Set Open Captions to English.
   6. For Quality, try the Lower quality first as this makes for a smaller file size, which will load and play faster on the SNL 2020 website.
4. Click Publish.
5. After the video is saved to your computer, play it to verify the quality that the captions are embedded.

Uploading Your Video

Posters

Videos for Poster presentations must be uploaded to your SNL Account.

1. Log in to your SNL Account.
2. From your account home page, click “Upload Presentation”.
3. From your Poster Presentation page, click “Upload Video”.

Video Tours must be uploaded to your SNL Account no later than October 16.

Symposia, Slides, and Award Talks

Video presentations for Symposia, Slides, and Award Talks must be uploaded to the SNL 2020 Dropbox using the invite that was emailed to you. If you cannot find your invite, please contact us at info@neurloang.org.

Video presentations must be uploaded to Dropbox by October 16.

More Information

Please also see Presenter Instructions and Preparing Your Presentation.