Camtasia Studio
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Camtasia Studio | |
 Screenshot |
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| Developer: | TechSmith |
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| Latest release: | 4.0.0 / September 22, 2006 |
| OS: | Windows |
| Use: | Screen capture and editing |
| License: | Shareware |
| Website: | TechSmith.com |
Camtasia Studio or simply Camtasia is a screencast software published by TechSmith.
Camtasia is designed to be user-friendly and allow users who do not have any screen-recording experience to rapidly create powerful presentations. Presenters are able to use their own computers to carry out a procedure that is to be presented, for example a demonstration on how to create a graphic in development applications, such as Macromedia Studio and embed it in a web page. The user defines the area of the screen or the window that ought to be captured before recording begins; it is also possible to capture the entire screen area.
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[edit] Content Production
[edit] Recording
The presenter carries out all steps of the demonstration in sequence and is able to jump from one application to another without interrupting the recording process. The presenter is able to stop recording with a hotkey combination at any time, at which point the software renders the input that has been captured, and applies user-defined settings, such as when and how to display the cursor. Newer versions of Camtasia offer the option to draw a red circle around the cursor whenever the mouse is clicked, to better illustrate the actions of the presenter.
[edit] Post-production
After the presentation has been captured, the presenter is able to revise it by cutting and/or pasting different parts, as needed. In addition, the presenter is also able to overlay his or her voice, as well as sound effects or music onto the presentation. Camtasia allows audio recording while screen-capturing is in progress, so the presenter can narrate the demonstration as it is carried out. Most presenters, however, prefer to wait until they have finished the screen-capture, and then record the narration from a script as the application is playing back the recorded capture.
[edit] Deployment
The program allows files to be stored in its own proprietary format, which is only readable by Camtasia itself; this format allows for fairly small file sizes, even for longer presentations. Camtasia also allows the generated video stream to be exported to common video formats which can be read by most computers, even if the Camtasia software is not installed, such as MPEG-2 or MPEG-4.
[edit] Uses
Such files, once exported out of Camtasia, lend themselves to easy distribution to many viewers; highly compressed files, such as files encoded in the MPEG-4 format are especially suitable for distribution via the World Wide Web, making the program especially useful for distance education.
[edit] Academia
Camtasia is often used in academic settings, and is currently penetrating markets that have traditionally been late to adopt technology, such as K-12. Camtasia is popular among instructors and students because presentations are easy to produce and distribute, saving instructors the time to repeat presentations many times, especially in courses that teach a certain application or computing environment. Many students appreciate the ease with which Camtasia-produced presentations can be viewed, especially presentations that are embedded into a web page and are shown right in the browser window.
[edit] Criticisms
As some of Camtasia's shortcomings, long rendering times and excessive consumption of system resources during production are cited, especially for older versions. While rendering times can be vastly improved by using newer hardware, such as a dual processor system, as well as an increased amount of RAM, many instructors who produce content at home are not equipped with the hardware necessary to produce an adequate presentation within a reasonable timeframe due to these constraints. As institutions as well as home users adapt new hardware as it becomes available, these issues will in time become less of a problem.
[edit] See also
- Distance education
- Instructional design
- Cam Studio - a free alternative to Camtasia Studio
