Academic Technology @ DoIT

Camtasia

Sample Demos

Basic Specs

Version	Camtasia Studio 2.0.4
Manufacturer	TechSmith Corp
Cost	Price as of Aug 2003 - $149.00
Where to Purchase	Online at http://www.techsmith.com
Authoring platform	Windows 2000, XP or 98SE
Extra hardware/software required	Sound card with line or mic inputs

Synopsis

Camtasia is an application that enables you to record whatever happens on your PC screen, add synchronized narration to the resulting video and export your presentation to a format that can be streamed or downloaded from the web. You can deliver your presentations in Real, Quicktime, Flash SWF, and WindowsMedia formats.

The Good

Camtasia allows you to record a PowerPoint presentation off your PC screen in realtime, saving video and audio to a file that includes all transitions and animations as rendered in PowerPoint. It also allows synchronizing of what was captured on the computer screen with a separately recorded audio file. A wizard allows the export of the presentation to multiple streaming – QuickTime, WindowsMedia, and RealMedia. Compressed PowerPoint presentations contain transitions and animation, while data rates for Real and WindowsMedia are very low and allow modem users to connect to full screen videos of the presentation. Most notably, Camtasia will allow users to record and export anything they do on their computers to an online file. The functionality of the product is not limited to PowerPoint.

The Bad

To create files small enough for online streaming or download, the screen of the recording computer needs to be set to the lowest resolution available. On some computers 800x600 is the smallest setting, which is too large for 56k modem data rates, while scaling the image size down introduces fuzziness and doesn’t benefit the data rate very much.

The Producer application needs some getting used to. Only basic audio editing and video cut/crop options are available and they aren’t inuitive to users familiar with more capable applications such as Adobe Premiere.

Accessibility

Camtasia is not very accessible for screen readers and at best, it is awkward and requires time consuming work-arounds to use. For example, the interface provides no closed captioning support, but scrolling through a transcript near the bottom of the caputured window might provide adequate captioning. Because Camtasia works by capturing the screen on the PC, it does not utilize the notes or navigation functions that some of the other PowerPoint to Web conversion tools have.

Screen readers such as JAWS can control the Real or Windows Media Player but no description of the graphics (PowerPoint slides) are available unless the slides are described during the audio narrative script.

Product Evaluation

***** excellent **** good ***average ** below average *poor

CRITERIA

RATING

COMMENTS

Ease of Use

****

Once the recorder application is set up, using Camtasia is as easy as hitting the F9 key and switching to the application that is to be recorded. Export wizards are about as easy as they can be. Most faculty will need technical advice on how to intially configure and set up screen resolutions of their PC to successfully create a Camtasia file, as well as to what to do in the export wizards to prepare the files for streaming. There is no upload function to web or streaming servers.

Installation

*****

The installation from the CD goes very smoothly. On a Windows2000 or WindowsXP machine not even a reboot is required.

Text & Graphics Quality

*****

Even in 56kbit streaming versions, the videos created of the PowerPoint presentation showed crisp text and acceptable frame rates during animations. Attempts to improve quality by reducing the image size below the captured 640x480 size were unsuccessful. The default Camtasia capture format proved to be the best for online delivery as well.

Audio Quality

****

Audio quality depends mostly on the audio source quality. Live capture of audio will require a very good microphone and acoustic environment during the presentation. Camtasia also allows combining audio files with screen video in a secondary process. This allows the audio to be processed in a separate application and then to be combined it with the presentation video. While this could improve quality, synchronizing audio with the video will get more difficult. The final audio quality depends on the chosen streaming format and codec/data rate. Anything from 6.5kbit/sec RealAudio to uncompressed CD quality audio is available.

Video Quality

N/A

Camtasia cannot capture the video within a PowerPoint presentation or a video on the computer screen. This may be possible however with the correct graphic card and decoder.

Animation

*****

PowerPoint animations are fully retained. The faster the capturing computer CPU, the better the frame rate of the animations.

File Sizes

****

Depending on the chosen output format and data rate, Camtasia can create files that range from very compact modem-compatible versions, to larger LAN and broadband-only streams. Our 10 minute sample generated files between 2.7Mb (modem streams) up to 31.1Mb (Quicktime Sorensen3). Quicktime export proved to be the least effective when aiming at a very compressed format, while Real and WindowsMedia delivered very usable modem versions, as well as very high quality broadband output (11-13Mb for 250kbit streams)

Internet Performance: (broadband vs. dialup)

****

Camtasia creates files that solely depend on the client's ability to stream a video at the data rate of the encoded file. Camtasia output to 56k modem data rates (34kbit/sec actual rate) will play very well over the average modem connection. Only in Quicktime we were unable to create a usable low datarate version, however, quicktime files are well suited for progressive download use, just with longer wait periods on a slow connection.

Learner Interface
Student View

***

Camtasia generates exactly the same screens seen on the instructor’s computer while the PowerPoint presentation is recorded. There are no navigational controls added, nor is there any provision to add captions or even a basic web interface to the final output. However, learners can navigate in the videos, pause, repeat and jump ahead just like in any other streaming video. Some notes provided on the page that links to the video could supply enough navigation information to overcome some of these shortcomings.

Website Integration

N/A

Camtasia makes no attempt to create web pages or even meta files for the streaming files it creates. Nor does it attempt to upload to your web/streaming server the files it creates.

Accessibility

Camtasia itself provides no close captioning support, but the files generated can be usual tools for captioning streaming media.

Help, online help:

*****

The product has adequate online documentation, and much of its use is pretty intutive and straight forward. Once the user has figured out how to record things and what format/codec to choose for the online export, the product really doesn’t require a lot of support.

Editing and updating content:

Due to the nature of the capture/recording process, changes usually require another complete run through all the steps of the process. Audio files may be re-used if only a slide change is to be recorded, but in general, changes mean to repeat the process. To generate different streaming formats, you only need to retain the original file and export a different streaming version.

Product Stability:

****

The recording experience was rock solid, with only a glitch regarding the mouse pointer in Windows2000, wich showed up on the recorded slides, while not being visible on the screen. This was not the case under WindowsXP on a different PC (video driver issue?). Playback of Camtasia-created videos should be as stable as the particular media player (Real, WindowsMedia, Quicktime) and the learner’s network connection.

Recommendations/Final Notes:

If your goal is to put PowerPoint presentations on the web the way they are seen on the presenter’s screen, this Camtasia delivers. A short learning curve and excellent low-bitrate output team up for a straightforward tool that brings PowerPoint presentations to the web. The text/graphic quality and capture of animation within PowerPoint or any other on-screen application is second to none. Limitations in Quicktime export are not really a problem of Camtasia. The nature of the product is to create video of on-screen presentations of any sort, so the lack of a navigation interface is to be expected (there is no authoring required, so there is no code to generate such interfaces from). If navigation in the online presentation is required, content producers will have to manually edit meta files and links to segment a longer presentation from a web interface.

However, Camtasia does very well what it has been designed to do. It leaves file upload and interface design to other products. Those who look for a one-shot tool that moves PowerPoint to the web complete with navigation interface, slide notes, etc, will need to look elsewhere. If the job is to stream a high quality PowerPoint slide presentation with synchronized audio over low bandwidth connections, there are few tools for the price, that can rival Camtasia’s simple approach and excellent output.

Recently a new version of Camtasia has been released. It is called Camtasia Studio and improves on issues such as audio recording and editing. Accessibility is being addressed, although the vendor is not ready to assure compliance with Section 508.

Flash (swf) output is now offered, the ability to add a second audio track, as well as a feature that lets producers annotate video with graphics to draw attention to screen regions.