Camtasia 6.0 - Video Recording

[Zeide]

Hi.

I am looking for a program to make video tutorials. I have seen Camtasia 6.0 however, its really pricey, and its very slow. When you create the videos the mouse jumps around like there are frames missing, and also its output files are very large.

I found this website and see there are some video articles, they are very nicely done. The frames are very fast and clear and looks as if you are sitting right in front of the computer they are teaching on.

Does anyone know what program was used to make the videos on this website? Or does anyone know of any other good screen recorders that are not so pricey and that produce a small file size. mp4 output would be GREAT!

I also would like to add a few slides to the front or end of the vidoes with my company name and copyright information so I need to be able to do some very basic production editing to the files if possible, but I can get around this if needed.

Thanks alot!

[Brad Jones]

Camtasia is what we use for videos that are linked on Codeguru and posted to Internet.com. It is easy to use and lets you create a variety of formats. Camtasia is easy for the screen capture style videos we doe.

You can add intro slides easily. One way to do it is simply to create the slides in PowerPoint or any other program and simply record them on your screen, then use the Camtasia editor to past them to the front. You can also stick in images I believe.

Brad!

[Zeide]

What version of Camtasia are you using then? Because I've seen videos created with version 5.0 (maybe 5.1) and they are really small, blurry and the frames and audio jump around too much.

[Brad Jones]

We use versions 4 and newer. The poor video quality you are seeing might be a result of the person creating it reducing the video poorly or messing with the audio compression. In general, you can control a lot of that. Like any file, the more you squeeze things out, the fuzzier it will be. Looking at a 1280x1024 screen in a 320x200 window is going to look bad simply because it is scrunched. I have had no issues with Camtasia that I wouldn't expect to have with any other program.

Brad!

[Zeide]

Thank!

How are the video sizes? Are they reasonable?

I'm going to download the trial of Camtasia and see what I can do with it. Its a lot of money, but maybe it will be worth it.

[Brad Jones]

You can set video size to whatever you want to record.

Of course, I should use this time to plug Microsoft Movie Maker for manipulating video. It is a free tool from Microsoft, but it doesn't capture your screen. I can, however, generate standard and HD videos for computer or DVDs. And the reason for plugging this is that if you want to see how to use it, you can check out my book that just published this month, Windows Live Essentials and Services: Using Free Microsoft Applications for Windows (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0470526874/wwwteachyours-20), which contains a huge chapter on using this program!

Brad!