Profcast makes presentations makes Podcasts

Why buy Macs for a variety of reasons. Dependability. Security. Applications. Not necessarily in that order. The Mac helps us get more done, faster, easier, fewer hassles, more rewards. Some Mac software can be surprisingly simple and elegant, yet remarkably capable. If you do presentations and use your Mac you should also use ProfCast.

Deceptively Simple, Simon

Any Mac application worth your time must be easy to use, right? It must also do plenty for us to make life easier.

ProfCast is so scary simple, yet does so much, it’s hard to believe the little window that pops up on your Mac can also be responsible for generating classy presentations and Podcasts with audio and video.

The Little Window

ProfCast opens with a small window on your Mac’s screen. At the top there’s a red button to Start Recording your presentation.

To the right is a Share button which will send your presentation to the web, GarageBand, or elsewhere, as a completed slide show with audio.

At the bottom of the little window is a selector for the microphone (whatever works on your Mac works in ProfCast, built in or otherwise), and the right and left channel stereo volume indicators.

In the middle of the ProfCast window is where you drag and drop your presentation.

Presenting Presentations

The latest version of ProfCast works with Microsoft’s PowerPoint or Apple’s Keynote to combine the slides with your live audio narration. Combined, your voice over and slides make a fully packaged presentation ready for sharing.

ProfCast provides a low cost solution for recording and distributing lectures, special events, and presentations as podcasts. ProfCast offers an integrated workflow that makes creating, recording, and publishing podcasts easy. It’s as simple as Launch, Load, and Lecture!

Presentations can be created for teachers to students, business and marketing people to customers, managers to employees in training, and much more.

How To

It’s typical Mac drag and drop. You control your presentation in PowerPoint or Keynote so your voice over narration synchronizes with your slides, while being recorded live.

ProfCast can publish the finished presentation to MobileMe, FTP or sFTP to a remote web site, integrate into an Apple iWeb site, or publish as a standalone Podcast, complete with the slides, audio, and a valid RSS link.

For a more professional product, ProfCast can send your presentation to GarageBand (what Mac doesn’t have GB?) to layer in additional audio tracks, and save as a Podcast or QuickTime movie for the web.

ProfCast provides live presentation recording, synchronization of slides with audio, Keynote and PowerPoint support, RSS generation, and publishing support. All elements of your presentation, including slide timings, bullet point builds, and voice narration, are recorded. ProfCast allows you to record your presentation as you give it, using either Apple’s Keynote or Microsoft PowerPoint.

What’s not to like?

The Problem?

Nothing is perfect, of course. ProfCast seems deceptively simple. After all, there’s not much going on in that pop up window.

Drag, drop. Click record button. Give presentation. Click. Save.

ProfCast cannot make you a presentation king or queen overnight. You still have to create a slide show presentation in Keynote or PowerPoint. You still have to do the presentation that ProfCast records.

So, you have to do some work. A five minute slide show with audio narration can be done, completed, ready to distribute in as little as, well, five minutes.

If you or your organization creates training materials, sales materials, marketing materials, or creates lectures, special events, or anything that requires a PowerPoint or Keynote presentation, ProfCast can add the audio layer to the show, which makes it simple to distribute to the masses. Or, your boss.