The Visual Lounge lets you find out about TechSmith behind-the-scenes. Watch screencasts and videos from other customers, meet up with your fellow TechSmith users and staff, and get more tips and tricks!

Up next in our sneak peek of Camtasia Studio v5 is about recording.

You'll notice from the screenshot below that Camtasia Studio's Recorder looks a little different. We've simplified the Recorder so it's easier to use and we've made it smarter so you'll spend less time editing.

There are several new features that we've added for the recording process. One feature is our Snap-to-App feature. Have you ever been making a screencast only to launch another application, webpage or dialogue box and that new window pops up outside of the recording area? If you're like me, you fumble, drag the new window into your recording area, mutter a few words and try to carry on. What the Snap-to-App feature does is regardless of what application is opened during recording, it will immediately be snapped to the predefined recording size so it is always viewable and in frame. The result is less editing time and a more professional looking screencast.

Another nice benefit with Snap-to-App is that this also applies to the mouse cursor. Often I need to pause my recording for whatever reason and I end up moving my mouse. I can never place my mouse back in the right spot when I resume recording and the result is a jumping mouse in the recording. Now if you pause a recording and check email or surf the Web – the second you resume recording your mouse cursor snaps back to its last position!

There are more new features to use when you're recording. Watch this quick 4 minute screencast from Troy Stein to see Snap-to-App in action and other new features. Like what you see?

Up next on our sneak peek of Camtasia Studio v5 is about editing. We have new Project Settings. Now you can easily produce videos for the web, iPod, CD, or your blog with the click of a button.

Have you ever recorded a full screen recording only to later decide that you needed to scale the video down for delivery on an iPod or a blog? The new Project Settings are useful as they give you a real time preview of what your video will look like after scaling it. For example, if you record a screencast at 1024x768, then set your project settings to Web, the new Project Settings will scale your video to 640x480.

The Camtasia Studio Lead Developer, Dave O'Rourke, made this quick 6 minute screencast showing off this new feature.

On a side note, I heard people were unable to post comments. We're working on getting that fixed. I hope to have that back up and running by tomorrow. My apologies.

Today's sneak peek is all about making your screencasts look great...which in turn make you look great! We've added some new transitions like cube rotate, glow, fade to black and more...And, we've updated the Callouts so you can make them look glossy.

Check out the quick screencast Troy Stein made about the new updates. You'll see the new transitions and Callouts in action plus get some tips about applying these features across your screencast. The video is less than 3 minutes.

Do you like what you see so far?

We're at the half way mark on our sneak peek tour. Thanks for following along and for sending all the feedback. I appreciate it!

Today's screencast is all about Flash Video (FLV). The team has worked hard to improve our FLV output in several ways - it's faster and more stable. FLV is perfect for longer, full motion videos.

Check out this screencast from Troy Stein - he'll tell you all about the updates for the FLV output and why you should care. It's a quick screencast running just over 2 minutes.

Also, check out a video about getting the best quaility and smallest file size here.

I heard from Rob Graham this week about how he uses Jing and he offered to write up his experiences so I could share them with you. And, if you'd like to share your experiences with our blog readers, I'd love to hear from you too! So, on that note, I'll let Rob take it away...

If you're reading this, I probably don't have to sell you on the value of Camtasia and SnagIt as invaluable tools for recording what's happening on your computer screen. If you're not familiar with these tools then I encourage you to spend some time poking around the TechSmith site. It will definitely change the way to market/educate/ communicate in the future.

But what I really wanted to talk about today is a new project that the team at TechSmith has been working on - Jing. I caught Jing out of the corner of my eye a few months back but, like most of you, already have a million and one other things to think about everyday so I didn't get to checking it out right away. Big mistake. For me, Jing has proven to be the missing solution I've been looking for most of my professional career.

In a nutshell, Jing is a tool that sits quietly at the top of your screen for easy accessibility, and allows you to quickly record screen events, audio track and add annotation and callouts. However, Jing adds a layer of simplicity to the process of sharing content by allowing you to immediately review the capture and then automatically save it to TechSmith's Screencast servers. What you get in return is a URL that you can send via email, texting and even live chat that allows the person at the other end to quickly see a newly created web page featuring what you just created.

For my students and me that has been a godsend. Now I can easily answer questions by simply showing them how to fix problems in real time.

And educators aren't the only ones who can benefit from Jing. The business world, from help desks to sales teams, can use Jing to easily customize materials for clients.

Need to answer a technical question? Jing.

Need to share a few slides from a recent presentation? Jing.

Need to get updated marketing materials to sales team members already at the client site? Jing.

In the interest of full disclosure I will mention that I am in no way employed by TechSmith. I have requested, as a TechSmith customer, to share my thoughts with you via the Visual Lounge because I'm frankly a huge fan of the products they offer.

As Mom always said, 'sharing is good'.

Rob Graham is the Director of Training at LearningCraft, LLC., a company that provides Marketing Training. Join Rob November 15th in Cambridge, MA for the Internet Marketing Boot Camp.

With Camtaisa Studio v5, we've moved to a more standard, stable editing approach of 30 frames per second editing. Previously, we gave people the illusion of editing at 100ths of a second. But this was confusing because we didn't have 100 frames per second. In previous versions of Camtasia, it would look like you were cutting out a small piece of your video, but in reality you would end up cutting out more than anticipated. If you've ever experienced this, it was very frustrating and confusing. The updates make editing in Camtasia Studio more consistent and more stable.

Check out this quick video from Lead Developer Dave O'Rourke to see how this update will make your life a lot better. The video runs less than 5 minutes.

Our sneak peek today is about Camtasia Studio and Microsoft's Silverlight. For more info about Silverlight, visit here.

Dave O'Rourke made a quick screencast that will show you how to use Camtasia Studio 4 and 5 to create content compatible with Silverlight. We have made it a lot easier in Camtasia Studio 5 to create WMVs that are compatible with Silverlight. We changed the default settings so it takes three simple steps to produce a Silverlight compatible WMV file in Camtasia Studio 5. See below.

Also, ff you're using Camtasia Studio 4 and would like to produce WMVs that are compatible with Silverlight, you can download and use this Windows Media Profile (*.prx) here. Dave's screencast will walk through the steps to use the Windows Media Profile in Camtasia Studio 4. Camtasia Studio 5 users will not need to do this.

I'm excited to share with you some great new resources for our German speaking customers!

Dieter Schiecke and Axel Becker have a great vidcast, PowerPoint-TV. Remember when I blogged about them back here? Well, they recently did a screencast about SnagIt! Check it out here. I love that Dieter and Axel are wearing SnagIt t-shirts!

Also, I got word from Dieter last week that they're launching a Camtasia Studio blog! Check it out here. Expect great things! Dieter is an expert and conducts Camtasia Studio training in Germany.

I've added both of these items to our Del.icio.us bookmarks. Feel free to visit our favorite links here.

I'm looking forward to seeing Dieter and Axel next month in Berlin. I'll be attending BarCamp and PodCamp Berlin and O'Reilly Web 2.0 Expo November 3 - 8. Would anyone like to meet-up?

Have you seen good resources in other languages? I'd love to share them with everyone...

The next feature on our sneak peek tour has do to with sharing your Camtasia Studio screencasts. You can easily share your content quickly by either uploading your Camtasia created content directly to Screencast.com or your FTP server.

You don't have to go through all the steps to produce your videos to take advantage of this feature. In Camtasia Studio v5, you can upload your screencasts to Screencast.com or your FTP server anytime you want. There's an option to do this right under the File menu in Camtasia Studio. See the pic below.

If you'd like to upload your content to Screencast.com from Camtsaia Studio, just select File>Upload to>Screencast.com. Then fill out your login info for Screencast.com. Quick and easy!

If you'd like to FTP your Camtaisa Studio materials to your own server, simply select File>Upload to>FTP. Fill out the FTP Settings dialog box that appears (see below). You can save the profile for future use to save you time. Just click the 'Add As New Profile' button and enter a name for the profile.

Now that it is easier to share your Camtasia Studio screencasts, I hope you'll share them with the world!

We're one day away from launching Camtasia Studio v5! I can't wait to hear your feedback after you've tried it tomorrow. If you're in the Okemos, Michigan area, you're more than welcome to stop in to help us celebrate the release! :-)

Up today on our sneak peek is an improvement we've made on the production side called ExpressShow. What is ExpressShow? The ExpressShow Flash template creates a single SWF file which contains the exported video, the configuration variables and the playback controls. In the past, Camtasia Studio created multiple files when you produced a Flash screencast and it was not easy to share. There's a screenshot below of what you'll see in Camtasia Studio's Production wizard when you're producing a SWF.

In Camtasia Studio v5, when you produce your screencast, our default selection will be ExpressShow. It's a sleek staging and playback format for displaying your Camtasia Studio screencasts that puts maximum emphasis on the content while taking up minimal screen real estate. ExpressShow is the perfect choice when creating content for sites where screen real estate is at a premium like on a blog or website.

ExpressShow is ideal for producing videos that are approximately 15 minutes or less in length and do not contain a great deal of motion, such as transitions, Zoom-n-Pan keyframes, and animation. And, what's also nice is that you can use the ExpressShow template to include customizable information such as logos, table of contents, custom about box, and more! There's a screenshot below of what the Table of Contents option would like in a screencast.

We will have a screencast coming about ExpressShow later this week so you can see it in action. Of course, you can try it out starting tomorrow as well.

I'm really excited about this feature. I hope you like it too!

Well, we've made it! Day 10 on our top 10 countdown...Thanks for all the comments and feedback. We appreciate it! Keep it coming...

Today we've got a screencast with Troy Stein and Dave O'Rourke. They'll go over all the ins and outs of Camtasia Studio v5. Enjoy!

Update: I heard a few reports of issues viewing the video with the embedded player - not knowing if it's loading, slowness and so on. It's a large video (57.5 MB). So, I've removed the embedded player from this post - watch the video here. It may take a few minutes to load, but you'll see it downloading and it's well worth a short wait.

And, if you'd like to try Camtasia Studio yourself, download the eval here.

What would you like us to do for Camtasia Studio for v6?

If you're a Jing user, hopefully at some point today you got an automatic update. This was our first true 'feature” update since we launched Jing on July 17th.

We've listened to your feedback and have made the following updates:

For images, we've made several updates to the editing environment, including:

• Both the Mac and PC versions get better arrows, improved text boxes, and undo/redo buttons. (Thank you Jing team!)
• For the Windows version, objects like arrows and text can be reselected and re-edited

For video:

• A countdown process (3…2…1… Go!). This helps you get ready before the recording process starts.
• A visual indicator of your audio settings (e.g. audio on, mute on, no device detected)
• A “Restart” button to give you a ‘quicker’ way to start over rather than requiring you to retake the capture.

Easier to share:

• Jing now offers the embed code to your image or video directly from the share button. You can now easily embed Jing content in your blog or website making it easier to share with the world. (I'm really excited about this feature!)
• Coupled with Screencast.com’s ‘click-to-play’ feature, it is better overall user experience for both creator viewer.

Tris Hussey over at Blognation has a great write-up about the update. Check it out here. And, check out the Jing Project blog here for more details.

We'd love to know what you think about Jing - what do you like, what would you like changed? Submit your feedback here. We're listening...

And, if you haven't tried Jing, why not?

Do you remember what you were doing when you were 14 years old? I can tell you what I wasn't doing. I didn't have my own computer show for one thing.

This week's Screencast of the Week comes from a 14 year old just doing that. Meet Vince Bognot, the host of 'Vince's Computer Show' also known as VCS.

I chatted with Vince to find out how he got started in screencasting. He mentioned that he got broadband cable in March 2007 and started getting interested in wireless networking. Vince searched the internet about wireless networking and came up with a LabRats video. He watched all of their episodes and saw some video screencapture and found out they used Camtasia Studio. Vince downloaded the trial of Camtasia Studio and from there, VCS was started!

And, Vince is already on Season Two! Check out one of his screencasts below. He even uses zoom and call-outs.

Vince is also holding a contest. If you leave Vince a video message, you could win a copy of Camtasia Studio v5. Details are in the video below or on his website here.

And, you can check out Vince's channel on YouTube here.

Thanks for inspiring us, Vince! You made my day! Any nominations for next week's Screencast of the Week?

Now that Camtasia Studio v5 is out, would you like some training?

Did you notice on the new splash screen in Camtasia Studio that you can access training directly?

We also have many videos and resources on our website for free in our Learning Center here. Our training department won't be hitting the road for the rest of 2007. But, if you prefer to learn in a classroom setting, Chris Austin is conducting classroom training in Washington DC, Atlanta, Chicago, and Phoenix. You remember Chris, right? You can find out details on his site here.

Chris is conducting a two-day course where you'll master Camtasia Studio with hands-on exercises and expert instruction. You'll learn:

• How to record razor sharp screen captures, PowerPoint presentations, and even full-motion video.
• Step-by-step editing techniques to make even your first video look professional.
• Uploading and sharing videos on your website, blog, Screencast.com, and more.
• Tips, tricks, and resources to help you get it all done better, faster, and easier.

And, if you'd like to find a local trainer, we have a list of third party service providers. Check it out here.

This week's Screencast of the Week is from Bob Jones of CookBookPlus.

It's not your typical screencast - this one is all about kayaking! I like this screencast because Bob does a great job using many of Camtasia Studio's features like SmartFocus and callouts. I also like how in Chapter 1, Bob gives viewers a great introduction to the screencast - he tells viewers not only how to navigate the screencast but also what they can expect to see in the video.

Click the screenshot below to watch the video. It runs 27 minutes so get comfortable!

Any nominations for next week's Screencast of the Week?

Our products are better because of you. Yes, you! Your feedback and input help shape our products. With that in mind, I'm heading out on the road to several conferences in the next few weeks. I'd love to meet-up with you to get your feedback first hand and to grab a beverage of your choice or meal.

Up first is PowerPoint Live in New Orleans on October 28 - 31. I need someone to get into trouble with on Bourbon Street! :-)

On November 3, I head over the pond onto Berlin for BarCamp and PodCamp Berlin. I'll also be attending O'Reilly Web 2.0 Expo and the Girl Geek Dinner too. I'm very excited to meet with Dieter Schiecke and Axel Becker from PowerPoint-TV and Nicole Simon from blognation Germany.

On November 9 - 11, I am going to Copenhagen to meet up with Raymond Kristiansen. Remember him from some of these previous posts? He makes great screencasts.

And, then it's off to Barcelona for Microsoft TechEd on November 11 - 18.

I'll also be headed to Calgary and Banff on November 23 - 27 to meet with Paul Pival and to attend CanUX - the Canadian User Experience Workshop. I went to this event last year and learned so much. The event was very hands-on and interactive. Never a dull moment with David Crow and Jess McMullin around!

My cell phone number in Europe will be +1.517.974.2528 if you need to reach me. Otherwise my cell phone number is +1.517.410.0030. I should be available on e-mail as well.

I'll be posting pics all along the way here on Flickr.

I'd love to meet up in New Orleans, Berlin, Copenhagen, Barcelona or Calgary and Banff to get your feedback first-hand. E-mail or call me if you'd like to meet-up. If you can't meet at any of those events or cities, TechSmith will be at several tradeshows. Check out our calendar here. Look for me around town - I'll be the one wearing the SnagIt t-shirt. :-)

We have been celebrating the release of Camtaisa Studio v5 at TechSmith lately. See? That's Troy Stein, the Camtasia Studio Product Manager, in the picture to the left enjoying some cake at our launch party.

Now that the dust has settled and you've had a chance to use Camtasia Studio v5, it's time to start talking about what's next. That's where you come in. If we gave you Troy's job and you were the Product Manager of Camtasia...what would you do? What would you change? What features would you add?

We appreciate all the feedback you give. Our products are better because of the feedback from our users.

So, Product Managers, what's next? Comment away!

I have to apologize. I was having such a fine time in New Orleans with Twitter friend and New Orleans blogger, Alan Gutierrez that I missed posting the Screencast of the Week last night! Alan kept me out too late last night in the Big Easy giving me a history lesson about the city and a nice tour of where the locals go to hang out. The music was wonderful! That's Alan to the left from a pic I snapped last night. So, as an apology you'll get a bonus screencast!

So, on to the Screencasts of the Week! I hope you like them...and keep your suggestions coming for upcoming Screencasts of the Week. I appreciate it!

Our first Screencast of the Week is over on Microsoft's Channel9 website by Josh Holmes, Steve Loethen and Jennifer Marsman. That's Josh and I pictured to the left at the Halo 3 launch event in Detroit. Josh is an Architect Evangelist for Microsoft Corporation and a fellow Michigander. You can check out all of the Code to Live videos here. I like their videos because Josh and Steve talk about a topic and sometimes interview other people on camera. Then Jennifer makes a screencast on her computer to show you how to do what they're talking about. And, would you guess that Jennifer just started making videos and screencasts?

Our other Screencast of the Week came to me from Amit Agarwal. He sent me this link for a screencast tour of Xpenser. As a frequent traveler, I'm often scribbling my cash expenses and hoping I don't lose them. Thanks, Amit, you made my life easier!

I looked for screencasts about New Orleans or jazz, but couldn't find any. I was hoping to find one about the history of the city or jazz. Has anyone seen any?