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!

If you could take Troy Stein's job as the Camtasia for Mac Product Manager for one day... what would you do with the product?

Camtasia for Mac was released a little over 2 months ago. And, as you know, we're always looking for feedback and ways to improve. Our software is better because of you and your input.

As the Product Manager, part of Troy's job is to set the roadmap for Camtasia for Mac, select new features and functionality, see trends and steer the product.

So, if you were the Camtasia for Mac Product Manager job for a day, what would you do? What features and functionality would you add? What problems would you solve? What would you change?

We owe you a big thank you for the last 10 years... This month we're celebrating Camtasia's 10th birthday thanks to you and your support. Camtasia was launched at Comdex in November 1999.

A lot has happened over the last 10 years. Camtasia now supports both the PC and Mac. Camtasia Relay joined the Camtasia family. We've added support for many different file formats like SWF, MP4, WMV and MOV. And, we're always working on new features and functionality.

Jon Udell gave the 'video screencapture' medium a name and coined the term, Screencast. Technology keeps changing over the last 10 years. Hard drives keep getting bigger, internet connections get faster by the day, YouTube arrived, and iPods and other mobile devices showed up on the scene.

We compiled a fun timeline below that shows some Camtasia milestones, advertising and logos, reviews, feature releases and technology milestones. Check out the timeline below.

I went on a hunt around the office to find some old Camtasia memorabilia. We snapped some pictures with some fellow TechSmithies having fun with Camtasia's old logos and boxes. I made a video below showing them off. It's a short video that runs less than 2 minutes long.

;

And, I need your help... If you have a few minutes to spare, please send me a photo with yourself holding a sign about Camtasia (I heart Camtasia or similar sign) or a Camtasia box. I'd love to make a video showing off all of you! Email the pics to me.

Also, to celebrate, Sales is having a sale on Camtasia Studio. For a limited time, save an extra 10% on already-discounted volume licenses of Camtasia Studio, Snagit, or both in a bundle. Details are here.

I hope you'll join us in the celebration! Where would you like to see Camtasia go in the next 10 years?!

We asked, you responded! Remember last month when I asked for your tips to share with a new screencaster here? We compiled all of your comments from this blog post, as well as comments from the Education blog and our Newsletter. Big thanks to the 40 people who responded. I appreciate it!

From your responses and tips, we created a booklet "What would you tell a new screencaster?". Download your free copy here. If you left us a comment, your name will be listed in the booklet! Now, if I could just meet up with all the contributors and get a signed copy, I'd be all set!

The booklet has several sections including: General Tips, Content & Planning, Before Recording, During Recording, and Editing & Production.

The top tips (by number of mentions):

* plan out screencast &
do practice takes
* create a script/storyboard
* shut down apps to free up memory & avoid pop-up notifications
* use a good mic

Download your free copy here and feel free to share the PDF with others you think would find it useful.

Thanks to all who shared their knowledge and tips! What else would you like to learn from others about?

This week's Screencast of the Week is a great one! How many of you take pictures? If you're like me, you love taking pictures to document travels, capture milestones and fun times with friends, family and co-workers. What if you took those pics, added some background music and turned it into a video to share with your friends and family? It's a great way to commemorate good times!

John Basile (aka Scraster) did that for his good friends who had chronicled the progress of their pregnancy with a photo session every Sunday morning. The baby, (John's Goddaughter) was born September 13th. Around that time, John's friends handed off the Sunday morning photo series and a fitting Velvet Underground song on a Flash drive. John put together the following slideshow using Camtasia for Mac.

I asked John how he created the screencast with Camtasia for Mac. Here's what he shared with me:

"In Pro Tools, I edited the Velvet Underground's track Sunday Morning to include the intro, an instrumental break, and the fade out ending. I brought the audio into Camtasia for Mac, along with all the images (as JPGs). In the Timeline preferences, I set the Default Image Duration to 3 seconds and the Default Transition Duration to .05 seconds. I had to fine-tune a lot of the clip and transition durations, but having the drag-and-drop fade-in/fade-out actions is a huge time saver. I enjoy using Camtasia for Mac over than other slideshow softwares I've worked with because it allows for more control and detail when timing images to audio."

Check out the screencast below. It runs just under a minute long.

Sunday Morning: a progress report from Earshot Presents on Vimeo.

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

Calling all Camtasia users! There have been some great resources cropping up on the internet for screencasters and Camtasia users that I wanted to share with all of you.

First up, check out Scrast. Scrast is a site all about screencasting. Scrast launched earlier this year and they've been adding more content, tips and tricks and tutorials all the time. They have a nice section with 'Tips for better Screencasts' and a section dedicated to Camtasia.

Also, Camtasia Studio expert, Lon Naylor has set up the Camtasia Users Group. There are already 155 members sharing tips, tricks and techniques in the group. I love the tagline for the group, "Simply useful Camtasia stuff!".

Have you found other useful sites for Camtasia users and screencasters?

We've received a fair number of requests to capture a specific window or region with Camtasia for Mac. As we've talked with customers who've asked for this functionality, we've come to understand that some of the primary goals are to minimize the editing (and zooms) and produce specific dimensions, for example an HD video for YouTube. Camtasia for Mac Product Manager, Troy Stein, has created a 3 minute video showing how to resize applications and browser windows and produce the videos at the same dimensions. Check it out below.

Troy also shows two complimentary applications: setmy.browsersize.com and Mercury Mover.

Troy and I will be making some more screencasts over the next few weeks. Any requests on what you'd like to see or learn? Or, maybe you could help me convince him to pull another all nighter and make 24 Camtasia for Mac screencasts in 24 hours? What do you think?!?

Troy Stein, the Camtasia for Mac Product Manager, and I need your help.

We are going to do some screencasts on Thursday to give you some tips and tricks about Camtasia for Mac. And, we want to make sure we're answering your questions. What questions did you have, what would you like us to talk about, or show you about Camtasia for Mac?

This week's Screencast of the Week comes from the wonderful Mr. Tom Green.

Tom made a screencast for Layers Magazine - The How-To Magazine For Everything Adobe about 'Bending Flash Video in After Effects'. You can read the article and see his screencast here, or click the screenshot below.

I picked this screencast for a couple of reasons - Tom made this screencast with Camtasia for Mac and it is a great example of Camtasia for Mac in action. I like his use of zooming and panning to direct my attention where the action is in the screencast. His audio and the pace of the screencast was good - I felt like I was looking over Tom's shoulder and learning from him. Very informative tutorial!

Congrats on being this week's Screencast of the Week, Tom! When Tom is not busy getting into trouble, he is a Professor of Interactive Multimedia at the Humber College Institute of Technology and Advanced Learning in Toronto. You can read more about him here!

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

Today is the day that many of you have been waiting for! I'm really happy and pleased to finally be able to share Camtasia for Mac v1.0 with you! Thank you for supporting us on this fun journey! We built Camtasia for Mac from the ground up. We conducted focus groups, surveys, and received great feedback from a good number of very early beta testers, and did lots of usability testing. I hope you enjoy the product as much as we enjoyed creating it.

Get comfortable, this is a long blog post! I wanted to show you what is new in Camtasia for Mac as well as answer some question I've been hearing lately.

So, on with the show!

Tour

Last week I shared with you some sneak peek screencasts about some of the features in Camtasia for Mac. Want to see Camtasia for Mac in action? Check out this useful Overview Video. Or, you can read our product tour here.

Getting Started

Ready to take Camtasia for Mac v1.0 on a test drive and kick the tires? Download a fully functional, 30 day copy of Camtasia for Mac here!

You'll find hours of free training here. And, like all TechSmith products, we offer free tech support here whether you're using the eval or whether you've purchased Camtasia for Mac. We stand by our products.

Making the Switch

Are you a veteran Camtasia Studio user and want to make the switch to Camtasia for Mac? You can check out some training videos to help you transition to Camtasia for Mac here.

One of the questions I've been hearing a lot is if you can share your recordings from Camtasia Studio on the PC with Camtasia for Mac? You can share your source files across products and platforms. Make sure you check out this tutorial about the Camtasia for Mac file formats and how to share files across computers here.

Another question I've heard is if you will be able to use the same license on both platforms, transfer it over or get credit? Well, Camtasia for Mac and Camtasia Studio are separate products that require separate licenses. As a special for our PC users, for a limited time, customers who already own a valid license for Camtasia Studio 6.0 or later are eligible for an additional discount on Camtasia for Mac. And, new customers purchasing Camtasia for both platforms are eligible for the same discount. If you have questions or are a Camtasia Studio v6 user that needs to request your discount, contact our Sales Department here

Is there a difference between Camtasia for Mac and Camtasia Studio?

Yes, Camtasia Studio for the PC and Camtasia for Mac are different. You can see what is different between the products here. Each product has some features the other doesn't. Why? Well, Camtasia for Mac is a new product. Camtasia Studio is over nine years old with years of growth and development under its belt. Camtasia for Mac has been and will continue to be built on to meet the specific needs of our users on the Mac platform. Since Camtasia for Mac seeks to solve the specific problems and needs of our Mac users, there are and will likely continue to be distinct differences between the features in the two products. However, you'll also notice some similarities. As always, developing our products is an ongoing conversation with you, our customer, so that we offer the best products to meet your needs. We are working very hard to ensure that our Mac versions of our products are not just PC software made for the Mac - we want our products to be the best in the market for visual communication solutions for the Mac.

System Requirements

Required:
• Mac computer with an Intel processor
• Mac OS X v10.5.6 or later
• Quartz Extreme support
• 1GB of RAM
• Approximately 4GB of available disk space
• QuickTime 7.5.5 or later
• CD drive required for installation
Recommended:
• Mac computer with an Intel processor (dual core 2.0GHz or faster)
• 2GB of RAM or greater
• At least 4GB of disk space available for subsequent recordings

What's the word on the street?

Our beta testers put Camtasia for Mac through the paces. Here's what they had to say about Camtasia for Mac and some of their screencasts.

"Camtasia for Mac is as intuitive as a professional-grade screencasting software can be," said John Basile, team leader at Scraster Professional Screencasting. "It's amazingly well thought out and its performance--even since its beta stage--has proved flawless. Camtasia for Mac is a very welcomed game-changer in the world of screencasting." A Scraster screencast created with Camtasia for Mac can be viewed here.

"Camtasia for Mac has already been key to iPhone app marketing for Bickbot," said John Ellenich, lead designer for Bickbot.com. "It creates stunning screencasts of our apps, which helps us rise above other developers." A Bickbot.com screencast created with Camtasia for Mac of their new iPhone application, Strokes, can be viewed here.

I'd love to see what you create with Camtasia for Mac. Email me with a link to your screencast or post it in the blog comments!

We need your help

What next? Well, you tell us. That's where we need your help. We cannot develop products without you. Give Camtasia for Mac v1.0 a try and let us know what you think. We're listening - we need to know what you want and need in future versions. Please comment on the blog or send us feedback here.

So... what do you think of Camatsia for Mac?

Welcome to Day 5 of our sneak peeks of Camtasia for Mac. I heard my fellow TechSmithies celebrated the upcoming release back at our home office with a cake! I hope someone saved me a piece! :-)

After you've created your screencast in Camtasia for Mac, chances are that you want to share your masterpiece. With just a few clicks of the mouse, you can share your screencasts on the web, Screencast.com, on YouTube or on an iPod or iPhone.

Camtasia for Mac produces files with all the options that QuickTime currently supports including the playback of high quality H.264 MOV videos in the Flash player that are great looking, accommodate mobile and Web playback, and handles both screen content as well as camera video.

Want to share your screencasts on YouTube? Camtasia for Mac screen recording can be automatically uploaded to your YouTube account for normal, high-quality or HD playback when created and produced with the appropriate specifications.

Camtasia for Mac is also integrated with Screencast.com so you can host and share your videos exactly how you created them with no-recompressing or reformatting and you retain complete control and ownership of all your content.

Tired of reading about it? Let's see it in action! Check out this screencast! It runs 45 seconds long.

And, I wanted to thank everyone - I appreciate all the comments and feedback so far. Keep the questions coming. Unfortunately, I cannot answer some of your questions until we launch on Tuesday, August 25. All will be revealed on that day. :-) And, you'll be able to try out Camtasia for Mac yourself. I can't wait to see what you create!

I've been bouncing around the country on planes, trains and automobiles today trying to get to Seattle for Gnomedex. Thankfully I eventually made it to Seattle, but unfortunately my luggage did not. :-) So, I'll keep the sneak peek for Camtasia for Mac short and sweet tonight.

Sometimes you need to draw your viewers attention to a particular area of the screen. Or, you need to provide them with additional instruction. There's a way to easily do this with Camtasia for Mac. You can add text annotations, shapes and arrows to your screencasts. You can title and credit clips throughout your screencast and brand your video before sharing it.

Check out this screencast to see Camtasia for Mac's Text and Shape options in action. The screencast runs less than a minute.

We're on day three of our sneak peek series for Camtasia for Mac. In just a few days, you'll be able to take Camtasia for Mac for a test drive and 'kick the tires'!

Today's sneak peek is about Camtasia for Mac's 'Canvas'. The Canvas is where you get to show off your creativity. You can resize your screencast by manipulating the canvas. Adding images and graphics to your screencast? You can drag them around the canvas to change the placement and resize them.

Camtasia for Mac always records at full screen, but you can easily resize your screencasts with the Canvas. And, with a click of the mouse you can easily hide everything but the desired window.

Check out the Canvas in action in the video below. The screencast runs less than a minute long.

Look good?

It's time for another sneak peek all about Camtasia for Mac!

One of the things that sets a good screencast apart from a great screencast is a little polish. After you've recorded your screencast, you can use Camtasia for Mac's sophisticated editing options to make your screencasts standout from the rest.

Whether you're new to screencasting or are an expert, Camtasia for Mac has great features and options for you. Camtasia for Mac gives you the freedom to add new content to your project and has the ability to add multiple audio tracks, and virtually unlimited video tracks to layer on images and additional video for depth, understanding and entertainment so your audience is engaged. And, the multiple audio and video tracks can be moved and edited independently so it's easy to update and add new elements while maintaining maximum creative control.

And, in Camtasia for Mac, you can use more advanced editing functions without having to worry about your existing audio, video and images getting out of sync.

Check out this screencast that shows you how to add polish to your screencasts with Camtasia for Mac. It's a short video that runs less than 40 seconds.

I hope you like what you see!

I've never been good at keeping secrets. Even to this day, I still have a hard time keeping holiday gifts or other news as a secret - I just get so excited and have to share the good news!

So, blog readers, you get the benefit from my weakness! I'm going to let you in on a few secrets as we get closer to the launch of Camtasia for Mac on August 25.

Up first is a sneak peek of one of the new features in Camtasia for Mac - SmartFocus. Those of you familiar with Camtasia Studio on Windows will recognize this feature. Camtasia for Mac will also include TechSmith's patented SmartFocus technology.

How does SmartFocus work? You can record the whole screen while the SmartFocus technology keeps track where all the action happens during the recording behind the scenes. Then, when it's time to edit the video, SmartFocus automatically zooms in on the parts of the screen that I need to show which helps focus viewers attention. That means I can record full screen and deliver my screen recorded videos at any dimension with superb clarity at any size - whether it's for my blog, website, or an Apple mobile device like an iPhone.

SmartFocus is completely automatic, but if I choose, I can add and edit SmartFocus key frames for greater precision over zoom and pans, as well as edit key frames of any element on the timeline and change its location and properties over time. So, it can be automatic or customizable. Your choice.

It's great for creating dynamic screencasts or to highlight a particular section of your screen, or create a fly-over effect, or focus your viewer's attention for greater detail.

Want to see it in action? Check out this quick screencast. It is less than a minute long.

Look like a feature you'll use? What do you think?

Stay tuned... more news to come tomorrow. :-)

We're busy working behind the scenes at TechSmith gearing up for the launch of Camtasia for Mac later this month! We're excited and hope you are too!

In the interim, I thought you might be curious about what kind of videos you'll be able to easily make with Camtasia for Mac. So, roll out the red carpet, grab some popcorn, and get comfortable... check out a screencast, Troy Stein, recently made using Camtasia for Mac.

Stay tuned... I'll be sharing more information and additional screencasts as we count down to the release of Camtasia for Mac on August 25!

You have probably already heard that we've been working on Camtasia for Mac. I'm happy to say that the wait is finally over ...well almost :-)

Camtasia for Mac will be available on August 25! Over the next few weeks, we will be sharing more information and details with you about the release.

Camtasia for Mac will have a special introductory price of $99, through the end of 2009. After that, the MSRP will be $149.

I've posted some preview screenshots of the UI (user interface) of Camtasia for Mac at the end of this blog post.

In the meantime, if you'd like to be alerted the minute Camtasia for Mac is available, please sign up here and we'll get the news to you as soon as possible. And, you can follow the news here on the blog and on twitter too.

Are you excited? Because we are! Thanks for all your feedback at tradeshows, events, via email, twitter, and blogs about Camtasia for Mac. We could not have created it without your input and help! And, we look forward to more feedback from you - you make our products better!

Screenshot of Camtasia for Mac Editor: