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TechSmith CamtasiaStudio Review
- Screen recording application with comprehensive editing capabilities
- Produce HD quality videos for the web with compact file sizes
- Record exactly the part of the screen you want with easy to use controls
- Easy to use video editing tools with enough control for advanced users
- Record webcam video to import into the editor
- Integrates with Microsoft Powerpoint to allow you to record a presentation as you give it
- SmartFocus® technology automatically zooms into the action on small screens
- Impressive looking effects for your videos
- Free online training tutorials
- Add subtitles to your projects easily
- Hassle free upload to popular video sharing web sites
- Free ScreenCast account to share your movies on the web
- Simple features to give your movies Flash interactivity
- Easily add quizzes and surveys to your movies
- Free trial available
- Compatible With Windows only
Techsmith Camtasia Studio is an excellent, high quality screen recording tool which has some intuitive editing tools built in. Its main purpose is to let you record everything that happens on your computer screen and edit it together with a voiceover or soundtrack. This means it's not ideal for working with home videos or camcorder footage. However, if screen recording is what you want to do you would be hard pushed to find a better application to do it.
The user interface for Camtasia Studio is incredibly easy to use. It has been overhauled since the previous version to make it much more intuitive for beginners. Essentially you simply drag a box around the area of the screen you want to record, hit the record button and the video is automatically stored for editing. Of course you can also record a voiceover as you do things on the screen just by attaching a microphone to your computer. Similarly, you can record footage from a webcam if you have one attached. One of the most useful features we found was the button that gets added to PowerPoint which allows you to start recording your presentation with one click.
The editing facilities provided to edit your recorded video are also very intuitive and easy to use. You only get a couple of tracks to work with so this limits things to simple projects - but this suits the type of video the software is designed to create. There are various visual effects you can use to add interest to your presentation or recording. Our particular favourite was the 3D effect you can add to your screen recording while at the same time showing something else in the background. Adding subtitles and title screens is also very easy to do and shouldn't cause problems even for absolute beginners.
When your project is finished Camtasia Studio will automatically export it in a format suitable for how you want to use it. The application is mainly geared towards using the videos it creates on the internet, but there is also a useful feature for using videos on mobile devices. The SmartFocus technology will automatically recognise the video is playing on a small screen and focus on the area where the action is happening. Furthermore, whether you intend the video for mobile or internet use it is easy to add Flash interactivity to your projects without having to learn Flash itself. This lets you add buttons to skip the video around or even add quizzes and surveys to it.
Techsmith Camtasia Studio is an excellent application if you want to record tutorial style videos or presentations for the internet. It is quite expensive, but the professional looking results achievable justify the price tag. However, it's not the ideal software to use for editing together home videos. If you want something more affordable to edit footage from your camcorder we suggest taking a look at some of the products in our top ten list.
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