Camtasia 6: Summary and Review

Overview

Camtasia is a tool that captures screen contents over time as a video, called a screencast.  The screencast may also display the movement of the mouse cursor, provide visible or audible evidence of when the mouse is clicked and keys are pressed, and other aids and effects the screencast author chooses to employ.  In Camtasia, video can be combined with audio narrative, music, and graphic images to provide multiple channels of information and enrichment.

Camtasia is useful for...

... touring the terrain of a computer application or a website.
... demonstrating how to accomplish a task in a particular software environment.
... capturing a presentation, e.g., PowerPoint, for distribution to a wider audience.
... the creation of software feature demos, as a sales/promotion device

Functions and Features

Screen Capture

The function that is most unique to an application of this sort is the ability to capture the contents of the computer screen as it changes over a period of time.  Camtasia accomplishes this task in a straightforward fashion, capturing the movement of the cursor, menu displays, forms entry, etc. With appropriate setup, the screen recording can highlight the location of the cursor and provide visual clues when a mouse button is clicked. Choose the area of the screen you wish to record by selecting an adjustable rectangle, a window, or the entire screen.

Focus on the Action

Camtasia's "Smart Focus" feature can be used to zoom in on and pan to the mouse pointer to highlight where the action is and magnify the associated text and screen objects.   Alterntively, zooming and panning can be manually controlled during the editing process.

Add Video and Graphic Images

Video and graphic images from other sources can be combined with the screen capture.  They can be sequentially interspersed, or layered on top using Camtasia's picture-in-picture (PIP) capability.

Record a PowerPoint Presentation

Camtasia can be integrated with PowerPoint to allow you to capture a PowerPoint presentation, along with the accompanying narrative (see below.)  Capture the timing, transitions, and special effects PowerPoint provides.  Add in web pages and  application displays.

Record Narrative

With a suitable microphone and sound card (USB mics also work nicely), a narration can be recorded simultaneously with the screen capture, or added later.  You can also add a video recording of the narrator, captured with a camcorder, to be displayed as a picture-in-picture. Camtasia allows you to improve the quality of the voice recording by leveling the volume and removing noise.

Music Soundtrack

A separate audio track can be added for background sound.  Audio levels can be adjusted to provide just the right balance.

Editing

Individual clips can be reordered and trimmed. A wide array of transitions can be added (e.g. dissolves) between clips.  Draw on the screen with colored markers or highlighters to add notes or focus attention.  Add titles and credits.  You can also add closed captioning by copying in your script and providing synchronization cues.

Share in a Variety of Ways

When you produce your final video, you can choose from a wide variety of file types, and you can use settings that are optimized for display on a computer, CD, DVD, YouTube, a blog, iPod, etc.  You can also add a table of contents and allow the user to jump to specific topics within your presentation.  Camtasia's developer, TechSmith Corporation, also provides a website -- Screencast.com -- that allows you to upload and share up to 2 gigabytes of video for free.

YouTube, until recently, hasn't been a good venue for screencast distribution, due to its low resolution.  High resolution is required to be able to read text and discern details of screen objects in screencasts. However, YouTube has recently upped both its resolution and permitted filesize.  While you're still limited to 10 minutes in length, that is ample time to deliver many kinds of screencasts.   If you render your final video correctly, YouTube will recognize it as High Definition.  You can learn how to do that in this VideoStrokes article.