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Bad News ... Do You Realize CamRec Format is Crap?

by lakshaybehl
10 replies
Hey Guys,

Bad news today.

I have long been a lover of Camtasia Studio and thought it was the be-all-and-end-all of video production.

I never did anything outside of Camtasia.

And I was pretty satisfied, until I started recording hour long videos for product tutorials.

Until I started recording actual Powerpoint presentations.

It was then when I realized that content is produced in a much better way in the raw AVI format, and then edited in a proper video editing software and rendered.

Camrec format (the default format used by Camtasia) is not as greast as I once thought it'd be.

So, Josh Anderson has always been right. It doesn't matter if you use Camtasia or the other free screen flow capture software. Produce your videos as AVI's and edit them as formal video footage with a proper software.

But stop using Camrec (even if you continue using Camtasia, which is what I will do) because Camrec format files can become pretty heavy at times and crash and burn.

Apparently, guys at Camtasia should look up and take note of this.

All the best
-Lakshay

P.S. Use AVI format. Not Camrec. Its much better, and if you do not make mistakes, you might not even need to render the videos- they are already in a sharable universal format (AVI).
#bad #camrec #crap #format #news #realize
  • Profile picture of the author Jesus Perez
    Lakshay, I just posted something similar on this.

    http://www.warriorforum.com/main-int...ia-studio.html

    Try using a different encoder when recording long videos. The Techsmith codec sucks.
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  • Profile picture of the author Marian Berghes
    just use h.264 (I think its called like that) witch is the codec that most HD movies are encoded with.

    I used it for some videos I did for youtube and the quality is great and youtube gave me the HD option almost instantly.

    I've also checked some movie trailers that said they were full hd and they were also encoded with h.264.

    I don't know how it performs on other sites other then youtube, never tried it...but the quality is awesome.
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  • Profile picture of the author Jesus Perez
    Lakshay, the codec that Camtasia recommends for long captures is Xvid.

    TechSmith User-to-User Forums - View Single Post - Camtasia Audio Problems...

    Give it a try and report back.
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  • Profile picture of the author TimGross
    Originally Posted by lakshaybehl View Post

    because Camrec format files can become pretty heavy at times and crash and burn.
    I don't know what that means. You mean the file format is more unstable than avi (as opposed to saying the Codec isn't as good)?

    How long are your individual screen recordings? I don't go over 10 minutes apiece and have never had a problem.
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    • Profile picture of the author Kevin AKA Hubcap
      An hour long AVI is going to be a big a** file.

      Record in AVI but render to flv or mp4.

      Kevin
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    • Profile picture of the author lakshaybehl
      Originally Posted by TimGross View Post

      I don't know what that means. You mean the file format is more unstable than avi (as opposed to saying the Codec isn't as good)?

      How long are your individual screen recordings? I don't go over 10 minutes apiece and have never had a problem.
      You are right- They are much larger in file size, and much more unstable.

      Now, my screen recordings went well over an hour. That is because its a full blown product I am creating and as a bonus I am offering a live, real-time, working protocal/sample of my system. This is where I actually use my own system and show them precisely how it works, and how easy it is to make it work.

      So these recordings can sometimes become 2 hours long, and then if you're using Camrec- you suddenly realize that the entire recording has crashed. Camtasia failed to save it or maybe the saved file is way too large for even Camtasia to handle. And then you feel like you are doomed.

      Sure you can do smaller segments, but I personally prefer to do one large section so it can be put directly on a DVD and shipped to their places, you know?

      @Kevin:

      Sure as hell I would never stream an AVI over the internet (I don't even know if that's possible). You always encode it to FLV format before streaming it over the internet.

      -Lakshay
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      WARNING EXPLICIT: This is ugly... and this is the distilled truth


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      • Profile picture of the author Jesus Perez
        Originally Posted by lakshaybehl View Post

        Now, my screen recordings went well over an hour. That is because its a full blown product I am creating and as a bonus I am offering a live, real-time, working protocal/sample of my system. This is where I actually use my own system and show them precisely how it works, and how easy it is to make it work.
        I recorded a 15 minute full motion 852x400 @ 30fps using the TechSmith codec and it hit 6.2GB!!! So I'm not surprised. My Quad Core, 4gb PC took nearly 20 minutes to render and save!

        I'm pretty sure the problem is not the camrec format, but the codec you're using. Don't use the TechSmith.
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  • Profile picture of the author Jesus Perez
    To test, I just recorded a fast-motion 30 minute video @ 640x360 30fps using the Xvid codec in Camtasia. I saved it as an AVI...not a camrec. It's 173mb and the quality is superb.
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  • Profile picture of the author SageSound
    Got news for you ... if you right-click on the .camrec file in Windows Explorer, you can actually save the audio track and the video track separately. And the video track is ... an .AVI file.

    It has always rather baffled me why somebody doesn't put out a program that creates snapshots of your PowerPoint slides and lets you sync them to an audio track. It would be a fraction larger than the audio file without the slides.

    Using ANY screen recording program to record an audio voice-over of a PowerPoint presentation just seems silly. It's a HUGE file! And fundamentally, no codec on the planet is going to be able to optimize out everything except the individual slides.

    -David
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