After looking into what is required to do a Let's Play, I went and checked out the
free evaluation version of Fraps, downloaded
Audacity, and tested both programs out. Fraps certainly works a LOT better than this other, commercial screen recording program I tried out for free. I think it was Screen Recorder Gold that I tried out, but I can't be 100% certain since I uninstalled it a long time ago. Audacity probably isn't a necessity, but I wanted to be able to edit my commentaries, and this program is great for doing just that. Otherwise, Fraps IS capable of recording both the game's audio as well as an external audio source like a microphone, but the audio will be compressed together, making editing not-so-easy to do.
After the recording phase, I intend on working with Windows Movie Maker first to see how much editing I can do with it. I kind of doubt that I would need high levels of editing for my videos, at least not yet, but seeing how I've heard good things about Sony Vegas Pro, that is something I will look into later on.
But one of the things that slipped my mind was the issue of Copyrights. Having had issues with copyrights before, I'd like to know where the fine line is when it comes to them so that I know not to cross what legal rights I'm allowed and not. So here are some webpages that I found were somewhat helpful in regards to copyrights.
http://socialtimes.com/fair-use-youtube_b61891
As well as the
"Copyrights" link at the bottom of YouTube's page.
Searching "Copyright Laws regarding Let's Play videos" on Google provided quite a few discussions in forum threads regarding the matter, with most of them pointing out that while it's technically a legal gray area, it's unlikely that a game company will file a copyright infringement lawsuit on an individual for uploading a Let's Play video.
Sooo... in the end, I'm still a bit iffy about how much content I can put in my videos, like... whether if I could put music from other games in them, or whether if giving credits to all things included would be mandatory.
I'll try experimenting a bit with a few recordings and see how well they turn out. It's about time I get some more content on this blog anyway.
I just got word that Defense Grid: The Awakening on Steam can be downloaded for free (legally) through an activation code you can get off of Facebook, by Logitech. I tried it out, and the activation code certainly did give me a copy of the game, so I'm sharing the info to you guys too. I'm not sure how long this deal will last though, so if you're interested in getting a $10 game for free, give it a shot. You just need to "Like" Logitech and Defense Grid. You can get to the Facebook page through the link on this page.
