Techsmith Camtasia Studio 6

Giving individuals directions on the right way to do issues in Windows is tedious and liable to errors. Miss out a step and your viewers might be fully misplaced. It’s far more efficient to point out how a specific factor is finished and for that you simply want to have the ability to file what occurs on the display screen as you perform the actions wanted for the demonstration. Making display screen movies is what Camtasia does.

Techsmith Camtasia Studio 6 is a video recorder for Windows, which might seize each motion carried out with mouse or keyboard and file an audio narration to go along with it. It gives enhancing services so you’ll be able to be part of segments of video collectively and lower them about to provide a completed coaching assist or demo.

The principal a part of the applying is the enhancing display screen, the place movies are assembled, however earlier than you attain that stage, it’s a must to file the segments that’ll be assembled there. For that, you want Camtasia Recorder, which might be launched from the principle program or individually from My Programs.

Camtasia Recorder is an easy management panel, providing choices to pick out the display screen space to be recorded: full display screen or simply about any customized space inside it – helpful for recording exercise in a single Windows pane. The Recorder additionally gives to file Webcam output and sound from any supply you choose, in addition to keyboard and mouse exercise. When you’re all set, click on the massive purple Record button and also you get a comforting 3, 2, 1 countdown, so you’ll be able to calm down and compose your self. The recorder itself minimises to the utility tray.

There’s no noticeable hit on efficiency as you file actions and if you’ve completed the video or phase, hit a hotkey to cease recording and name up the recorder, once more, the place you’ll be able to playback the clip and reserve it. Raw clips are saved as AVI recordsdata, which makes them handy for almost any viewer. There’s a stanadalone one equipped with Camtasia.

The principal a part of the applying is the enhancing display screen, which is modelled on video editors like Adobe Premiere and Corel VideoStudio. There’s a timeline alongside the underside of the display screen, displaying video and audio tracks, a preview participant on the suitable, above this, a palette the place you’ll be able to load your clips to the left and a menu of choices at excessive left.

Once clips have been loaded to the palette, you’ll be able to drag and drop them with the intention to the timeline. The toolbar above the timeline contains buttons to develop the timeframe, which is helpful for eradicating ‘Ums’ and ‘Errs’ from a soundtrack; you’ll be able to choose very small time parts and delete them.

One of the main new options in Camtasia Studio 6 is SmartFocus. When you’re illustrating issues like choosing menu choices in a video, it’s helpful for the viewer to have the ability to see the element of the motion, not the entire display screen. Camtasia senses when the mouse strikes round and zooms the display screen in on that space for a close-up. It refocuses just about at any time when a big transfer is made and does it robotically, as clips are added to the timeline.

It’s not excellent and, in use, we discovered it was refocusing somewhat too typically, however every adjustment is proven within the zoom observe between the video and audio tracks within the timeline. You can delete a refocus marker or edit it to vary the dimensions and place of the zoom. It’s a really versatile method and improves the standard of the completed video, but it surely’s straightforward to grow to be an excessive amount of of a perfectionist and spend far too lengthy adjusting markers.

There’s one other sort of marker you’ll be able to add to the timeline, which is extra general-purpose and is used to have the ability to transfer shortly round a video. They might be inserted at any place on the timeline and given names for simple identification. The playhead is a particular marker which exhibits the present playback place and this may be dragged round to play any a part of a video and to pick out parts for enhancing.

Editing instruments for the timeline might be improved. There are a number of frequent duties which aren’t as straightforward as they need to be. For instance, it will be very helpful to have the ability to choose from the place of the playhead to the tip (or begin) of a clip with a few hotkeys and to make use of the Delete key to take away the choice. As it’s, it’s a must to choose the beginning place, drag to the tip of the clip and click on the Cut button.

It would even be helpful to have the ability to place the playhead, play a bit of video and after, transfer again to the beginning place with a single keystroke. It’s typically essential to play a bit greater than as soon as to resolve the place to make a lower.

You can file a narration for a video similtaneously recording the video, or add it later within the Camtasia editor. For this you’ll be able to unlink the video and audio tracks, if wanted. You also can add captions and symbols – similar to arrows – to a video, to spotlight explicit particulars.

When the video is prepared, it may be rendered as MPEG 4, or particularly for frequent locations like HD, iPhone, iPod and YouTube. Techsmith has eliminated the sooner Flash format from the choices record, although, leaving solely the most recent MP4/SWF. This is maybe a bit untimely, as there are many functions nonetheless requiring earlier Flash enter.

For instance, when producing the latest Microsoft Office display screen movies, all of which have been produced with Camtasia Studio 6, we had to make use of a third-party program to transform the MPEG 4 output to Flash, in order that they might be streamed. This received’t be an issue long-term, however at the moment it’s annoying to not have legacy Flash help.

Verdict

Despite some lack of sophistication in its enhancing instruments, Camtasia Studio 6 is a really competent display screen video recorder. SmartFocus, used sparingly, improves the standard of completed movies and the acquainted video enhancing paradigm ought to make it straightforward for anyone to choose up the fundamentals shortly and grow to be productive.