Camtasia Studio

Camtasia Studio

Camtasia Studio 7.0 running on Windows 7
Developer(s)	TechSmith
Initial release	October 28, 2002 (2002-10-28)
Stable release	9.0.0 / 11 October 2016 (2016-10-11)[1]
Operating system	Microsoft Windows[2]
Type	Screencasting and video editing software
License	Shareware
Website	www.techsmith.com/camtasia/

Camtasia Studio and Camtasia for Mac (pronunciation: /kæmˈteɪʒə/) are software suites, created and published by TechSmith, for creating video tutorials and presentations directly via screencast, or via a direct recording plug-in to Microsoft PowerPoint. The screen area to be recorded can be chosen freely, and audio or other multimedia recordings may be recorded at the same time or added separately from any other source and integrated in the Camtasia Studio component of the product. Both versions of Camtasia started as enhanced screen capture programs and have evolved to integrate screen capture and post-processing tools targeted at the educational and information multimedia development marketplace.

Camtasia Studio v8 for Microsoft Windows consists of two major components:

• Camtasia Recorder - a separate tool for capturing screen audio and video
• Camtasia Studio editor - the component for which the entire product is named, which is now a multimedia authoring tool with the industry standard "timeline" interface for managing multiple clips in a stacked track form plus enhancements summarized below.

Camtasia Studio Recorder

In Camtasia Recorder, the presenter can start and stop recording with a hotkey combination at any time, at which point the recording can be halted and resumed or Camtasia Recorder can render the input that has been captured into a CAMREC format. The CAMREC file can be saved to disk or directly imported into the Camtasia Studio component for editing. Camtasia Recorder allows audio recording while screen-capturing is in progress, so the presenter can capture live narration during a demonstration or presentation. Camtasia also supports dubbing in other audio tracks or voiceover during post-capture editing. Users may also download an Add-In for Microsoft Power Point that will allow them to easily initiate recording of a presentation from within Power Point itself.

In Camtasia Studio editor, you can import multimedia objects of various formats into the clip library and arrange them in time order and stacked tracks using the timeline form of user controls that is so common among video editors today. Overlays of various types may be added including user-defined settings, such as when and how to display the cursor, pan-and-zoom effects such as the Ken Burns effect. Camtasia Studio v8 and Camtasia Mac v2 offer numerous options to enhance sections of the recorded screen to draw attention via a cursor or drawn in pointer to highlight section(s) of the screen or to better illustrate the actions of the presenter on the screen. Another very useful feature is the ability to save media clips within the library tab, keeping a user from having to repeatedly import commonly-used media clips/files.

Post-production

After capturing a presentation in the Camatasia Recorder, the Camtasia Studio component can be used to modify audio and video displayed as tracks by using the timeline control and object library interface with an integrated preview window. The image in the infobox to the right is a screen capture of the timeline interface. In addition, Camtasia Studio allows voice overlay for the presenter or editor, as well as the ability to add sound effects in many different formats including music formats into the clip bin and arrange anywhere on the timeline.

Many presenters prefer to wait until they have finished the screen-capture and then record the narration from a script as the application is playing back the recorded capture. They can do so in the Camtasia Studio editor and overlay the original recorded audio.

Rendering and deployment

The Camtasia Studio program allows import of various types of multimedia video and audio files including MP4, MP3, WMV, WMA, AVI, WAV and many other formats into the Camtasia proprietary CAMREC format, which is readable only by Camtasia. The CAMREC format is a single container for potentially hundreds of multimedia objects including video clips, still images, document screen shots and special effect containers. Camtasia also allows entire projects under development to be exported as one zip file for portability to other workstations with Camtasia or other video editing software. The created video can be exported to common video formats including MPEG-2, MPEG-4, WMV, AVI, and Adobe Flash. There are preset output formats that can be read by software available on the vast majority of current generation mobile devices, desktop, and laptop computers without requiring any Camtasia software or license. An additional component is included, Camtasia Player v8.2 for the Microsoft Windows version only, which can be freely shared and supports replay of variety of video formats on computers running Microsoft Windows.

Common uses

• Instructional designers rely heavily on Camtasia to produce screencasts for training purposes. This has become even more true as the style of instruction continues to change from traditional classroom and other "heavy" training methods to a more bite size (microlearning) format. Tools such as Camtasia Studio allow instructional designers the flexibility to create, publish and distribute just-in-time training to learners, without fear of heavy costs and training unit life expectancy.

Reviews

The v8 updates to Camtasia Studio have eliminated some of the prior release issues including excessive rendering times and excessive consumption of system resources during production. Other pros from reviews and from the Ning.com Camtasia Studio Feedback Forums are as follows:

• Enhanced multi-track video/audio editing capabilities compared to v7
• Improved handling of embedded hyperlinks compared to v7
• Higher quality screen action capture compared to v7
• Integrated audio-clip enhancement
• Integrated tutorial for both Camtasia Studio and PowerPoint plug-in components
• Large library of tutorial material
• Good support resources, both online and via text chat. Options for in-person telephone support available for fully licensed versions
• Educational discount license for students and instructor K-12 or university use

Camtasia Studio's shortcomings noted in the PC World review of January 17, 2013 and CNET review of June 19, 2012 and key shortcomings from Ning.com Camtasia Studio Feedback Forums are as follows:

• Rotation of objects is applied via a dialog rather than interactively, though many lower-priced video editors do provide interactive rotation and manipulation of objects such as text and video frames
• Recording live from a DV camera is not supported
• Still potentially overwhelming for the introductory user, tempered by the tutorial material available. NOTE the V8 release is a complete rewrite so much of the prior tutorial material written for the popular Camtasia Studio v6 and v7 software for Microsoft Windows is not usable with this release.
• Audio handling has minimal capabilities and no integration with other packages compared to some competitors in this price range
• Lacks any video-clip manipulation or integration with other packages that have such capabilities

PC World noted that "Camtasia [Studio] has evolved from being the go-to program for software demonstrators to a full-featured education/information video tool" from this 4 1/2 star review. An earlier 2005 review is still relevant, which states that, though "powerful," Camtasia can be "a little overwhelming at the start" to new users, though the learning curve is easily manageable. ^{[5] [6] [7] [8]}

See also

Screencasting

• Screencast
• Comparison of screencasting software
• CamStudio a GPL alternative

Other TechSmith Products

• SnagIt - screenshot software
• Jing - screenshot and screen recording software

Misc

• Distance education
• Instructional design
• Podcast
• Web based presentation tools
• Fraps

References

External links

• Official website