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!

YouTube is hot - there's no doubt about it. Last year it was reported that YouTube is the Number 2 search engine, right behind Google. In August 2008, YouTube had over 2.6 billion search queries!

And, I know a lot of Camtasia Studio users would like to share their screencasts on YouTube. I've heard from a lot of people asking questions about getting the optimal settings and the best way to get your Camtasia Studio recordings with the HD option in YouTube. Our training manager, Matt Pierce, recently made some short videos sharing his tips and tricks that I thought everyone would like to see.

The first screencast is about recording for the HD YouTube option. This ~2:00 minute video will show you how to set-up your Camtasia Studio recordings to ensure you get the HD option on YouTube. 

The next screencast is about the production settings for HD output on YouTube. This ~2:00 minute video will walk you through the setting changes you need to make to the YouTube preset for HD viewing on YouTube. 

These Custom Camtasia Studio production settings should give you a high quality HD source video for upload to YouTube:

• Use the Flash MP4 output
• Choose the No Controller Template
• Change the Dimensions to 1280 (width) x 720 (height)

 

Under Flash Options adjust the Frame rate to 30 frames per second, and the quality level to at least 55%

• Change the audio options to at least 96 kbps. 

 

The other tip I've heard is that YouTube displays low-quality video by default. If you'd like your viewers to see high-quality video (720p - 1280×720 resolution), add &fmt=22 to the end of the YouTube URL when you send it to them. Note: I've read that not all videos on YouTube are capable of this.

YouTube also states here on their FAQ that they are experimenting with HD.

There is also a thread going on in our TechSmith User forums about this. If you'd like to see more info, please visit here.

If YouTube isn't your thing, TechSmith created Screencast.com to host your videos. Screencast.com doesn't scale your content or re-encode it so the quality of your screencast matches your original and it is easy to use. We'll even give you some free storage and bandwidth.

What have you found when using Camtasia Studio with YouTube? Any tips and tricks you can share about getting HD quality?

At Microsoft TechEd last year, I met Peter Bruzzese, the Director of Screencast Production (I LOVE that title!), from ClipTraining. That's him pictured to my right. ClipTraining had a booth next to the TechSmith booth and they make a lot of Camtasia Studio screencasts. Talk about a great neighbor to have at TechEd!

We're all trying to tighten our belts and spend our money more wisely. An article Peter wrote at Infoworld caught my eye. He talks about how screencasts can fit into being a smart training option in a tough economy. Could screencasts be your secret weapon? Check out his article here. Have you saved money or travel costs using screencasts?

My computer's desktop is often like my desk. Messy! Which is fine for every day work. But when you're making a screencast, a messy desktop can be an ugly sight and major distraction to your viewers.

Stardock released a new product today, Fences. Fences can help with the organization and 'housekeeping' of your computer's desktop. Fences allows you to group your desktop icons and files together for organization or it can hide them with the click of a button. Perfect for quick clean up of your desktop for screencasting.

Lifehacker did a great review of Fences today - you can read it here.

And, you can check out this demo video (made with Camtasia Studio!) about Fences.

The price is right on Fences - it is free! Found any nice tools to improve your screencasts lately?

One of my favorite sayings is, "A picture is worth a 1,000 words." We are visual beings. Evidence supports that people learn more from words plus visuals than from just words alone (see this post from the brilliant Kathy Sierra for more info). With that in mind, I'm headed to San Jose, on February 21, for the VizThink Conference which is all about Visual Thinking. If you're attending the show or are in the area, I'd love to meet-up!

One of the facilitators at the VizThink Conference is Dave Gray from XPLANE. He made a great Camtasia Studio video about to express yourself visually. Part of expressing yourself visually is to draw simple objects. His screencast shows how to draw a car using simple shapes. Follow along and draw some cars with Dave!

You can read Dave's blog post here about the video.

We're also having a Twitter 'tweet-up' before VizThink starts. If you're interested in meeting up on Saturday night, February 21, here are the details! See you there...

Yes, that's a film reel with chicken feet you see! :-) And, now that I have your attention, I wanted get your help. Cathy Nagle-Ervin suggested that we do an extreme project makeover on our upcoming 24 Camtasia Studio videos in 24 hours marathon. And, we thought that was a great idea!

We're going to re-work someone's project! Want to be considered? Here's what to do:

1. Post your Camtasia Studio video project to Screencast.com (we have a free trial account - sign-up here)

2. Email us your contact info and a link to your project by 3:00pm EST, Monday, February 16, 2009

Sorry we won't be able to makeover every submission, but we will be able to makeover a few. And, yes, if we pick your submission, we will be talking about and showing your project online in our 24 Camtasia Studio videos in 24 hours. So, please do not include any private or sensitive data.

It's been a long time since I've pulled an all-nighter. Probably the last time I did it was for 24 Snagit videos in 24 hours! :-) Well, tomorrow is the big day. We're pulling another all-nighter for 24 Camtasia Studio videos in 24 hours.

I hope you'll join us - Videos will be posted here on the blog as they are available (should be hourly). And, if you'd like to tune in live, we'll be streaming from Ustream.TV here. There will be a chat room on Ustream.TV. I will also post updates on Twitter (TechSmith and BetsyWeber). Help keep us awake!

Troy Stein, the Camtasia Studio Product Manager will be running the show. I'll be behind the scenes. We'll have many special guests throughout the day... and night! Would you believe someone volunteered for the 2am time slot?!

Here is the schedule (Subject to change and time is in EST, GMT -5):

8:00am - Best Practices for Quality Audio Recordings, Matt Pierce (Training)

9:00am - Recording Best Practices, Anton Bollen (Training)

10:00am - Making SmartFocus Smarter, Ryan Eash (Training)

11:00am - Camtasia and YouTube, Matt Pierce (Training)

Noon - Screencast.com Integration with Camtasia Studio, Katie Lewis (Product Marketing Manager)

1:00pm - Customizing ExpressShow, Dan Davis (Flash Developer)

2:00pm - Jing and Editing in Camtasia Studio, Tony Dunckel (Snagit and Jing Product Manager)

3:00pm - Keyboard Accessibility, Dan Davis (Flash Developer)

4:00pm - HD Video and how to get 1080 recordings and production, Casey Phear (Tech Support)

5:00pm - Replacing Audio, Kate Sumbler (Tech Support)

6:00pm - Hidden Gems in Recorder, Mike Kujansuu (Product Marketing Manager)

7:00pm - Replacing Video, Daniel Foster (Writer and Newsletter Editor Extraordinaire)

8:00pm - Special Guest - Eric Marcos in the Classroom and Math Videos plus Dave McCollom (Education Evangelist)

9:00pm - How to Customize HTML output, Brooks Andrus (Senior Flash Developer)

10:00pm - Focus on Flash. "Why MPEG4?  How does it help you?", Brooks Andrus (Senior Flash Developer)

11:00pm - FLV and customer suggestions

Midnight - Extreme Makeover!

1:00am - Camtasia Relay Integration and demo, Walter Pelowski (Customer Solutions Engineer)

2:00am - Editing faster in Camtasia Studio 6, Jonathan Eaton (Development)

3:00am - Soup to Nuts - Taking a project from Start to Finish

4:00am - Best practicing for sizing projects

5:00am - Not so obvious tips, Mike Curtis (Information Development)

6:00am - Best Production Options (including Production Presets), Brian Lesperance (Sales Manager)

7:00am - Working with Camera Video

Our screencasting marathon has started! I'll be posting the final Camtasia Studio screencasts here today as they become available. Rather than create 24 separate blog posts with each video throughout the day, I thought it would be easier just to post them in one post as they become available.

Troy Stein, the Camtasia Studio Product Manager, is the host in all the videos. We had a variety of guests throughout the day and night.

Note: we found a few of these screencasts will take a little extra production time. Stay tuned...

8:00am - Best Practices for Quality Audio Recordings, Matt Pierce (Training) - 14:39 minutes

9:00am - Recording Best Practices, Anton Bollen (Training) - 8:34 minutes
Apps mentioned:
Sizer
foobar2000

10:00am - Making SmartFocus Smarter, Ryan Eash (Training) - 8:24 minutes

11:00am - Camtasia and YouTube, Matt Pierce (Training) - 9:51 minutes
See this blog post for example videos and project settings

Noon - Screencast.com Integration with Camtasia Studio, Katie Lewis (Product Marketing Manager) - 8:24 minutes

1:00pm - Customizing ExpressShow, Dan Davis (Flash Developer) - 13:16 minutes

2:00pm - Jing and Editing in Camtasia Studio, Tony Dunckel (Snagit and Jing Product Manager) - 11:10 minutes

3:00pm - Keyboard Accessibility, Dan Davis (Flash Developer) - 8:30 minutes

4:00pm - HD Video and how to get 1080 recordings and production, Casey Phear (Tech Support)

5:00pm - Replacing Audio, Kate Sumbler (Tech Support) - 4:03 minutes

6:00pm - Hidden Gems in Recorder, Mike Kujansuu (Product Marketing Manager) - 5:55 minutes

7:00pm - Replacing Video, Daniel Foster (Writer and Newsletter Editor Extraordinaire) - 6:36 minutes

8:00pm - Special Guest - Eric Marcos and his students in the Classroom and Math Videos plus Dave McCollom (Education Evangelist)

9:00pm - How to Customize HTML output, Brooks Andrus (Senior Flash Developer) - 12:43 minutes

10:00pm - Focus on Flash. "Why MPEG4? How does it help you?", Brooks Andrus (Senior Flash Developer) - 8:48 minutes

11:00pm - FLV and customer suggestions, Betsy Weber (Chief Evangelist) - 9:33 minutes
Links mentioned: Customer feedback form
TechSmith on Twitter
Betsy Weber on Twitter
Dave McCollom on Twitter (Education Evangelist)
IdeaScale

Midnight - Extreme Makeover! Chris McQueen (Training)

1:00am - Camtasia Relay Integration and demo, Walter Pelowski (Customer Solutions Engineer) - 11:30 minutes

2:00am - Editing faster in Camtasia Studio 6, Jonathan Eaton (Development) - 32:34 minutes

3:00am - Best practicing for sizing projects - 7:21 minutes

4:00am - Microphone round-up, Casey Phear (Tech Support) - 4:49 minutes

5:00am - Not so obvious tips, Mike Curtis (Information Development) - 9:21 minutes
You can find Mike's tips from his screencast here

6:00am - Best Production Options (including Production Presets), Brian Lesperance (Sales Manager) - 7:09 minutes

7:00am - Working with Camera Video, Betsy Weber (Chief Evangelist) - 4:54 minutes

And, you can always watch us live here (keep in mind we're doing setup and production, so the live stream isn't always interesting, but there is a chatroom where you can interact with us. :-) ).

Thanks for joining us! I hope you'll pick up a few new Camtasia Studio tips and tricks!

Yes, I'm talking to you! :-) As you know, our software has been built on your feedback. It is better because of your input. Are you interested in participating in usability research projects to make TechSmith products work better for you? It is painless, I promise!

Our User Experience (UX) team is launching a major effort to collect a database of participants for their research projects. If you are interested in volunteering, there is a survey located here that will collect some of your background and demographic information. Make sure to include your email address - we will use it only to contact you about participation in TechSmith usability studies. Should you be selected for a study, you will be compensated for your time!

Oh, in case you're wondering, in the picture above is part of our UX team! Greg Smith from our Shipping Department took the pic.