Camtasia Studio V 5.1

Other products by TechSmith

Product Features

• Camtasia SmartFocus keeps track of where the action happens during your recording. Then it produces a video that zooms in on the parts you need to show, keeping viewers mesmerized...even on iPod-size screens.
• Get started faster! Camtasia Recorder takes the guesswork out of selecting an area to record. Use the clever, new crosshairs to effortlessly select a window or region.
• TechSmith ExpressShow creates a single, beautiful Flash SWF file that can be easily embedded into any Web site, blog, or multimedia project. This is Flash video that makes you look good. Very good.
• Camtasia Studio lets bloggers record and publish to Screencast.com, and blog about it in less than 15 minutes. Or using the built-in FTP support, moving videos to your own server can be just as painless.
• Before you start editing, let Camtasia Studio know how you intend to use your video—Web, CD, blog, iPod, etc.—and you'll see a live preview of the final result the whole time you're editing. No surprises!

Product Details

• Shipping Weight: 2.4 ounces
• Shipping: Currently, item can be shipped only within the U.S.
• ASIN: B000HCW6YE
• Item model number: CAMS01
• Date first available at Amazon.com: October 9, 2007
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #5,051 in Software (See Bestsellers in Software)
• Discontinued by manufacturer: Yes

Product Description

Product Description

Camtasia Studio – Train. Present. Persuade. This is the power of screen recording. Delight audiences near or far with training, presentations, demos, and screencasts that get results and look fantastic. Camtasia Studio software is smart, powerful, and does the hard work for you. Easily record your screen, PowerPoint, Webcam video, and audio. Record in front of a live audience or from your desk. Edit for professional polish, enhance foremphasis. Share crystal-clear videos at any screen size…on Web pages, blogs, CDs, or portable devices like the iPod. Make them wonder how you did it. What's new in Camtasia Studio 5.1: 1) Focus attention with Spotlight and Highlighter callouts 2)Add callouts faster, edit them easily 3)Set the mood with a music track 4)Put your screencasts on the iPhone and iPod Touch 5)Customize FLV videos with ExpressShow 6)Organize and present Flash videos with Camtasia Theater.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Very good package, gets the whole job done well, with a few bugs, October 8, 2008

By	Dave Millman "davemill" (San Jose, CA USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Let me be clear: Camtasia Studio 5 is a very good piece of software. I've produced three complex videos with it, and all three projects were successful.

Camtasia's core competency is capturing the screen, adding audio narration (during capture or in post production), editing to a final cut, and producing in a wide variety of formats. It excels at all of these tasks. This latest version adds some clever and very useful Zoom-n-Pan functionality, which automatically follows the center of attention on the screen. I have found this very useful, because I can capture at 1600x1200, getting all of the details, edit, then render at a smaller resolution depending on my target delivery media (web, CD, etc.)

I'm not going to go through all the features here. Go to the publisher's web site at techsmith.com web site to watch a bunch of video demos that do a great job of showing what the product can do. Instead, I will share some experience:

1. To take full advantage of this product, you should probably buy the book Camtasia Studio 5: The Definitive Guide (Wordware Applications Library) by Daniel Park, available here on Amazon. Camtasia has good online help, and the aforementioned videos also help, but this book is the missing manual.

2. Bugs dropped my rating from 5 stars to 4. If you make a very complex video (more than 100 clips!), the program becomes a bit unstable, and the project file can get corrupted. This is a big problem, and I would have saved 10 hours of grief if I had known about it ahead of time. It is an indication of how much I otherwise like this product that I did not deduct more stars for this bug. But tech support was very knowledgeable and helpful when I called, and this kept me to a single star deduction.

Please note that very few users ever make a video that complex, so you may use the product for years and never encounter that bug.

3. The Techsmith.com user forums are an invaluable resource. Read through the threads to learn how to use the product and avoid more obscure problems.

4. Get a good microphone! You can't create good audio without a good microphone. Many laptops have very noisy audio input stages, which may impact the quality of your audio. This is not a Camtasia issue, but rather a laptop hardware issue. A good microphone coupled with a clean audio input can create fantastic audio. The book mentioned above has a whole section on capturing good audio. I use a good quality wired Plantronics computer headset that gives good results.

5. Study and try the various output options. Camtasia includes a nice Production Preview feature that lets you create multiple previews, then compare them in the Production Preview Manager. This helps you understand the tradeoffs in audio and video quality with various compression levels for internet delivery.

6. For web delivery, if more than a couple of people will ever view your videos simultaneously, you probably need a streaming server. You can set one up yourself, or you can just Google for a "streaming service provider". I evaluated several after people complained that our web server was too slow. Eventually I purchased a plan from Streamcast.com, which is also owned by Techsmith. Their pricing plans beat everybody else cold, and I've been very happy with their delivery for the last three months.

I think Camtasia is the best solution on the market for screen demos, software training, etc. It is well worth the expense.

5.0 out of 5 stars Great Product!, November 24, 2008

By	C. Gibbs "CG" (California) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This is a fantastic product. Easy to use interface that allows you to create anything from a simple demonstration with text to a complex multimedia tutorial. I recommend highly!

1 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The coolest!, October 26, 2007

By	Diana de Avila "Gkygrl" (Malta, NY USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

Amazon Verified Purchase

I am in the process of learning this software and really getting the most out of it. Although I have not received my "official" copy from Amazon yet, I have been using my Demo copy from the company site. A really terrific piece of software. I used Version 4 in Demo mode right before this was released and there appear to be some interface changes. Is it worth the upgrade? Hmmm, I am not sure. If I was an owner of 4, I would sit tight and wait for another upgrade. There are no Camtasia books (as far as I can see) for this version yet. Still, really AWESOME software. :)