Question About Camtamsia Please?

14 replies
I have been using a couple of screen capture products for a long time. I've used the Jing Project screen capture from Techsmith, and for a little while I've been using Camstudio which I think is really great, especially if you don't have much money

Well, I was digging around in my old magazines related to Windows XP - ONLY -
#camtamsia #question
  • Profile picture of the author Steven Wagenheim
    So what's your question? I'm not finding it.

    If it's can Camtasia work on Vista, I have no idea.

    I can tell you this, it's one of the best investments I've ever made.
    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[45664].message }}
    • Profile picture of the author trafficwave
      I was waiting for the actual question, too.

      But if that is it (Vista), yes... I run Camtasia on a Windoze box w/ Vista.

      HATE Windoze.
      Love Camtasia.
      Signature

      -----------------------------
      Brian Rooney, CEO
      TrafficWave.net Email Marketing AutoResponders
      Email Marketing Blog

      {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[45680].message }}
  • Profile picture of the author Solidsnake
    Banned
    Originally Posted by Hackbridge View Post

    I have been using a couple of screen capture products for a long time. I've used the Jing Project screen capture from Techsmith, and for a little while I've been using Camstudio which I think is really great, especially if you don't have much money

    Well, I was digging around in my old magazines related to Windows XP - ONLY -
    Camtasia is free only for the first 30 days.. the program is excellent...
    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[45708].message }}
    • Profile picture of the author Hackbridge
      Sorry everyone, I was trying to edit the post with the question when I discovered the sound on my PC has disappeared [!] Not happy. I tried to reboot to restore the microphone sound, but to no avail at the moment.

      I was wanting to ask about how to export the camtasia studio projects. 2008-08-21_2352

      That image says it all really.

      I must say that I was pleasantly surprised to see the responses in such a short space of time and thank you for your willingness to help.

      Brian
      {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[45764].message }}
      • Profile picture of the author Josh Anderson
        Brian,

        You can get the exact same image quality from Camstudio that you can from Camtasia Studio.

        The software has absolutely NO impact on image quality.

        They do the same thing, they produce the same image quality... if you save the master file as an avi.

        Now, if you are using camstudio to export as an SWF... well that's a mistake. The same can be said if you are using Camtasia to render a flash video.

        I own both and I always output to AVI. Then I import the avi into a flash video encoder that has VP6 codec for encoding flv files such as Flix 8 Standard ($39) or Flix 8 pro or Sorenson Squeeze for Flash Pro.

        If you combine Camstudio with Flix 8 Standard your total cost will be $39 and you will get the same or better image quality and compression than you would with camtasia.

        That's a more than $250 savings.

        What does have an impact on image quality are the following:

        1. The codec you use for capture.
        2. Whether you capture to uncompressed avi video for your master.
        3. What codec you use to encode to flash
        5. What bit rate you use for encoding your video

        If only more people knew -)
        Signature
        {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[45956].message }}
        • Profile picture of the author James Liberty
          Originally Posted by Josh Anderson View Post

          1. The codec you use for capture.
          2. Whether you capture to uncompressed avi video for your master.
          3. What codec you use to encode to flash
          5. What bit rate you use for encoding your video
          Where did number 4 go? lol.

          Josh, would you care to further elaborate on any of these?

          1. What codec do you use?
          2. Should we capture to uncompressed avi?
          5. What bit rate do you find to be optimal?
          {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[45969].message }}
          • Profile picture of the author Josh Anderson
            1. What codec do you use?
            The best codec on the market today for screen capture is called the MSU Screen Capture Codec.

            I prefer to use that.

            However, the default Microsoft 1 video codec installed on all windows machines works just fine.

            2. Should we capture to uncompressed avi?
            Always.

            5. What bit rate do you find to be optimal?
            I never publish a flash video at more than 220kbps and you can get away with less than that with screen capture videos.

            The key is to choose the bit rate that you find acceptable to you for image quality...

            But I recommend not encoding at higher than 220kbps video and 32kbps audio because 30% of the US market is on a 256kbps internet connection or lower.

            Additionally for screen capture it just is not necessary to encode at a higher bit rate than that if you are using VP6 as your flv encoding codec because you will get great image quality and to go higher than that will only increase your video size and loading time without adding much benefit to the viewer.
            Signature
            {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[46558].message }}
            • Profile picture of the author Hackbridge
              Thanks for your reply Josh, and as I said I do have both, but I'd like to use the footage that I've created and put it into Windows Movie Maker.

              Is that possible?

              Brian
              {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[46661].message }}
            • Profile picture of the author James Liberty
              Originally Posted by Josh Anderson View Post

              The best codec on the market today for screen capture is called the MSU Screen Capture Codec.
              Thanks! After I installed it, the default for this codec was to "KeyFrame every 80 frames". Of course, I have no idea what that means... but is 80 the ideal number?
              {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[53010].message }}
              • Profile picture of the author Solidsnake
                Banned
                I am using camstudio and still a good choice... it's totally free..
                {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[53019].message }}
                • Profile picture of the author lakshaybehl
                  Can you edit the video using camstudio?

                  I know peple talk about the screen capture quality... and that's OK, but is it possible for you to put in markers to remind you where you made mistakes and then put in the special effects that yu can using camtasia.

                  Involvement devices are very useful for copywriters (if you know what they mean and if you are not using involvement devices you need to check out what they are)... and there are several features in camtasia using which you can involve users within the movie to let them interact and respond to quizzes, surveys etc. That way you have a large span of their attention!

                  So although them image and sound quality might be the same the utilities that come with camtyasia are much greater!

                  And its just $297... almostr pennies as compared to what you could do with it! I do literally EverytiNG with camtasia.

                  And there are video tutorials that you must watch in oprder to be able to use full functionality of camtasia.

                  -Lakshay
                  {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[53037].message }}
      • Profile picture of the author Shannon Herod
        Originally Posted by Hackbridge View Post

        Sorry everyone, I was trying to edit the post with the question when I discovered the sound on my PC has disappeared [!] Not happy. I tried to reboot to restore the microphone sound, but to no avail at the moment.

        I was wanting to ask about how to export the camtasia studio projects. 2008-08-21_2352

        That image says it all really.

        I must say that I was pleasantly surprised to see the responses in such a short space of time and thank you for your willingness to help.

        Brian

        Hey Brian,

        To answer your question. You need to open that file up inside Camtasia itself. That is an actual project file for Camtasia.

        Once the project is open on the left-hand side you'll see a list of commands. You will want to choose produce a video as. After you do this, just follow the steps to produce your video in either AVI format or SWf format.

        Shannon Herod
        {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[53029].message }}
        • I got confused with all the codec talk. If you just want to produce the file as an avi or swf then as Shannon said just open up the file in camtasia and then click on the "produce video as" link on the left.
          {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[53041].message }}
      • Profile picture of the author LonNaylor
        Originally Posted by Hackbridge View Post

        Sorry everyone, I was trying to edit the post with the question when I discovered the sound on my PC has disappeared [!] Not happy. I tried to reboot to restore the microphone sound, but to no avail at the moment.

        I was wanting to ask about how to export the camtasia studio projects. 2008-08-21_2352

        That image says it all really.

        I must say that I was pleasantly surprised to see the responses in such a short space of time and thank you for your willingness to help.

        Brian
        First of all, you already have the AVI file...but the CAMPROJ file is the wrong place to look!

        When you recorded the video, you would have saved it as either and AVI or CAMREC file.

        Find that file on your system. If you saved as AVI, you're good to go. A CAMREC file is a special Camtasia format that saves screen drawing, zoom info, etc. inside with the AVI source file.

        Just right-click on a CAMREC file and you will see an option to "Extract" the AVI source file.

        Hope this helps!
        {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[78308].message }}
  • Profile picture of the author Mitch Miller
    I didn't want to start a new thread for this so I posted here.

    I have Camtasia 4.0 but haven't used it in quite a while. I went to install it on a new Vista 64 machine today and discovered that there are some compatibility issues. I have been reading everything I can from TechSmith and I am still at a loss.

    Does anybody know if there is a quick fix for this problem. I am not particularly wanting to upgrade as version 4 does everything I need to do, or at least it used to...

    Thanks in advance for any help that is offered.
    {{ DiscussionBoard.errors[1059868].message }}

Trending Topics