Camtasia and Audacity - Can I merger them?

You need to detach the audio from the video, and then you can delete the audio from Camtasia, and replace it with new audio recorded elsewhere. Check the syncing though, you may have to split up the audio track and move sections in the timeline to get it all back in time when importing audio to video...This link might help http://www.screencast.com/users/Camt...5-0c8bbc151b5a

Just one thing to think about, if you say the audio in Audacity is better, did you just have different audio quality settings set for audacity when the recording was made. If you have the same settings in Camtasia for audio then there shouldn't be any difference in quality of the recording, the software in general doesn't influence the quality of the recording, the bit rate and bandwidth or kHz settings are the most common cause of bad audio. Perhaps you had the audio settings set incorrectly in Camtasia when you recorded the audio?

Short answer... I'm sure you can do that. Ever see the black and white clapboard slates used in movies? That's what they are there for.. to sync up video and audio.

For video, I use Sony Vegas Movie Studio. It was about $50 and will easily sync up video and audio, as well as allow you to add multiple clips, add titles, and things of that nature. There's a learning curve, but in my experience, I much prefer it over camtasia.

Many perfectly adequate audio and video programs have a lite version packaged with many consumer products. I would suggest doing some research into those and find one that suits your needs... and just pick up whatever cool little toy comes with it. But with that said, audacity is pretty decent.

And I don't know why the audio would sound better in audacity (unless you are using some VST plug ins). As IBKS said, it's all about bit rate and the microphone and such. Maybe you just need to turn up the volume a little bit?

And I know you didn't ask, but since you're asking about video and audio, I'll throw out one other cool little piece of kit that I discovered a few years ago. The Zoom H4n (~$250 on Amazon). It's a pocket audio recorder (for a very large pocket). Some of the advantages of it include:

*You can attach professional mics to it, and even feed them phantom power (a 48V signal that powers many professional mics).

*You can set it to record only when a certain volume threshold is reached. I use this feature at night when going to bed to record those last thoughts you have right before you fall asleep, and also the thoughts you have after waking up. Once, I recorded an entire new song that way and didn't even remember doing it until months later when I played back the recording. GREAT for spontaneous thinking!

* It's portable

* The audio quality, just from the built in microphones, is light years ahead of cheap computer mics. This is a tool made for people who know their audio. And it shows.

* And you can still edit the tracks with Audacity.

It can be difficult to detach the audio in Camtasia at times.
What you can do is save the Camtasia file with the audio as a WMV.
Then bring it into Windows Movie Maker.
Mute the sound of the file here.
Save it as a WMV again and bring it back into Camtasia timeline again.
Export your Audacity MP3 and bring that into the Camtasia timeline.
You may have to position it to fit the length of the video.

It's really not hard in most programs. In fact, once you get how to do it (in any program), it's one of those lightbulb moments where suddenly the world of videography opens up a little bit for you and you start to see what's possible. Think of your video file in terms of adding music to a video. Essentially, those two activities are the same. If you look around for info on how to overlay music on a video, I'll bet you'll understand exactly how to get your preferred audio to work with camtasia.

I'm an audio geek and a video newb, but I highly encourage everyone to make a simple video and audio clip, and learn how to move them around. It's really game changing in a lot of ways. It gives you a LOT of power to create content with a large impact. Personally, I still use my cell phone for video, and even with that, I've been able to do some pretty good stuff ("pro-tip": Lighting... lots and lots of lighting is important when using cheap camcorders. Doing that will make your videos a LOT better).

And with regards to my reference to a clapboard.... I don't use anything silly like that. I just clap my hands once or twice at the start of the recording to let me sync it all up, and then delete that portion once it's sync'd.

The clarity of the sound is not determined by which software program you use. What you have "noticed" is that your audio settings in Audacity are different than they are in Camtasia. If you use a higher quality audio setting in Camtasia, it will sound every bit as clear as it does in Audacity.