Over the years, the options for PC-based video editing have been somewhat
limited to either very poor low-end utilities (Lotus ScreenCam) or very
expensive and complex high-end systems (Premiere). If you wanted to produce a
video of any magnitude, it was not an easy task.
Camtasia
from TechSmith
is a breath of fresh air. It is affordable, very powerful and feature-rich,
and yet it is very easy-to-use. This makes for a very cool combination.
Camtasia
makes creating high fidelity videos a breeze. Whether you are dealing with
video footage from your camcorder or simply want to capture an application
session for training purposes, Camtasia
is the best product I have seen for these purposes to date.
Camtasia
is comprised of three tools: Player, Recorder, and Producer. It also comes
with an audio editing module called Dub-It, and a high quality loss-less video
compressor.
Let's say you wanted to create a "How To" video using your
favorite graphics program. You simply invoke the Recorder, and begin using
your graphics tool as you would normally.
When you are done, you can use the Player to see how the captured session
looks. If it moves too quickly, you can slow the speed down or try it again
(it helps to talk to yourself -- to pretend you are teaching someone else how
to use it).
Once you get your pacing down, you can pull the video into Producer and
edit out excess footage, edit together multiple video segments, and even add
transitions and wipes to segue way between scenes.
I was particularly intrigued by the ability to add a watermark to the video
footage. Now you can brand your videos just the way major networks do by
adding a small version of your logo to the corner of the screen. This is a
great extra feature for branding purposes (just in case folks pass your videos
around, they'll know where they came from).
Lastly, when you are ready to add audio narration and music, simply invoke
Dub-It and begin adding background audio using your microphone and/or MIDI
files. Then just Pack and Go, and your completed video is ready to be
distributed.
Camtasia
has many other features typically found only in high-end tools including the
ability to annotate the video footage with additional graphics (like the
play-by-play mark-ups and cursor highlighting you see on broadcast
television). You can also use Camtasia
to stream live video over the Internet (ideal for remote demos of software
systems).
Camtasia
is not a memory hog. It will operate with a minimum of 16 MB of RAM but 64
MB is preferred. It will also work with virtually any Windows operating system
(except 3.1).
There are a bunch of other very nifty features like the ability to save
your footage as an animated GIF (with sound!). To learn more about these and
other features, visit TechSmith
by clicking here
now. You can download a free trial and begin using Camtasia
right now!
Camtasia
