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!
How to create a DIY green screen video effect (aka chroma key)
Posted on Wednesday May 2, 2012
Achieving a good green screen effect used to be difficult and expensive. But no longer. In this post, I'll show you how to make your first green screen video on the cheap. We'll take a look at the various elements you need to consider: backdrop, software, camera, lighting...and how you can probably pull off your first green screen production for $30 or less.
Before we get started on the how...let's talk about the why. Why would you ever want to use a green screen effect in your video? To what end?
What is green screen and why would I use it?
Green screen is when you replace the real background of a video with a digital background.
Quite simply, it offers the most natural-looking way to integrate a human with other types of content you might want to show, such as presentation slides, screen video, screenshots, photos, or animated elements. Instead of putting each visual element in its own frame (a la picture-in-picture), green screen lets you blend them seamlessly.
And when done well, green screen can also give your video an expensive-looking aesthetic on the cheap. Instead of building a fancy set or renting studio time, you can shoot your video anywhere and replace the background with a branded graphic or stock photo or video element. Instant upgrade!
We think the remove a color / green screen effect is a big deal for anyone who needs to connect deeply and professionally with viewers. And we're flattered to hear that pro screencasters like Scott Skibell see it as a game changer, too.
What gear do I really need?
Backdrop (usually required)
To get started today, you just need a regular digital camera (or smartphone) that shoots video, some inexpensive software, and a wall that's painted a color that does not appear anywhere on your clothing, skin, eyes, or hair. Since walls like that are sometimes hard to find, you should probably plan on buying a piece of muslin cloth that's a hideous shade of green. Something like this:
You'll also find blue screen backdrop cloth available, but it can be problematic if the person on camera has blue eyes or clothes.
Software (required)
For software, of course we're biased toward Camtasia for Mac, which you can download and use free for 30 days (it's $99 to buy). The benefit of using Camtasia is that you can easily add screen captures and other media to your project.
If you're on Windows or just want to shop around, you could also google for free green screen software and see what's available. (And if you're using Camtasia Studio on Windows, feel free to +1 the request for a green screen / chroma key feature.)
Camera (required)
For a camera, you want something that shoots HD quality video (720p or higher) and that saves out files in a format your green screen software can import. Camtasia for Mac can import most MP4 and MOV files; we've had good success just using an iPhone but most any digital camcorder that generates either of those file types should work.
Pro screencaster Scott Skibell posted a screen test, comparing the results of four different cameras: iMac iSight built-in webcam, Logitech C910 external webcam, iPhone 4S, and Canon T3i. To really see the detail, click through on the video and watch in HD in the large player.
The remove a color effect in Camtasia for Mac is really quite forgiving of background shadows. Spend a few minutes tweaking the settings a bit and you should be good. But if you're having trouble getting the background to fully disappear or there's a slight halo around the person, it means you need to upgrade your lighting. The more even your lighting, the better the effect will be.
The easiest thing to try is a couple of hardware store clamp-on work lights with high-output CFL bulbs...and something to clamp them on. Aim the lights so that the green screen doesn't have dark areas and bright areas. Focus your efforts on the area directly behind the person, as you'll be able to crop out the excess space around the person later (don't forget to factor in the make person's "gesture zone").
To really throw a lot of light, you need multiple bulbs in each fixture. You could build your own video lighting rig for less than $100 (see video below). Or if you're not into DIY projects, you can shop around for a video softbox. CowboyStudio is a good place to start. Look for "continuous lighting"--as opposed to flash or strobe lighting. Whether you buy or build, it's best to use a diffusion filter for each light, as that will help keep them from throwing shadows.
In this video, the folks at Indy Mogul not only show how to build your own lighting kit on the cheap...but give a quick demonstration of the how and why of 3-point lighting.
Yes, yes it is. To convince internal TechSmith staff of how easy it is to make greenscreen video, Camtasia product manager Shane Lovellette made a quick demo showing off some ways to use the effect...and then pulls back the curtain on his not-so-super-high-tech setup. :) It really is that easy and inexpensive!
So go ahead...put yourself in your video, see how your audience receives it, and share your story with us! We'd love to show off some great examples of chroma key video!
Daniel Foster is the "social media guy" for TechSmith. Today he's listening to Lower Dens and hoping for motorcycle riding weather. Tweet him up @fosteronomo or put him in a Google+ Circle.
Don't let a lack of professional equipment stop you from filming a video or screencast. Effective use of a webcam can lead to a high quality video if used correctly.
This week's video is posted below and presents three tips that will help you avoid common hiccups when filming a video with a webcam.
Jaclyn Nagel is a digital media intern at TechSmith. She goes to Michigan State University and enjoys road trips, going to sporting events, music and bike riding. Email her at j.nagel@techsmith.com.
Using music can add an extra element to your video or end up distracting the viewer. Don't let the latter be true when trying to enhance a video with music.
This week's video is posted below and presents three tips that will help you effectively use music in screencasts.
Jaclyn Nagel is a digital media intern at TechSmith. She goes to Michigan State University and enjoys road trips, going to sporting events, music and bike riding. Email her at j.nagel@techsmith.com.
Jaclyn Nagel is a digital media intern at TechSmith. She goes to Michigan State University and enjoys road trips, going to sporting events, music and bike riding. Email her at j.nagel@techsmith.com.
Video Tip Series - Part three: Holding Viewers' Attention
Posted on Monday April 2, 2012
Viewers' minds tend to wander when the subject material isn't "fun". So what do you do when your content is instructional or otherwise not exciting? This week's video presents some tips and tricks including effectively using transitions and editing down scripts.
The video is posted below and will present three tips designed to keep your audiences engaged.
Jaclyn Nagel is a digital media intern at TechSmith. She goes to Michigan State University and enjoys road trips, going to sporting events, music and bike riding. Email her at j.nagel@techsmith.com.
So you have your audio and video recorded but don't know how to take it to that next level? No worries. Week two brings you tips on how to reinforce your audio instructions using editing tools such as annotations, callouts and zooms.
The video is posted below and presents three tips that will help you utilize editing tools to enhance your final product.
Jaclyn Nagel is a digital media intern at TechSmith. She goes to Michigan State University and enjoys road trips, going to sporting events, music and bike riding. Email her at j.nagel@techsmith.com.
Check out a new Video Tip Series - Part one: Recording Videos
Posted on Monday March 19, 2012
Creating videos from stratch can be tricky if you are a newcomer to the game. From camera placement to recording and editing techniques, we have you covered.
A new video tip series will be sent out via Twitter and published weekly to our blog for the next 6 weeks. The first video is posted below and will present four tips that will help you record your video right the first time around.
Jaclyn Nagel is a digital media intern at TechSmith. She goes to Michigan State University and enjoys road trips, going to sporting events, music and bike riding. Email her at j.nagel@techsmith.com.
As you may know, the world of online video is going through some upheaval right now with at least two competing views of how embedded video should be delivered. And mobile video is at the center of the fracas.
Apple doesn't allow Flash--the technology commonly used by websites to deliver online video--to run on Apple devices such as the iPad or iPhone. Which is helping to drive the adoption of HTML5 as an alternate method of delivering video to mobile and desktop browsers.
Where does that leave content creators like us who just want to make sure everyone can view their stuff?
Not without options, fortunately. Here are some recommendations for making your video content more accessible on mobile devices for now. And remember, this landscape is constantly shifting...so pack your pioneer spirit. :-)
Best way to share video via a link
Easiest: Host video at YouTube
Use the YouTube presets in Camtasia to generate a YouTube-friendly video and upload it automatically. The H.264/MP4 video will play on the latest smartphones and tablets. On Safari for iPad, for example, when the viewer clicks through to view a video on YouTube, the video actually plays in the preinstalled YouTube app for an optimal viewer experience.
What about older-model Blackberries and other smartphones? YouTube also re-encodes your video into a legacy format (.3gp) suitable for playback on many older devices. The resulting clarity/legibility is something you'll want to test.
To direct someone to the mobile view of any video or channel on YouTube, simply replace the www part of the URL with the letter m. As in: http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=43OlYb7NARY. That link points to a video that should play on just about any mobile device.
Pretty easy: Put mobile-friendly videos on Screencast.com
Since Screencast.com was built by the same people who created Camtasia Studio, it offers some spiffy benefits for screencasters (for details, see this infographic).
Screencast.com will automatically use HTML5 to deliver your video to Flash-less devices like the iPad. BUT...Screencast.com does not re-encode your content, so you need to create it in mobile-friendly formats in the first place.
The video below shows how to download and use new Camtasia Studio outputs that produce smartphone-optimized content. To produce videos for playback on older-model Blackberry devices, you'll need to transcode your video to .3gp format before uploading (online filer converter www.zamzar.com will do a file up to 100MB for free). Then give viewers a link to both formats.
Here are links to download the production presets and other resources referenced in the video.
You might want to upload videos to a hosting site and use embed code to display them in your blog post or webpage. But you want to make sure the embed code you're using won't block viewers who use Flash-less Apple devices.
The good news is that the default embed code generated by both Screencast.com and YouTube will serve up video to iPads and iPods using HTML5. Just copy and paste the embed code into your page or post...and viewers on Flash-less devices will see the HTML5 player.
For all of these methods, you'll want to test them out to see if you need to reformulate the content to be legible at the smaller resolution. In other words, you may need to open up the project files and use Camtasia's SmartFocus feature to zoom in, use larger fonts in your callouts, that kind of thing.
Please let us know how these tips and new presets work for you...and share your own tricks for delivering video to viewers on mobile devices! Leave a comment on this post or find us on Twitter, Facebook, or our new Q&A forum.
Daniel Foster is the "social media guy" for TechSmith. He enjoys iceboating, ice cream socials, and isosceles triangles. Tweet him up @fosteronomo
I was absolutely blown away at the number of screencast examples many of you shared on this recent blog post. The screencast that was listed the most in your feedback was one done our Instructional Designer, Ryan Eash. I wanted to make sure everyone saw this screencast.
Ryan has created a lot of our tutorials for Camtasia Studio. He recently made a video showing behind the scenes from start to finish about how he creates our Camtasia training videos. I know you'll find it useful.
The video runs a little longer than most of our videos. It runs 30 minutes long. Ryan made a table of contents so you can easily navigate to the topic you're interested in.
Topics include:
Writing a script
Finished script
Download scripts
Why I write scripts
Record my audio
Audacity setup
Start recording audio
Effects Amplify
Export to WAV file
Record my screen
Editing
Extend frame
Final edited project
Producing my video
Feedback
What else would you like to know about behind the scenes at TechSmith?
Thought I'd share another useful resource for all you screencasters out there...
I was out to Seattle this week for work and was lucky enough to catch up with Chris Pirillo. Many of you know Chris from his popular site, Lockergnome. He reminded me that he recently released an ebook with 50 screencasting tips!
The ebook is a PDF files which means you can view the file from just about anywhere and there are no DRM restrictions. The ebook costs $7 and you can find more information about the ebook here.
I was recently at the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas. Besides meeting one of Bob Marley's sons, Rohan Marley, the highlights for me were the miles of gadgets and equipment.
A few products I saw on the show floor stood out that looked useful for screencasters... Here's my top 5 list of products for screencasters from CES!
Cinemin Slice from WowWee - This handy little pico projector turns your iPad into a 60 inch projection screen. So, load up your Camtasia screencasts and show them off to the crowd. Added bonus - it has stereo sound. Your screencasts should look and sound great.
Mikey for Flip by Blue Microphones (shown in pic above) - Adding camera video to your screencasts can make them dynamic and give them that personal touch. It can be difficult to get great audio on video cameras using the built in microphone. The clever people at Blue Microphones have solved this problem with Mikey for Flip. This microphone will give you professional sounding audio with your Flip video camera. Your screencasts will sound better and your viewers will thank you.
KODAK PLAYTOUCH video camera - What can I say? This is my camera of choice for any screencasts I do. It can capture full 1080p HD video and it has an external microphone jack so I can get great sounding professional audio. And, it uses SD cards so I can quickly reload memory cards if I run out of space.
Wacom Intuos 4 Wireless Pen Tablet - Using something like a Wacom tablet in your screencast can make your screencast more interesting and dynamic. Wacom's Intuos 4 tablet is now wireless. So, if you're in a classroom or presenting, you're not tied to your computer. You're free to move around the room with it.
iPad Stand from Griffin - An iPad or Tablet can be a very useful tool for screencasters. It's great to have the extra screen for notes or to use as a teleprompter. Griffin has several nice stands for iPads and Tablets. The Arrowhead looks useful for all tablets plus small enough to travel with. I've also been enjoying the Loop stand.
You can see more pics from my trip to CES here.
What gadgets and products have you seen lately that would be useful for a screencaster?
Today you're in for a big treat! One of my favorite screencasters, Paolo Tosolini has shared his tips to make your screencasts stand out from the crowd! You remember Paolo, don't you? He helped make a screencast that had a ROI of $2.4 million dollars! Paolo also shared how he gets his fellow employees to make videos.
In this guest blog post, Paolo will share how to make your screencasts pop like they're in 3D!
Like this tip from Paolo? Please let him know in the comments! Enjoy!
How can you make your screencasts pop up like if they were in 3D?
Sometimes you might need to integrate short screencast segments in promo videos that are highly produced. To mitigate the flat effect of a 2D recording, you can import your video in other applications like Adobe After Effects which can add some sophistication to your recording. While that's the ideal solution giving you unlimited 3D rendering opportunities, it requires additional (and expensive) software and some advanced graphic design skills.
A more affordable way to give some 3D perspective to your screencasts is offered by the new Microsoft PowerPoint 2010, which now treats video files as first class citizen.
Here is how:
First create your screencast in Camtasia like you normally would do
Produce your video into a high resolution playable file format (e.g. AVI,WMV, MP4)
Open PowerPoint 2010 and create a blank new slide
Choose Insert > Video and load your file, which will look still flat at
this point
Doubleclick on it. The Ribbon menu will change and show you various video
styles options, including several in perspective
Pick any of the 3D styles and refine the look of the rotation by right
clicking on the video and choosing 3D Rotation
If you go now in PowerPoint presentation mode (F5), you'll be able to play the video preserving the perspective effect. Use Camtasia Recoder to capture the video playing inside the PowerPoint slide and you'll get a nice 3D effect! Isn't that cool?
Paolo Tosolini is an Enterprise Social Video consultant helping organizations embracing social media, online video and mobility as integral parts of their internal communications and knowledge sharing strategy. In his former role of New Media Business Manager at Microsoft, Paolo launched and managed the company "internal YouTube" platform called Academy Mobile, which is now hosting more than 19000 employee generated videos after just 3 years from its inception. Prior to that, Paolo worked in MSN and Office, where he managed the Office 2007 partner early adoption program that resulted in more than 500 partner solutions developed at launch. Paolo also blogs and podcasts about Italy and travel.
The 12 Days of Screencasting - On the Twelfth Day...
Posted on Friday December 24, 2010
We're at the end of our 12 Day of Screencasting series... I hope you found something useful in each post! Thanks for joining us on this 12 day series.
We're skipping the "12 Drummers Drumming, for something better! Today, professional screencaster and Camtasia trainer, Axel Becker shares his tips with you about voice training in a screencast! The screencast runs just 2:35 minutes! It's a wonderful gift! If you like it, please let him know in the comments.
Axel Becker is a freelance designer for almost 20 years working on print, webdesign and videos. He started a (german) PowerPoint screencast in 2007 and offers training, consulting, and help on screencasts with Camtasia Studio. He "improves" screencasts from customers with intros, lower thirds with Adobe After Effects and Adobe Premiere. He produced "a few hundred" screencasts so far and is currently working on a new project called "motiongraFX" where he will offer intro designs, royalty free music and Camtasia Studio 7 libraries.
You can find Axel on the web at Camtasia Training Blog (in German) and his website fortytwo. You can follow him on Twitter at @axelbecker
The 12 Days of Screencasting - On the Eleventh Day...
Posted on Wednesday December 22, 2010
We're in the home stretch for our "12 days of Screencasting" series. I hope you're finding the tips useful. If so, please let the authors know in the comments.
"On the eleventh day of Screencasting, Tom Johnson gave to me... a tip on recording dimensions!"
When figuring out the recording dimensions, if you're planning to upload the video to youtube, record at 1280 × 720 pixels (so the videos will render in HD). Sizer is an app you can use to resize your browser to a specific dimension. If you aren't uploading to youtube (nor rendering the videos into HD), use a second monitor for the recording and change the resolution to 1024 × 768. Always record full-screen on that monitor at that resolution. That way if you need to re-record a section, you won't have to guess where to line up the recording rectangle.
Tom Johnson is a senior technical writer for a non-profit organization in Salt Lake City, Utah. He writes a blog at Idratherbewriting.com, where he explores the latest trends, issues, and concepts in the field of technical communication. He also records podcasts, interviewing technical writing luminaries around the world. And he is a WordPress blog consultant, offering development, design, and training of WordPress blogs.
The 12 Days of Screencasting - On the Tenth Day...
Posted on Tuesday December 21, 2010
Today's tip for "The 12 days of Screencasting" is from Daniel Park. Daniel literally wrote the book on Camtasia. Several actually. And, he's made hundreds of screencasts. Daniel knows what he's talking about.
La la laaaaa! Ready to sing? "On the tenth day of screencasting, Daniel Park gave to me..."
One of the biggest threats to effective screencasting is bulk. Amateur screencast productions tend to be overly long. Do what you can to trim out those excessive pauses that try the user's patience. Strive to keep the narration light, friendly, clear, and quick. After all, this is video. If the user by chance misses a concept on the first play-through, replaying that content is a simple matter of scrubbing backward. On a related note, don't show yourself filling out every form or twiddling your thumbs through every progress bar. If necessary, make use of Camtasia Studio 7.1's vastly improved Clip Speed feature to help trim down the ol' running time.
Daniel Park is a former TechSmithie who departed back in 2003 to start dappertext LLC, his own consultancy that specializes in content creation. And for screen video, Camtasia Studio is his tool of choice. He flies all over the world to do Camtasia Studio training for companies, government agencies, and academic institutions, but he spends most of his professional time actually creating tutorials and marketing spots for organizations that lack the time or talent to do it themselves. He's the author of Camtasia Studio: The Definitive Guide. He lives in Huelva, Spain.
The 12 Days of Screencasting - On the Ninth Day...
Posted on Monday December 20, 2010
We have just a few days left in our "12 days of Screencasting" series. On the ninth day, screencasting expert and Camtasia trainer, Stewart Milton shares 9 of his tips for everything you need for screencasting from start to finish.
Warm up your vocal chords and help me sing... "On the ninth day of Screencasting, Stewart Milton gave to me..."
Screencasting can be a little bit daunting when faced with all the "techie" jargon like aspect ratios, codecs and frame rates. In this "Quick and Dirty" checklist for users Stewart recommends following the points below:
Stages of Screencasting
Most folks will tend to look at screencasts as being composed of the following stages - recording, editing and production. Although there is nothing wrong with this it is generally a bit too narrow. The key stage before you begin is Planning. Identify your audience, understand how to reach them, and also measure like crazy. In time starved organisations Return on Investment is the name of the game so make an effort to better understand how your screencasts are making a difference for customers and colleagues. Storyboard your screencast and sketch out the journey before you begin. A pdf storyboard can be downloaded from:
PREPP - Plan, Record, Edit, Produce, Promote and Evaluate.
Your screencast needs to be promoted so use Youtube, Social media and other free hosting sites - Vimeo, Screencast etc. Existing email mailing lists should be used and content also added to your own site. For evaluation use Youtube views, log files and quiz results.
Make Actions Explicit
Don't assume anything, typically use a slightly oversized mouse cursor and also add a highlight to it depending on the background color of your screen recordings. Also think about using mouse click colors too (viewers may not have audio enabled so your narrative does not help). Captions can also help overcome audio restrictions i.e. viewing in open plan offices.
Screen size is Crucial
It's always good practice to try and record, edit and produce at the same dimensions i.e. make sure your clips and images (perhaps png files) are all the same size. Several years ago most recordings were "squarish" based on a 4:3 ratio but with widescreen laptops, PC's and TV's, 16:9 ratio is fast becoming the norm. At the end of the day what matters most is whether your audience can easily view them (not too large for their display resolutions). Minimum for HD is 1280×720 pixels but your screencasts will have to be smaller to fit inside smaller monitor resolutions of 1024×768.
Capture Video and worry about the rest later
I always recommend working with short clips, easier to edit and do retakes if needed. Use free teleprompter software to help you remember your voice over lines. Add PiP, callouts etc later.
Keep it consistent and Short
Viewers don't like watching paint dry so keep your clips to a maximum of 2-3 minutes duration. You might have an hour long lecture to provide, no problem - use table of contents and split at markers so clips load quicker. Your viewers will happily jump back and forth to the bits they really want. Use consistent callouts and media and remember my one liner - boring is good! I got a video to review a few years back with about 6 different types of transition used - screen sea sickness was induced quickly!
Know your file types
Avi files are what I call generic files, typically I use these in other applications too for editing. MP4/flash is best for internet delivery these days and the file types are cross-platform making it easier for everyone to view them.
Anticipate viewers needs
My own MBA students struggle to get the time to read additional materials, they prefer me to provide video. Make sure you anticipate what they need and use hotspots to link to other videos or reference/research sources. Make it easy for them and they'll use it.
Project files are crucial
I'm prone to constant paranoia so make sure that when you create a camproj file you then choose File, Export project as Zip and make sure you tick "all clips in clip bin." Back up all your projects on an external HDD or USB stick.
Personalise your delivery
There are tons of bland videos out there and what makes your screencast interesting is YOU...your knowledge, style of delivery, advice etc. If appropriate use PiP to connect with your viewers to establish trust and build your reputation.
Stewart's next Camtasia Studio training classes are taking place at King's Cross, London on 28 January 2011 and Holiday Inn Express, Glasgow airport on 3 March 2011. You can book online and read past reviews from the link below:
Stewart Milton is CEO of BlueOrange Consulting Ltd and an MBA tutor with the Open University Business School in the UK. He is a Techsmith MVP and has trained over 1000 Camtasia Studio users at his classes in London and Glasgow. He also provides screencast and business consulting services to a wide range of academic and corporate clients worldwide and regularly runs in-house Camtasia Studio training classes for these companies too.
The 12 Days of Screencasting - On the Eighth Day...
Posted on Sunday December 19, 2010
Today is your lucky day! Tech journalist and online media expert, Andy Walker shares his screencasting tips with us.
"On the eighth day of Screencasting, Andy Walker gave to me..."
When you turn the camera and mike on and start to screencast, try to visualize someone out there in Interneland who will be part of your audience and who may be watching -- and then present direct to them. I always try to imagine a good friend that I can have a laugh with and that really appreciates the information I am presenting because they need the advice.
This simulated one to one approach allows you to connect to your audience. Everyone who watches will feel like you are talking just to them. It will also take the formality out of the "show" and when you are relaxed, you'll enjoy it more. And so will your audience. Too many people present like they are making a speech. (And I would argue that even in speeches you should speak to the audience like they are your friends.)
Andy Walker - Executive Producer (and Host) of the mobile lifestyle network butterscotch.com
The 12 Days of Screencasting - On the Seventh Day...
Posted on Saturday December 18, 2010
Have you ever heard the quote, "Practice make perfect"? This also applies in screencasting. If you want to master the art, you need to practice. On the seventh day of Screencasting, Tom Crawford shares his insights and tips about screencasting.
Chime in the song... "On the seventh day of Screencasting, Tom Crawford gave to me..."
When getting ready for a screencast, go through all the steps you want to demonstrate a few times.
First, the practice will help you make sure you know exactly what you're going to show.
Second, you may identify some spots that are necessary to get to what you want to demonstrate, but not the part you what to demonstrate. Those are great spots to have halfway done and waiting for you. For example, when I do Excel screencasts, I'll have multiple versions of the spreadsheet ready to go...one with only the basics that are needed to get started with the demo, one that's partially completed, and one that's how it should look when it's done. Nobody wants to sit and watch you type variations of the same formula in for a dozen rows. Once you've demonstrated what you want, you can jump to the next stage simply by switching to the next document. It even saves editing in the end.
Finally, it will help you write your bullets from Sean's 4th day, your script from Gary's 3rd day, time it from Molly's 1st day, and probably won't do anything about the partridge but you'll be ready to go when you press record.
Tom Crawford is the Owner and Principal of Visualization Network, providing education and hands-on experiences for leaders who need to solve problems and communicate more effectively. VizNetwork provides coaching and conducts workshops on learning, simulations, visualization, and communication all over the world for thousands of people. Tom is a well-respected and often requested speaker for organizations and events of all shapes and sizes. Most recently, the visualization network has been developing a visual cooking application for the iPad called VizChef due to be released in the Apple App Store in January 2011. Follow @vizchef on twitter for all the latest information.
The 12 Days of Screencasting - On the Sixth Day...
Posted on Friday December 17, 2010
We're half way through our "12 days of Screencasting. Have you found the tips useful?
Today you're in for a tasty treat. Forget the Six Geese-a-Laying - who wants that?! Today's tip is from screencast expert and veteran Scott Skibell.
All together now... "On the sixth day of Screencasting, Scott Skibell gave to me... Transparent Images!"
For the 12 Screencasts of Christmas, I wanted to make sure I shared a gold nugget and not just a lump of coal. Like any good elf, I scratched my head and tried to come up with that one present that readers would find really useful. You know, that one tip that would help set their screencasts apart and that they could use right away without having to worry about dad scurrying away to go assemble it. So what's my present this year? Transparent images.
Transparent images are a great way to add a touch of professionalism and to make your screencasts stand out. And best of all, they're easy to incorporate.
A transparent image is a type of image file that has the background removed. Typically this is a picture with an object appearing on a white background. However, instead of having a picture with a white box appear in your screencast, the white background is removed so only the object is shown. The object then appears to float over the screencast. This results in a much more polished and professional look.
Let me share 3 ways you can use transparent images in your screencasts and then I'll share how you can do it.
Three ways to use transparent images:
Watermarks
Watermarks are typically logos that appear to float over your screencast video. They're great for advertising, branding, and attributing credit to the original screencast author. If you've ever watched a YouTube video, you've seen the YouTube watermark in the lower right-hand corner.
Watermarks are a great way to "brand" your screencast so no matter where viewers may see your video, they know it came from you. Watermarks are typically your company logo and appear in one of the corners of your screencast. And since free hosting providers like YouTube place their watermark over your video, make sure to place your watermark in a different corner. I typically use the lower left corner.
Watermarks can also be a call to discourage unauthorized sharing and give credit to the original author so others can't take credit for your hard work.
Use transparent images to create watermarks and brand your screencasts.
Callout Objects
Callout objects add a little pizzazz and interest to your screencast. For example, Camtasia:Mac offers different arrows you can bring into your project. But you can turn any object you create or purchase into a callout object.
For example, place a lightbulb icon on the screen when you're sharing a good idea. Or use branded custom shapes and colors for your text box backgrounds. Even, incorporate custom thought bubbles and starbursts to add a comedic effect.
Another advanced tip is to place numbered callouts on the screen that match specific sections in accompanying written materials like training manuals or job aids. This helps people follow along in a handout while watching your screencast.
Using transparent images as callouts are easy, entertaining, and differentiate your screencasts.
Frames
Frames are like watermarks and callout objects but instead of having the background removed, they typically have their middle removed. This way, they cover the edges of the screencast but let the video appear thru its transparent middle.
Incorporating a colored frame around your screencast customizes the screencast so it blends into your website or adds consistency across a series of screencasts.
Incorporate your logo into your frame. Or, feel free to have it expand outside your frame a little for a more organic and 3-dimensional feel. You can get some great ideas by watching sporting events on television and seeing how they use frames and transparent graphics on the bottom of the screen.
Use frames as a way to provide consistency in a series of screencasts videos. For example, use a frame to distinguish a course and some frame color coding or labeling to distinguish between chapters or modules in the course. This is a great way to make all the screencasts feel like a unified product.
Using transparent frames create a unique feel to your screencasts and take them to the next level.
How to create transparent objects
So you might be saying, "Well Scott, this is all fine and dandy and I'd really like to create watermarks, callouts, and frames, but what type of a present is it if you don't tell me how to do it?"
Well, making and incorporating transparent images really is easy with the right image editing software. Here are the basic steps to get you started:
Select an image that has a uniform colored background. Lots of images are on white backgrounds and those make great candidates for creating a transparent objects.
Open your image editor and select and remove the background color from the image.
Once the background is removed, it'll typically be appear over a white & gray checkered background. PhotoShop Elements, Pixelmator, and SnagIt all have this capability though they each go about it differently. I can't cover to how each one does it here but definitely look at the help file of your application to learn how.
With the background removed, save your image as a .png file. Other formats like .gif and .jpg do NOT support transparency and won't work.
Import the new image into your screencast project.
Place the image on your timeline on the top most track. This ensures it will appear over all the other video tracks and won't be covered up by another track.
Resize and position the image as needed. For example watermarks might go into a corner while an icon could appear anywhere on the screen.
Set your timings for when you want it to appear and disappear. For example, a watermark might appear throughout the screencast from beginning to end while a callout icon my only need to appear for a few seconds.
Then, compile your screencast as normal.
Conclusion
Incorporating transparent images adds a touch of professionalism and really sets your screencasts apart. I encourage you to brand your screencasts with watermarks. Incorporate callout objects to keep them fun and interesting. And finally, add frames for consistency and uniformity.
I think you'll agree, this year's tip sure isn't a lump of coal!
Happy Holidays everyone.
About Scott Skibell
Scott is a 20-year training industry veteran. He helps individuals and businesses "productize their knowledge" by creating digital products around their expertise. These solutions include videos, e-learning courses, and of course, screencasts! You can learn more about Scott at SkillCasting.com and MacScreencasting.com
The 12 Days of Screencasting - On the Fifth Day...
Posted on Thursday December 16, 2010
Who creates a screencast for an April Fool's Day joke? Alan Lepofsky from SocialText does! Alan also won one of our Screencast of the Week awards last year. Alan is always finding new and interesting ways to use screencasts. That's why our next tip in the "12 Days of Screencasting" comes from him.
Sing it with me... "On the fifth day of Screencasting, Alan Lepofsky gave to me... "
When I create a screencast, I always record the video and the audio separately. I start by storyboarding what I want to show, then I record those actions. When recording go A LOT slower than you think you should and pause a lot longer between actions. This gives you a great canvas to work with when overlaying the audio. It is much better to cut out extra frames than to try and tailor your audio to fit a video sequence that is too short.
Alan Lepofsky is the Director of Product Marketing for Socialtext. He's been explaining and demonstrating collaboration technologies to customers since 1994. You can read his blog at http://www.alanlepofsky.net and follow him on Twitter at @alanlepo.
The 12 Days of Screencasting - On the Fourth Day...
Posted on Wednesday December 15, 2010
Listen up fellow Screencasters! Today's tip is from someone who has a lot of experience not only in front of the camera but also behind the scenes in production. Sean Carruthers has a ton of professional video experience. It's my pleasure to share his tips with you.
Ready to sing with me? "On the fourth day of Screencasting, Sean Carruthers gave to me... "
I think the number one tip for producing content of any kind is being prepared! Make a list of bullet points of the things you want to cover, in the order you want to show them - that allows you to speak conversationally without fumbling around for the topic or forgetting things you want to talk about. You can script the presentation in its entirety, if you want to be sure every word is where it should be, but until you get a lot of practice at reading from a script, it will SOUND scripted and unnatural.
It also means going through the software demo ahead of time to make sure everything works the way you remembered it...that way you get through the demo smoothly without any "ah wait, how does this work again?" moments sandwiched in the middle of everything.
Sean Carruthers is a producer at butterscotch.com and a co-host on the popular technology show Lab Rats. Sean accidentally found himself in the world of tech journalism in 1997 after years of selling CDs to underage prairie gangsters. Since that point, he's written for The Computer Paper, HUB Digital Living, The Globe and Mail, The Village Voice, Homefront, CE-Biz, onAir, TUXmagazine.com, and more. His record reviews have appeared at AllMusic.com, RollingStone.com, MSN.com and BarnesAndNoble.com. Sean worked as a tech researcher and made occasional appearances as the Gadget Guy for the show Call for Help. Sean was also a tech researcher on The Lab with Leo Laporte.
You can find Sean on twitter here.
Like the tips our experts have shared with you during our "12 Days of Screencasting" series? Have feedback or suggestions to share? Please let our contributors know in the comments!
The 12 Days of Screencasting - On the Third Day...
Posted on Tuesday December 14, 2010
We're up to day three in "The 12 Days of Screencasting" series. I know you know the words by now... Sing along! ♫♪ "On the third day of Screencasting, Gary Short gave to me... "♪♫
"I have three tips for the new screencaster and oddly, since screencasting is a visual medium, they are all to do with sound, something you may not have thought about. Firstly, I'd say, write a script. You're doing a screencast, which means you are showing somebody something, right? Now that means that your brain is going to be busy with the "doing thing" and that means that you're going to find it difficult to recall what you are going to say next. This means your screencast is going to be full of "umms" and "ahhs" and that's pretty off putting for the listener. So, work out what you are going to say, then write it out - double line spaced - on paper and place it next to you. Now as you are screencasting simply read your script, no need to recall what comes next, and no annoying "umms" and "ahhs".
My next tip is about hardware. You know the soundcard on your computer, yeah where you plug in your headphones and your microphone? Well something you might not know is that the soundcard is optimised for output, meaning it is designed for quality of the sound you listen to and not for the sound you record. Makes sense when you think about it, more people play sound through their computer than record. But that sucks for you, as you want to record sound! What you have to do is to get a USB microphone or headset, using that will bypass your low quality soundcard.
Lastly, having selected your USB microphone, when you are using Camtasia remember to select it from the sound options! By default Camtasia will select the built in, low quality microphone, so make sure you change it to select your new wizzy USB one.
Well that's all the tips from me. Happy screencasting everyone!"
Gary Short works for Developer Express as the Technical Evangelist on the frameworks team. He has a deep interest in technical architecture, especially in the areas of technical debt and refactoring. Gary is a C# MVP and gives presentations at user groups and conferences throughout the UK, Europe and the US.
The 12 Days of Screencasting - On the Second Day...
Posted on Tuesday December 14, 2010
According to the traditional Christmas carol, "The 12 Days of Christmas", today we would have received two turtle doves. Well, my true love can keep the birds. Instead, let's continue with our next tip for the "12 days of Screencasting"...
We have a great tip for those just getting started in screencasting from Ian Ozsvald. Ian has made over 170 screencasts! He knows what he's talking about...
Sing it loud and proud! "On the Second Day of Screencasting, Ian Ozsvald gave to me..."
"If you haven't made a screencast - just get on with it. Start with Jing, graduate to Camtasia later. You'll gain confidence by seeing that you can talk and act at the same time and the 5 minute Jing limit is useful to force you to be concise and clear. Send your videos to a few people for feedback, try again and then just start to publish your videos. Real feedback from real people sure beats worrying that your private videos isn't any good! If you want further beginner-tips then see my blog and look at the free chapters of The Screencasting Handbook."
Ian Ozsvald has created over 170 screencasts since 2005, from 30 second tours to 30 minute lessons. He co-founded the screencast tutorial site ShowMeDo in 2005 (used by 50,000 people a month) and founded the professional screencasting company ProCasts in 2008. He also blogs at IanOzsvald.com, encourages entrepreneurs at the £5 App event and occasionally lectures on Artificial Intelligence at Sussex University (UK).
The 12 Days of Screencasting - On the First Day...
Posted on Sunday December 12, 2010
What would you ever do if someone gave you a partridge in a pear tree? I often wondered that when hearing the song, "The Twelve Days of Christmas". All the gifts were impractical in that song. I thought it would be fun to make a more useful version of the traditional Christmas carol and change it to be "The 12 Days of Screencasting"!
12 expert Screencasters have shared their tips and screencasting advice with me. And, I'll share with you their insights over the next 12 days!
Sing it with me... "On the first day of Screencasting, Molly McDonald gave to me..."
Start your timers!
I know how long a screencast will be before I even record it by using the Stopwatch on my iPhone. I can turn on the Stopwatch, read through the script at a steady pace and see almost exactly how long the end result will be. This works great for deciding when to cut out content. If you time a script at 4 or 5 minutes you'll know that you need to cut out some of the "fluff" - Instead of wasting your time creating the video first and then realizing it needs to be cut down. If you don't have a Stopwatch on your phone there's a simple stop-watch Web app at Online Stopwatch.
Molly McDonald, aka DemoGirl, lives in San Francisco, CA and has been creating screencasts since 2006. Over the past 4 years she's gone from running a screencast blog to building a business that specializes in creating custom screencasts for companies all over the world. Her professional narration skills coupled with an excellent grasp of the technology she covers make her screencast services in high demand. Molly is also a monthly contributor of screencast tutorials for Butterscotch.com. You can learn more about her work by visiting Demo Girl which is run by her parent company, Centercloud LLC.
And, while we're on the subject of songs... some of our talented TechSmithies have recorded a screencasting carol, "Jing Love". I think it's the first song recorded about screencasting!
"Jing Love" was written and performed by:
Steve Elgas - Software Engineer, Camtasia Studio: guitars, vocals
Alex Novak - Software Engineer, Screencast.com: guitars
I'm a DIY kinda person. In my spare time, I'm knitting, crafting, cooking... making something... anything!
That's why I'm so excited that this weekend, Maker Faire is coming to Detroit, Michigan! Maker Faire is described as the ultimate DIY festival - "It's county fair meets science fair meets farmers market meets burning man for families! ..."
And, that got me thinking about how screencaptures and screencasts bring Maker projects to life by not just telling people about a project, but also showing.
I compiled a list of ways you can use Snagit, Jing, Camtasia and Screencast.com to make your DIY projects more visual. I'd love for some additional ideas. Please chime in on the comments with ways you're using screencaptures and screencasts with your DIY projects.
Aim your Web camera at your hands for a true hands-on demonstration that is easily posted to your blog or website.
Watermark and copyright your demonstrations and images with just a few clicks.
Send your instructional screencast video directly to your YouTube channel.
Archive an in-depth project step-by-step with screen captures and screen recordings.
Narrate a video for online customers to navigate your online store.
Annotate patterns and schematics with Snagit, the world's leading screen capture software.
Use Snagit to convert your annotated pattern into a PDF to sell on Etsy.
Use Snagit or Jing to collect and archive projects, tutorials and ideas on Screencast.com, TechSmith's free hosting solution.
Here are some great examples of Makers making projects visual:
Sandal Woods moves to a 21st Century Toolbench with Camtasia Studio.
Jon Bergmann and Aaron Sams from Woodland Park High School in Woodland Park, CO use Camtasia's Picture-in-Picture feature to highlight lab experiments for their class in their screencasts.
Nico DiMattia uses Camtasia to screencast his speed painting.
Use Snagit or Jing to annotate a step-by-step recipe.
Capture Online Templates for Pumpkin Carving Project.
And, if you're going to Maker Faire this weekend, please contact me (email or call/text 517.410.0030)! There will be lots of TechSmithies there. I'd love to meet-up. And, I'll have plenty TechSmith sporks to share. :-) You know you want one! Come find me!
I may have a new addiction. I'm pretty smitten with my iPad. I even bought a new purse that the iPad would fit in so I can carry it around with me all the time. :-) Yes, I have a weakness for gadgets.
One of the reasons I got the iPad was so I could watch and show Camtasia videos on it - the larger 9.7 inch screen is perfect for viewing screencasts. I've heard from several people wonderfing if you can view Camtasia videos on the iPad and how to do it. Well, the good news is that is it possible to play Camtasia Studio, Camtasia for Mac and Jing screencasts on the iPad! There are some tricks. Mike Curtis, an Information Developer at TechSmith has created a screencast that will show you how to successfully create a screencast for your iPad.
Check out the 4 minute screencast below. Mike will walk you through recording dimensions, file formats, codecs, settings and more.
There is also a help topic here that deals with a range of mobile issues. It also explaines how to get from Camtasia for Mac to the iPad.
And, in case you're wondering, Jing Pro MP4 videos will play on the iPad. We recommend you use 1024×768 (hold control key for Jing to snap to the dimension). Jing videos will not play if they exceed the number of pixels in 1280 × 720. Basically, if the video does not work, you will need to make it smaller.
Once you create your videos, you'll need to load your videos onto the iPad. First, you need iTunes. Then you need to sync your iPad with iTunes. Once the iPad is connected to your computer, use the Movies, TV Shows, Podcasts, and iTunes U panes to select which videos to sync. There is a more detailed tutorial here (look for the sections on Syncing and Syncing Videos). This can be a lot of work. If you don't want to do that, Screencast.com is a good option. You can enable the download link if you want people to have the native viewing experience.
And, if you decide you want to make lots of videos for your iPad. Save your production settings up as a Preset - that way you set it up just once and re-use the settings over and over. Here's how you set one up.
Anyone making screencasts for the iPad? I'd love to see them! Have any tips to share?
24 Screencasts About Camtasia in 24 Hours... Starts Now!
Posted on Tuesday July 13, 2010
Here we go! It's time to kick off our marathon of 24 Screencasts about Camtasia in 24 hours!
Tune in live here. We will also have a chat room going in there as well. And, you can follow us on Twitter as well @techsmith and @betsyweber. We'll be giving some fun prizes throughout the day too! The hash tag we're using today is #camtasia24
I will post the videos on this blog post as soon as we finish producing them (I figured you didn't want 24 different blog posts). :-) We plan on recording close to the top of the hour if you'd like to tune in.
Matt Pierce, our Customer Engagement Manager, is the host of the videos so you'll see him in most of the screencasts we make. Plus, we'll have several guests throughout the day.
You can see some pics from behind the scenes here.
I hope you'll pick up some new tips and tricks throughout the day. And, please come ask us questions in our chat room. We're happy to post some bonus videos in addition to the ones listed above. Plus, we'll need you to help keep us awake throughout the night!
The countdown is on and it's almost time... I'm ready for one last night of good sleep before we pull our all-nighter starting tomorrow morning for 24 hours of Camtasia! I'm really excited because we'll have a few guests stopping by to share their knowledge with you. And, I have a treat for you - Bil Moore is one of those people.
Stories are how we learn. They're how we pass information from one generation to the next. Want to capture someone's attention? Tell a good story. Any topic can be enhanced through the use of a story. Your screencast included. As part of our 24 hour Camtasia marathon, Bil Moore will share the basics of creating a story and why it will help you to communicate an idea.
Tune in to the TechSmith LiveStream Channel at 11:00am ET to hear Bil talk about storytelling. We'll also record Bil's segment if you can't join us live.
Bil is one of my favorite storytellers. He has presented at two Ignite Lansing events. His presentations are engaging, entertaining, informative and tell a great story. To get a taste of Bil's style and storytelling, check out 2 examples below from his Ignite Lansing presentations. They run 5 minutes each.
Clunkers for Cash
Need a job? Cluck like a Chicken!
Who is Bil Moore? He is an award-winning speaker, salesperson and communicator. His expertise includes customer loyalty, personal development and branding. He helps companies create a memorable customer service experience and increase their sales. You can find out more about Bil here.
Count Down to 24 Camtasia Screencasts in 24 Hours...
Posted on Saturday July 10, 2010
Our 24 hour marathon for Camtasia is just around the corner. I'm wrapping up all the last minute details and rounding up all items we'll need. Microphones? Check! Webcams and cameras? Check! Midnight snacks? Check! Prizes?! Check!
Yes, we'll have lots of prizes that we will give away during our 24 hour Camtasia Marathon starting on Tuesday, July 13 at 8:00am ET.
What do you have to do for a chance to win? Simply tune in to the TechSmith LiveStream Channel and follow the @TechSmith twitter feed throughout our 24 hour marathon - day or night. You'll have a chance to win copies of Camtasia Studio and Camtasia for Mac as well as some fun things like microphones, books, TechSmith t-shirts, mugs, the coveted TechSmith spork and more!
We'll have a wide selection of books that are perfect for any screencaster that you could win, including:
Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die by Chip Heath
Presentation Zen: Simple Ideas on Presentation Design and Delivery by Garr Reynolds
Presentation Zen Design: Simple Design Principles and Techniques to Enhance Your Presentations by Garr Reynolds
slide:ology: The Art and Science of Creating Great Presentations by Nancy Duarte
Beyond Bullet Points: Using Microsoft Office PowerPoint 2007 to Create Presentations That Inform, Motivate, and Inspire by Cliff Atkinson
Writing Tools: 50 Essential Strategies for Every Writer by Roy Peter Clark
The Back of the Napkin: Solving Problems and Selling Ideas with Pictures by Dan Roam
Confessions of a Public Speaker by Scott Berkun
Designing Interfaces: Patterns for Effective Interaction Design by Jenifer Tidwell
Visual Language for Designers: Principles for Creating Graphics That People Understand by Connie Malamed
You can see all the books on my 'Suggested Reading list for Screencasters'.
Brush up on your TechSmith and Camtasia trivia and you could win some prizes!
Meet Dan Spencer - Using Screencasts Effectively in the Classroom
Posted on Thursday July 8, 2010
We're gearing up for the 24 hour screencast marathon about Camtasia next week. One of the things that I'm most excited about is that we have some guests coming in to share how they're using Camtasia in the field.
Meet Dan Spencer - he's a fellow Michigander who has taught chemistry, physics and engineering at Michigan Center High School for the past several years.
Dan's classroom is no ordinary classroom. Dan uses Camtasia for Mac in his classroom to create screencasts of his lectures and then he loads them onto iPod Touches so his students can learn the material at a pace that works for them. Dan will share how he uses Camtasia for Mac and screencasts effectively in the classroom. Plus he'll share how "flipped" his classroom around so the screencast lectures became homework and he could be available for his students when they needed his help the most during class.
Tune in at Noon ET on July 13 on our live stream here to learn more from Dan and chat with him. Can't join us live? We will be recording Dan's segment and posting it on the blog as soon as we produce it on Tuesday.
Hi, my name is Betsy and I don't need any sleep. Well, really, I do, but we had so much fun pulling an all-nighter for Snagit that we're going to do it again for Camtasia!
Mark your calendars for Tuesday, July 13. We will make 24 screencasts in 24 hours about Camtasia! You can tune in here on our LiveStream Channel starting at 8:00am ET (GMT - 4:00). You'll get to meet many people on the Camtasia team including Shane Lovellette, the Product Manager, Camtasia developers, members of our training and tech support teams and a few special guests.
You'll get loads of insider tips and tricks for Camtasia Studio, Camtasia for Mac and screencasting. And, don't fear - if you cannot tune-in live, we'll be recording each segment and posting the produced videos throughout the day here on the blog.
I'll also have a variety of prizes to give away on our LiveStream Channel and on Twitter - @techsmith. So, brush up on your Camtasia and TechSmith trivia!
We'll hit on a variety of topics including:
The History of Camtasia
Use Cursor data to change the cursor AFTER you record
Playhead improvements
Direct upload to Screencast.com
The new User Interface - why the change?
System audio - it's finally here!
Understanding editing tracks on the Camtasia for Mac timeline
Aspect ratios and alternate dimensions
Recording and codecs
YouTube - What's the best format?
The art of storytelling
Getting great sound
The power of Hotkeys
All about the Library
Microphone and Webcam Roundup
Things you never thought to do with screen recording
Ignite your screencast - recording live events.
Using Camtasia in Education
Sketch Motion Callouts and how to use them
More details to come! Oh, and I have slots open for 'Viewer's Choice'. That's where I need your help! What would you like to see us cover? Chime in on the comments...
Anyone can make a screencast, right? I mean, you just hit the big red button and start recording.
But, what sets apart an average screencast from a masterpiece? With a little planning, you can take your screencast to the next level. There a few small things you can do before you hit the record button to get a higher quality screecast.
I asked around the office today for tips about what to do before you record a screencast. Since I like Top 10 lists, here is list of the "Top 10 tips to do before you hit the record button!"
1. Put a sign on the door to keep unwanted visitors out, mute phones, disable all other possible sources of noise - Dave McCollom, Education Evangelist
2. Clean up your desktop! This will keep your viewers attention and they won't be distracted by your icons. I like to use something like Fences from Stardock on the PC or Ryan Eash, an Instructional Designer from TechSmith's Training Department, has two monitors. So, he drags any icons/files/etc that he doesn't want to show to the monitor he's not recording.
3. Clean your Apps and Browser - Don't want people seeing your browser history? Have sensitive documents, account information or past projects you don't want your viewers to see? Make sure you clean up your history, past projects or Camtasia Library so it doesn't show information you want to keep private. If you forget something and it ends up in your recording, well, that's where the blur callout in Camtasia Studio comes in handy. :-)
4. Set the stage - After you've cleaned up your desktop, set your desktop color. For our Camtasia Studio screencasts we set the desktop color for our videos to RGB of 51, 51, 51. Pick something that is not too distracting...if the desktop is being shown - Ryan Eash
5. Script it out - Ryan Eash shared an example of one of the scripts they used in a recent project. Follow along the final screencast here with the script here. It will show you how the screencast was put togehter. The script shows the narration on the right and either some screenshots or text on the left that illustrates what's going to be shown on the screen at that time.
6. Get Feedback - Run your script or storyboards by others before you record. Get feedback on your language and the clarity of what you're showing - Conan Heiselt, Instructional Designer
7. Check 1, 2, 3 - Do a quick sound check - record a few minutes of audio and test for quality - Walter Pelowski, Customer Solutions Engineer
8. Dress rehearsal - Do a quick Jing screencast to make a prototype of your screencast. You can see what worked well or needs to be changed before you record your screencast - Conan Heiselt
9. Record and edit your audio - It's easier to record your screencast if you don't have to worry about recording the audio at the same time. You can play your audio while you record the screen. That way you have your timing down and it is easy to sync the audio and video together. - Conan Heiselt
10. Set your recording area - Set your recording area (either full screen resolution, or custom region) to an aspect ratio of what you plan to edit and produce to. For the Camtasia Studio 7 Learning Center videos, the final video dimensions were 800×450 (16:9), so Ryan Eash made his custom region for recording set to 1376×774 (16:9) and it resized nicely into the 800×450 dimensions for editing and production.
This is where I need your help! I need your tips! What do you do before you record your screencast?
We'll compile all the tips into an ebook and share them with you.
Prefer to post your tip on Twitter? Please use the hashtag of #screencasttip so I can find your tip.
24 Screencasts About Snagit in 24 Hours... Starts Now!
Posted on Tuesday May 25, 2010
Here we go! It's time to kick off our marathon of 24 Screencasts about Snagit in 24 hours!
Tune in live here. And, we will also have a chat room going in there as well. And, you can follow us on Twitter as well @techsmith and @betsyweber. We'll be giving some fun prizes throughout the day too!
I will post the videos on this blog post as soon as we finish producing them (I figured you didn't want 24 different blog posts). :-) We plan on recording close to the top of the hour if you'd like to tune in.
Tiffany Wood, the Snagit Product Manager, is the host of the videos so you'll see her in most of the screencasts we make. And, we'll have several guests throughout the day.
Here's the schedule for the day:
8:00 am: All About All-in-One capture (9:25) - Tony Dunckel, Director, Web and Enterprise Services
9:00 am: 19 years of Snagit and counting... The history of Snagit (10:44) - Bill Hamilton, President
10:00 am: Using Snagit with Camtasia (13:51) - Scott Schmerer, Software Engineer
11:00 am: Rick Astley, Bacon, Mustaches and Snagit. What do they have in common? - Jess Knott, Michigan State University
Noon: Snagit Editor Tour (14:29) - Jody Burgess, Vice President, Desktop Business Unit
1:00 pm: Being more Transparent; how to rock the transparency feature in Snagit 10 (13:52) - Chris McQueen, Instructional Designer
2:00 pm: Using Jing with Snagit + batch conversion (7:39) - Mike Curtis, Information Developer
3:00 pm: Top Tech Support Tips (8:24) - Nick Herber, Technical Support Specialist
4:00 pm: The Snagit User Experience (8:09) - Sylania Dye, User Experience Designer
6:00 pm: Snagit Editor - Open Capture Tray, Library, and more (8:21) - Chris McQueen, Instructional Designer
7:00 pm: Text Capture - Adam Marks, Lead Snagit Developer (The power strip was accidentally flipped and we lost the recording)
8:00 pm: A fire side chat with Tiffany Wood, Snagit Product Manager, and Adam Marks, Lead Snagit Developer (10:26)
9:00 pm: Snagit in a PR World (13:02) - Natalie Scott, Public Relations
10:00 pm: Cutting and Trimming your screen captures (6:28)
11:00 pm: Taking Snagit from Work to Home: Planning a Wedding with Snagit and Getting Crafty (9:55) - Katie Lewis, Product Marketing Manager, and Betsy Weber, Chief Evangelist
Midnight: Snagit for Mac (14:13)- Paul Middlin, Lead Snagit for Mac Developer
1:00 am: What is a SNAG file and what can it do for you? (8:28) - Matt Dyer, Information Developer
2:00 am: What is metadata? And why should you care? (6:09)- Matt Dyer, Information Developer
3:00 am: Using Snagit with Screencast.com (9:52) - John Wood, Lead Screencast.com Developer
4:00 am: Personal favorites - spotlight and magnify, blur call-out and more... (7:15) - Katie Lewis
5:00 am: Creating Training Materials with Snagit (8:52) - Matt Pierce, Customer Engagement Manager
6:00 am: Saving Time with Snagit - Quick Access, Quick Styles and more... (6:53) Matt Pierce, Customer Engagement Manager
7:00 am Unconventional Uses of Snagit (6:53) - Tiffany Wood and Betsy Weber
I hope you'll pick up some new tips and tricks throughout the day. And, please come ask us questions in our chat room. We're happy to post some bonus videos in addition to the ones listed above. Plus, we'll need you to help keep us awake throughout the night!
When was the last time you pulled an all-nighter? It's been far too long since I've done that. I've roped Tiffany Wood, the Snagit Product Manager, and Katie Lewis, the Snagit Product Marketing Manager, into pulling an all-nighter with me to celebrate the release of Snagit 10!
Mark your calendar for Tuesday, May 25! Tiffany, Katie and I will stay up all day and night to share loads of tips and tricks with you. In fact, we'll be making a screencast an hour all about Snagit! This is your chance to 'meet' a variety of people around TechSmith like the Developers who make the product to our Trainers, Documentation, Tech Support staff and more.
And, not only will we be recording screencasts for you, but we will also be live streaming the event here. So, we'd love for you to join us live - we'll have chat room where you can ask us questions and interact with us for the 24 hours. Plus, we'll need some help staying awake!
There will be additional ways that you can 'tune in' - We'll be recording 5 - 10 minute videos all about Snagit every hour for 24 hours. I will post them here on the blog after we complete them. And, I will post updates on Twitter (TechSmith and BetsyWeber) throughout the day and night. We will have a few surprises throughout the day - prizes, quizzes and more...
We plan on covering the following topics and I also left 2 spots open for 'Viewers Choice'. Please leave a comment with your suggestion of topics.
All About All-in-One capture
19 years of Snagit and counting... The history of Snagit
Using Snagit with Camtasia
Rick Astley, Bacon, Mustaches and Snagit. What do they have in common?
Snagit Editor Tour
Being more Transparent; how to rock the transparency feature in Snagit 10
Using Jing with Snagit + batch conversion
Top Tech Support Tips
The Snagit User Experience
3, 2, 1... Timed Captures
Snagit Editor - Open Capture Tray, Library, and more
Text Capture
A fire side chat with Tiffany Wood, Snagit Product Manager, and Adam Marks, Lead Snagit Developer
Cutting and Trimming your screen captures
Taking Snagit from Work to Home: Planning a Wedding with Snagit and Getting Crafty
Snagit for Mac
What is a SNAG file and what can it do for you?
What is metadata? And why should you care?
Using Snagit with Screencast.com
Personal favorites - spotlight and magnify, blur call-out and more...
Creating Training Materials with Snagit
Saving Time with Snagit - Quick Access, Quick Styles and more...
Viewer's Choice
Viewer's Choice
Need a calendar reminder? You can download this file (Note, I did set a 'reminder' on the calendar invite, so if you're in another time zone, you may want to check or change that so you're not woken up in the middle of the night).
I hope you'll tune in live and please post some suggestions for possible topics!
At your company, you have people who know the best practices and are experts in certain subjects, right? How valuable is their knowledge to the rest of the organization? Often it would be helpful to capture and share their expertise company-wide and maybe even with the public. How do you get them to share their knowledge?
Paolo Tosolini has helped get employees at Microsoft recording, sharing and teaching their fellow coworkers. Paolo is making a series of videos about "Enterprise Podcasting" and in one of his recent videos, he shared a how-to video about "Employee Generated Content" and Microsoft's Podcast-in-a-Box program. Paolo also reviews the equipment and resources Microsoft used with their Podcast-in-a-Box program. Check out his video below - it's a quick one that runs less than 5 minutes.
It's great that Paolo follows his own advice to capture and share his best practices and expertise for crowdsourcing knowledge in a corporation. You can see Paolo's entire "Enterprise Podcast" series here. I hope you find this to be a useful video to get more people in your company screencasting and podcasting.
What have you found that works to get people to capture and share their best practices and expertise?
Need Special Effects for Camtasia for Mac Screencasts?
Posted on Thursday April 15, 2010
Sometimes you need to focus your users attention in your screencast.to certain areas of the screen or you need them to follow your cursor. Or, maybe you want to add a little pizzaz to your video.
I've found a great app that compliments Camtasia for Mac nicely. If you'd like to add some screen effects to your screencast, check out OmniDazzle.
OmniDazzle offers a wide array of options to add some nice visuals to your Mac screencasts - like a flashlight effect that illuminates your cursor and follows it around the screen while also dimming your background. Or there is a bullseye effect that follows your mouse cursor around the screen.
OmniDazzle has several screen and cursor effects, including:
Pixie Dust
Flashlight
Cutout
Sonar
Focal Point
Scribble
Bullseye
Waves
Comic
Footprints
Zoom
Best of all, the price is right! OmniDazzle is free!
What other tools do you like to use with Camtasia Studio or Camtasia for Mac?
Camtasia Studio 7 - Overview Video + Behind The Scenes
Posted on Monday March 29, 2010
In less than 24 hours you'll be able to kick the tires on Camtasia Studio 7! In lieu of a sneak peek video today, I thought I'd share an interesting time lapse overview video that we created for Camtasia Studio 7. It's a quick video that runs just over 2 minutes.
One of the common questions we hear at TechSmith is "How do we make our videos?" I asked Kelly Rush, our marketing video producer, to give a short overview of the process...
"Hey everyone. For the Camtasia Studio 7 overview video, we wanted to try something a little bit different from some of our previous videos. Starting out, Daniel Foster (our newsletter writer) and I sat down and brainstormed what we thought would be an interesting story to tell, based on conversations that we've had with Camtasia Studio users. After we finished coming up with the concept, Daniel took some time to write out the full script, after which we did a quick storyboard (consisting mostly of professional-looking stick figures).
After that, we read through the narrative to get a sense of timing for each shot, knowing ahead of time that we'd need a lot of coordination between the time-lapse approach that we were going to be using, and the timing of each individual scene. When that was figured out, we recruited the services of Ann Morgan, graphic artist here at TechSmith, to begin more formally sculpting out the visual elements of the story (sans stick figures, thankfully).
The next step was the actual production process. Ann used the master drawings she created as a reference for what she would draw on the whiteboard. With my Canon Rebel XT set to one-second intervals, I'd instruct Ann when to begin drawing, and along the way let her know how much time was left. The result of this was around 2,000 still pictures, which were then stitched together into an animated video in Adobe Premiere Pro.
For the audio process, I used a Zoom H4 handheld recorder to record myself reading the narration that Daniel had previously written. I composed the music using Apple's GarageBand software on an M-Audio keystation digital keyboard.
The screen video elements in the video were recorded and produced with Camtasia Studio 7. This was then combined with the animated stills, audio narration, and background music, again in Adobe Premiere Pro.
Finally, the video was brought back once more into Camtasia Studio to add a Flash hot-spot at the end of the video (which won't be working on the YouTube version of the video, but will become available when the video appears on our website).
Thanks Betsy! Back to you!"
We also shot a "Behind the Scenes" video showing you how we did it... You can see Ann, Daniel and Kelly in action! The video runs just over a minute long and gives you a view of the 'set'.
Enjoy! And, let the countdown begin! More features and functionality will be shown off tomorrow so stay tuned! How are you going to bide your time waiting for Camtasia Studio 7?! :-)
One of the biggest challenges in video is getting good audio. Want to know some of our secrets? Chris McQueen, one of TechSmith's instructional designers, shares his secrets on how he gets great audio for the videos he creates! It's a quick video that runs just over 7 minutes.
What other tips and tricks would you like to learn about?
Have you ever created the perfect screencapture with Snagit - maybe you added text or other objects to your capture and then you saved it. And, if you're like me, then you decided to change something - maybe resize the text or remove an arrow. Well, no need to recreate that capture from scratch after you learn this Time Saver Tuesday trick! You'll be able to save time and create a file you can modify any time.
Meet the .SNAG file format. Save your screencapture as a .SNAG file and you can open it later to modify or edit the vector objects (Lines, Arrows, Shape, Highlight, Paintbrush, Stamp, Callouts and Text tools) any time.
The .SNAG file format is a Snagit Editor-only file. If you need to use your image outside of Snagit environment, like Microsoft Word or PowerPoint for example, you just save the final .snag file as the image format of your choice (like a .png or .jpg). When saving in these other file formats, the vector objects will be flattened and made a permanent part of the image.
To save your image as a Snagit Capture File:
Click the Application button.
Hover over Save As to expose the menu.
Click Snagit Capture File.
What is your Time Saver Tip? Email me if you'd like to be a guest blogger and share your tips and tricks!
Throughout the day I'm working in a variety of programs. I'm guessing you do the same. And, I'm often adding screenshots all over - I'm using them in my email, on Twitter, in a project plan in OneNote, as a title screen in a Camtasia Studio screencast and more...
You can save yourself some time and a few steps by using Snagit 'outputs'. With Snagit outputs, you send your captures directly from Snagit's Preview Window directly to the program or website of your choice with a single click. No need to save the capture and then find the saved image and import or paste into another program (that's way too many extra steps!).
You can download the Snagit outputs here. We have a Snagit output for: Screencast.com, Camtasia Studio, MindManager, Fog Creek FogBugz, Visual Studio Team System, Blogs (Movable Type, TypePad, WordPress.com and LiveJournal), Snagit Notes, Instant Messenger (Skype and AOL Instant Messenger), Flickr, and Microsoft Office (Word, OneNote, Excel and PowerPoint).
What other programs would you like to send your Snagit screen captures directly to? What would save you time?
Screencast of the Week - Picture-in-Picture for Whiteboard Recordings!
Posted on Sunday February 7, 2010
There are a couple elements that can make screencasts interesting and engaging. Motion from drawing on the screen with something like a Tablet PC or Wacom tablet make a screencast dynamic and can focus viewers attention. And, the Picture-In-Picture (PIP) option in Camtasia makes screencasts lively and shows off the presenter's personality. Typically PIP usually shows a webcam recording or sometimes an image.
Some researchers at Microsoft have done something really creative for their screencasts using PIP! Using an eBeam interactive whiteboard (which can capture the pen strokes on any whiteboard) they created some PIP Whiteboard recordings! So, you'll see all the detail of what they're writing on the whiteboard up front and center in the screencast, plus you view the presenter in the PIP window. And, as an added bonus, when you record the whiteboard with the eBeam, you get a hard copy with what you wrote on the whiteboard that you can print out as a .pdf or .pptx. This is an easy way to add a handout to your screencast. You can read a blog post on Peli's Farm blog all about how they create whiteboard screencasts with Camtasia Studio and an eBeam.
Microsoft Research used the following setup: a camera plus a tripod to record the person at the whiteboard, the eBeam capture software running and Camtasia recording the computer screen.
Check out the whiteboard screencast below of their new show, The Verification Corner.
Great use of technology! Anyone else need to make screencasts like this or have found other ways to do something similar?
Any nominations for next week's Screencast of the Week? Email or post in the comments!
Time Saver Tuesday - Batch Processing with Camtasia Studio
Posted on Tuesday February 2, 2010
Say you were working on a series of Camtasia Studio screencasts for a big project at work. And, you create 20 videos. Your project manager requested the videos be in the SWF format to put on the intranet.
But, then the Sales team just all got iPods for training purposes. And, now your project manager wants all of your screencasts in a different file format and scaled down in size to play on the iPod... oh and they want to distribute the files at the next sales meeting in less than 24 hours! Ah, changing specs and short deadlines.
No need to worry or pull an all nighter to re-produce all 20 screencasts one by one. Camtasia Studio has a batch processing option that saves you time by allowing you easily produce multiple Camtasia Studio projects at the same time using production presets. Set your preferences, start the 20 files batch processing, walk out the door and let Camtasia Studio do all the work.
See these instructions here about how to set up the Batch Processing options in Camtasia Studio.
What tips do you have for Time Saver Tuesday? A limited edition Snagit sweatshirt could be yours if you share your tips!
Suggestions Needed - Screencaster Suggested Reading List
Posted on Sunday January 31, 2010
I recently had a request by email to share a list of suggested books for screencasters. So, I asked a few people around the office like Daniel Foster, our newsletter editor, Matt Pierce, our Customer Engagement Manager, and Dave McCollom, TechSmith's Education Evangelist.
And, I was also thinking about different elements of a screencast: preparation, planning, writing, graphics, presentation, storytelling and promotion.
Based on that, here are some of the books we came up on our suggested reading list for screencasters:
The Back of the Napkin by Dan Roam - A picture is worth a thousand words. This book helps you create compelling graphics and visuals for your screencasts.
Beyond Bullet Points by Cliff Atkinson - learn how to use storytelling and graphics to effectively communicate. I've seen Cliff speak several times - he has wonderful advice!
slide:ology: The Art and Science of Creating Great Presentations by Nancy Duarte - effective visual communication for your screencasts. Make great graphics especially when recording PowerPoint. I've seen Nancy present several times - every time I see her speak, I am in awe.
Confessions of a Public Speaker by Scott Berkun - learn techniques behind what great communicators do and how to effectively present ideas. Use these tricks to make better screencasts.
The Screencasting Handbook by Ian Ozsvald - Ian has created hundreds of screencasts and his handbook reviews software and microphones, processes and techniques.
Promotion:
Get Seenby Steve Garfield - now that you've created your screencast, make sure your screencasts are promoted and seen!
Surfing Twitter today, reminded me of a little known feature in Snagit that can save you lots of time...
Snagit has a 'printer' capture option. Snagit shows up as a 'printer' that you can choose when you go to print an image or document. This is useful for several reasons - you can use Snagit as a virtual printer. You don't need to print out your critical documents that you need to archive because the Printer Capture will capture and save your output as a graphical file. It saves it exactly as it would print so you now have an electronic version of your document - no need to print and file your document.
OK, how many of you have ever been sent a PDF that you're expected to print, fill out by hand and fax back? I often travel so I don't always have access to a printer or a fax machine. And, I'll be honest, I'm lazy - that's far too many steps. I use Snagit's Printer Capture to virtually print the document and use Snagit's text options to fill out the needed fields. I can even add a watermark to the doc if needed. Then, I can save the document as a PDF and just email and share the document with anyone.
Check out the tutorial and more reasons to use Snagit's Printer Capture option here.
And, as Hal Rottenberg notes on Twitter, '"@TechSmith":http://twitter.com/techsmith I hate hand-writing forms. I have bad handwriting, that may have something to do with it. :)'. I have the same issue - if I fill out the form by hand, people might have a hard time reading it. It's far easier and faster for me to type out the fields.
Any tips you have to share for next week's 'Time Saver Tuesday'? Email me or post them in the comments!
I don't often set New Year resolutions, but this year I'm going to try to stick with one. And, that is to bring you a weekly Time Saver Tuesday tip. It might be a tip to show you a feature in one of our products that could save you time or a general tip about screencasting, presenting, audio or similar topics. And, I'd like your help. I'm looking for some volunteers to share their tips. If you're interested in sharing your Time Saver tips, please email me! So, lets get started...
I'm a creature of habit. For instance, every morning, I start my day by stumbling out of bed and heading to the coffee maker. I'm a better person with coffee! :-) And, the same is true in Snagit - I have favorite arrows, callouts and other special effects I like to use over and over again.
You can save time in Snagit and easily save the objects you routinely use in the Gallery. First, create the object you want to save, like an arrow, callout, shape, text box, pen object, or highlight color. Set the color, shadow, width, etc. of the object.
Note: For callouts and text boxes, the text itself is not saved - but the font properties are.
Right-click the object and choose Add to Quick Styles.
Then your object is added to the bottom of the Gallery and is ready to use.
We recently had our first DemoCamp in Lansing, Michigan. It was a great event where developers, designers, students and entrepreneurs come show cool stuff they have created and have been working on.
One of the presenters, Daniel J. Hogan, shared how he records his podcast, The Magic of Eyri.
And, he gave a great tip that could help all you screencasters and save you time editing.
When recording audio, I've learned it's not a matter of if I'll make a mistake in my narration, but rather when I'll make a mistake. For me, it's going to happen and I will have to edit that audio. Daniel had a great technique for editing audio. When he makes a mistake, he clicks one of those dog training clickers by the microphone. That spikes the audio so when you need to edit, you can easily see where on the audio timeline you need to focus on since you can see the spikes on the audio wave.
Don't have time to get a dog training clicker? You could also tap the microphone if you make a mistake.
See how you can easily find the section of audio you need to focus on? Makes editing a lot faster, especially if you're making a longer screencast.
Camtasia for Mac - Resizing Applications Screencast
Posted on Sunday September 27, 2009
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?!?
Camtasia Saves the Day! Guest Blog Post - Nick Beaugeard
Posted on Sunday August 16, 2009
Have you ever been to an event only to see a presentation break down and fail due to technical problems? It's not fun to watch and it's not fun to be the presenter.
The other day, this tweet caught my eye on Twitter.
I had to hear this story! I contacted Nick Beaugeard and he shared with me how he used Camtasia Studio to save the day at Microsoft TechEd. I asked him to do a guest blog post. And, here's what Nick shared with me in his own words:
For about four years now (I've been presenting at Teched's worldwide since 2001), I decided to record all of my product demonstrations using Camtasia. I reached the conclusion that Teched is primarily a learning event and the attendees want to understand the products on show and how they work, not how good a nervous presenter is at performing live demonstrations.
It used to be simple; a couple of virtual machines and most demos would be cool, but now to demonstrate most enterprise products, you need quite a significant infrastructure to perform a demonstration of any quality and value. Most of us know how absolutely awful the "internet" connection is at conference venues, so having a "belt and braces approach" seemed to be the way to go.
The first time I recorded my demos, I pretended to perform the demonstration, and as if by magic they all worked perfectly. By the end of that session, I plucked up the courage to walk away from my laptop and let the "live demo" continue while I described to the audience exactly what was going on.
Despite the initial surprise, I asked members of the Audience what they thought, and they loved it. My hypothesis about the value of a truly live demo was borne out. From that day, every demo I do, whether to customers or on stage is pre-recorded with Camtasta. No-one can tell the difference (what a fantastic codec you have!)
Anyway at Teched 08 South Africa, I was once again scheduled to deliver a level 400 (the most technical) session at 10am on the last day of the conference (you know, the one after the huge closing party). My session was all about developing management packs for System Center Operations Manager 2007 to manage disparate environments. Because it was such a technical session, I was planning to ask the audience for examples of things they needed to manage and using an instance of SCOM, demonstrate live how to implement the solution.
Three hours before the presentation, and a little hung over, I grabbed my demo machine and headed to the speaker's lounge to prepare. To my absolute consternation, the display on my laptop had failed (horribly) so there was no way I could work on my demo environment.
So, and here's the trick... There were no spare machines for the time of my presentation save a lowly Windows Vista workstation basically to show slides and some videos. It certainly could not have hosted my huge virtual machines. To save the day, I "borrowed" a collegues laptop, used terminal services via VPN to my machine back at the office in Sydney.
I then ran up Camtasia Studio (remotely), and recorded six or seven demonstrations of various management pack scenarios. After producing them in the right size for Powerpoint (I find 1024×768 WMV works best), I put the videos embedded in my presentation and placed the entire deck on my FTP server.
I got access to the room one hour prior to my session, and kicked off ftp. First the PowerPoint, then the demo videos in order of presentation. Funnily Internet from South Africa to Sydney is appalling, so by the time I started my session, only 75% of the videos had downloaded.
Taking my heart in my hands I started delivering the presentation. Luckily the videos downloaded and completed in the background!
The audience never new that
a) I didn't really have a real demo
b) I had no demo 3 hours before
c) My demo laptop was terminal
Funnily that session rated the highest session at Teched South Africa last year, and Camtasia saved the day!
Now whenever I see a demo failing for someone, I take them aside quietly and describe my story. Maybe one day all demos will be pre-recorded and attendees can actually get value from the information, rather than distracting, failing demos!
Nick Beaugeard is an ex-microsoftee serial entrepreneur, and has worked for companys way to numerous to mention. He's currently CEO of HubOne a startup delivering enterprise windows software.
Choppy Video? Improve Camtasia Studio Recordings...
Posted on Monday July 27, 2009
No one likes to watch a choppy screencast, a flashing mouse cursor, or jerky video. If you're having problems getting smooth recordings, fear not fellow screencaster! There are a couple different ways you can avoid these problems and get the better performance with Camtasia Studio.
One way is starting out with the ideal computer for Camtasia Studio. But, before you go out and buy a new computer, there are many other steps you can take to improve your performance.
There's a new tutorial in our Learning Center all about how to improve your recording performance.
In the tutorial you will learn:
* Basic Tips to Improve Recording Performance
* Understand Challenges when Recording High-Motion Content
* Using DivX to Record High-Motion Content
Check out the tutorial here.
Any suggestions for new tutorials? What would you like to learn more about?
Are you new to Screencast.com or want to learn how to go past the basics with your account? We have a few new resources to help you out. You can find 3 new PDF guides that you can download here.
The PDFs are about:
1. Getting Started Using Screencast.com
2. Getting the Most from your Screencast.com Account
3. Putting it all together: An Example Case Study
Feel free to download them, print them, and pass them on. Thanks to Kelly Mullins from our Informational Development group for the documents!
What other guides or learning tools could you use on any of our products?
As you know, TechSmith is headquartered in lovely Okemos, Michigan. And, lately, I've noticed many men walking around town in beards. Now, what do Michigan and beards have in common? Well, our 'local' hockey team in Michigan, the Detroit Red Wings are in the Stanley Cup finals... tonight. And, there is a tradition that hockey players and fans will grow 'playoff beards' once their team has entered the playoffs!
So, that got me thinking... hockey, playoff beards, tech... how can we bring them all together? That lead me to thinking about the mustache custom Snagit stamp I shared earlier this week (you can download it here). Well, why not have a playoff beard custom Snagit stamp too?! Check out our Education Evangelist, Dave McCollom sporting the playoff beard stamp!
You can download your own Playoff Beard custom stamp to use in Snagit here. Enjoy! I'd love to see what you create with it... Give your boss a playoff beard, your dog, a baby... it works on anyone. :-)
You can find more info here about how to install and use custom stamps in Snagit.
The 'beard is back' as they say! And, I'll be watching the Detroit Red Wings win the Stanley Cup tonight! ;-)
If you grew up in the 80s like I did, you are probably familiar with pop singer Rick Astley. In the last few years, maybe you've heard of "Rickrolling"? Basically it is like the old bait and switch idea - you send someone a web link that misdirects someone to Rick Astley's video, " Never Gonna Give You Up". Pretty funny!
So, naturally, when I saw the tweet above from Jessica Knott, it caught my attention. Snagit AND Rick Astley! A custom stamp match made in heaven! I had to find out more! So, I contacted Jess and she was kind enough to share the custom stamp.
If you'd like your own Rick Astley stamp for Snagit, you can download it from here.
Jessica also wrote a great blog post here about how she uses Snagit 9 at Michigan State University (my alma mater!) for documentation.
And, while we're on the topic of the 80's, you cannot talk about 80's pop stars without mentioning Hall & Oates. John Oates has a mustache that is legendary. So, I was thinking what better than a mustache stamp to go along with the Rick Astley stamp!? I tested out the mustache stamp on our Snagit trainer, Chris McQueen's pic to the left. :-)
And, I thought others might want to use the mustache stamp too (that's for you, John Quick)!. You can download the mustache Snagit stamp here.
If you'd like to make your own Snagit custom stamp, you can take any PNG, JPG, GIF, TIF or BMP. Chris McQueen from our Training Department will show you how to create and use a custom stamp in this handy screencast. It runs just over 2 minutes.
If you prefer a written tutorial, you can read here how to add a Custom Stamp to your Quick Styles Gallery in Snagit.
Chris also writes Snagit tips on Twitter. You can follow him here or TechSmith on Twitter here.
Want other stamps? You can download them here from TechSmith. Or, Geetesh Bajaj from Indezine and Scrapbook Presentations has hundreds of other free Snagit stamps available in a variety of categories here.
I want to see how you use the Rick Astley and mustache stamp! Email me the pics or post links in the comments! I'm lobbying our Creative Services Department for a set of different mustaches and eyebrows. You'd use them, wouldn't you?! Any other stamp requests?
Thanks for a good laugh, Jess! You make Snagit fun!
"I feel the need... the need for speed!" Ah, one of my favorite quotes from the movie, Top Gun. Remember that scene?
Last weekend was the Indianapolis 500. I was watching the news and found out that those cars hit speeds of 220 mph or more!? That got me thinking about speed... which led me to thinking about Top Gun and then got me thinking about one of my favorite topics, screencapture and screencasting (yes, that's how my brain works)! ;-) It occurred to me that Jing is like the racecar of screencaptures and screencasting! It's all about speed, baby!
And, I've been thinking lately about how much fun it was to do the Camtasia Studio 24 videos in 24 hours. And, wondering if we should pull another all nighter to make 24 videos for Jing? But, since a big benefit of Jing is how quickly you can create and share content, I thought a speed test would be a better idea instead! Besides, I'm not sure if I've caught up on sleep after our last all nighter screencasting. :-)
So, for our speed test, we'll create 6 Jing screencasts in 60 minutes next Tuesday, June 2, 2009 at 3:00 pm EDT (GMT-4)!
A variety of TechSmithies will be joining me on the screencasts from Jing developers, to Graphic Artists, to Trainers and Information Developers to Product Marketing Managers. We'll post the Jingcasts here on the Visual Lounge Blog as well as on the Jing Blog as they are available (hopefully every 10 minutes). 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 so feel free to ask us questions there. I will also post updates on Twitter (TechSmith and BetsyWeber).
We'll show you some new tips and tricks and reveal some new surprises as well. So, tune in!
Share a Camtasia Studio Video in the iTunes Store...
Posted on Sunday May 3, 2009
Ever since I started at TechSmith in 2000, we've had an all-staff Monday morning meeting. It's our time to get to know each other and share what we did over the weekend, hear company news, see product demos of upcoming releases, learn about new product ideas or hear about recent tradeshows. And, often several people are missing from the meeting due to travel, vacation or who knows what. So, we started recording the meetings. That way no one ever misses the meeting! And, we're all on the same page.
An easy way to share these types of Camtasia Studio videos with a team, class or other group is through iTunes. Its nice because others can subscribe to your videos in iTunes and then automatically get the updates.
I asked Kelly Mullins, from our Information Development team, to write a guest blog post and she wrote about how to share your Camtasia Studio videos in iTunes using Screencast.com. Enjoy!
Share a Camtasia Studio Video in the iTunes Store
With Camtasia Studio, you can produce an iPod or iPhone video (.m4v) and upload it to the iTunes store via Screencast.com so others can subscribe to it from within iTunes. When you add your content to the iTunes store, it makes your content available to anyone who uses the iTunes software application. Adding your video to the iTunes store also makes your video
searchable from within iTunes.
In this tutorial, learn how to:
Produce a video in the correct iTunes video file format.
Upload the video to Screencast.com.
Submit the video to the iTunes store.
Estimated time to complete this tutorial is about 30 minutes.
This tutorial does not demonstrate how to take create a screen recording. To learn how to do this, see the Camtasia Studio online help.
What you Need to Get Started
You will need the following to successfully complete this tutorial.
Camtasia Studio 6.0 or higher. If you do not have Camtasia Studio 6.0 or higher, you can download a copy here.
A Free or Pro version of Screencast.com. If you do not have a Screencast.com account, you can sign up for a free account here.
The iTunes application installed on your computer.
An iTunes account to upload to the iTunes Store.
A video to be used for the upload to the iTunes store.
Skill Level: Beginner
This tutorial is suitable for beginning users of Camtasia Studio. Knowledge of how to create a folder, name files, step through a wizard, and save files is needed.
Part 1: Produce the Video in Camtasia Studio
1. In Camtasia Studio, have your video on the timeline and ready to produce.
2. Select File > Project Settings.
3. The Project Settings dialog box appears. Select iPhone or iPod from the Presets dropdown. Click OK.
4. In the Task List, select Produce video as.
5. The Production Wizard appears. Select the same preset: iPhone or iPod and click Next.
6. On the Produce Video screen, enter a Production name and select a folder.
7. Select the Upload to Screencast.com option.
8. Click the Sign In button.
9. The Login Info dialog box appears. Enter your Screencast.com credentials and click Log in.
10. The Screencast.com options become enabled.
11. Create a new folder by selecting New Folder from the menu. Give the folder a name and click OK.
Note: You can also choose to upload to an existing folder. If so, all of the content in the folder that is iTunes compatible will also be submitted to the iTunes store.
12. Click Next.
13. Click Finish. The video will begin rendering and a progress dialog box appears.
14. When the rendering is complete, the video is placed in your Screencast.com folder and is displayed in the view page. Close Camtasia Studio.
Part 2: Submit the Video to iTunes Store
To submit a video to the iTunes store, your video must be in a Screencast.com folder. All of the content in the folder that is iTunes compatible will go to the iTunes store.
When you add your content to the iTunes store, it makes your content available to anyone who uses the iTunes software application and also makes your content searchable from within iTunes.
You must have the iTunes application installed on your computer and have an iTunes account in order to upload to the iTunes Store.
All content uploaded to the iTunes Store is evaluated by a moderator. This process takes 2-3 days. During this time, the content is not available for viewing.
Enable the iTunes Feed
Before you can submit the Screencast.com folder to the iTunes Store, you must first enable the iTunes feed. Screencast.com's iTunes feed is available for folders that contain iTunes compatible content. Any content in the folder that is not iTunes compatible is not sent to the iTunes store.
1. From the View Page, click the My library link in the breadcrumb trail or at the top of the Screencast.com page.
2. Mouse-over the folder you created during the production of your video and click Edit.
The Edit Folder Properties or Edit Playlist Properties dialog box appears.
3. Check the box next to iTunes to enable that feed.
4. Click Done.
5. While in the library, click on the folder that contains the iTunes feed that was enabled.
6. You will see the iTunes feed option at the top of the page.
Submit the Folder to the iTunes Store
1. Click the iTunes icon The RSS Subscription page appears.
2. Within the URL field at the top of the browser window, copy the entire URL (it should end in itunes).
3. Open the iTunes application.
4. In the left navigation pane, click on the iTunes Store link. The store appears on the right side.
5. In the iTunes Store group box, click Podcasts. The view of the store will change to reflect your selection.
6. Scroll to the very bottom of the page to the Learn More group box.
7. Click Submit a Podcast. The Submission page appears.
8. Paste the URL into the field provided.
Kelly Mullins is a long time resident of Flint, Michigan where she began her career in software development seventeen years ago. While a student at the University of Michigan, she helped pioneer a technical communications program focused on the emerging technology industry and became the first to graduate with that degree. The last six years have been spent at TechSmith where she has been a lead on the Information Development team working with the SnagIt and Camtasia Studio product teams.
Ever heard the saying, 'Audio is King'? One of the most difficult parts of a screencast is getting quality audio, in my opinion. And, there have been studies that show that the quality of your audio affects your audience's perception of the quality of your presentation more than the visuals. Poor audio = people think poor presentation. Kathy Sierra has a great blog post on the effect of sound on users that you can read here.
I struggle with audio especially when I'm out of a controlled environment. I often like to make videos on the road at events - usually in a noisy conference hall with high ceilings. This is a less than ideal recording situation.
So, I thought I'd round up a bunch of different microphones at work and compare them for you. Matt Pierce, the Training Manager, and I headed to our soundbooth and tested 6 different microphones. We used Audacity to record the audio at 44,100Hz. We tried to have as much consistency as possible, but we had to adjust the audio levels on each microphone. You will see in the screencast what level we recorded at. Also, I made the links a hotspot in the video, so you can click them if you'd like more info about the microphone. The screencast is short - running 1:30.
.
The text we used was from the classic book, 'Alice in Wonderland' by Lewis Caroll:
"Alice was not a bit hurt, and she jumped up on to her feet in a moment: she looked up, but it was all dark overhead: before her was another long passage, and the White Rabbit was still in sight, hurrying down it."
Also, you should always check your microphone's manual to see where the most sensitive spot is on your microphone. That will dictate where you speak into it. Hint - it may not always be on top.
We liked the Audio-Technica Microphone as well as the Samson and Lapel microphones. What microphones have you tried that you like? Any tips to share with us and other readers?
Update:
It was suggested that I add prices for the microphones. So, here you go! Note: I could find most of the microphones/webcam cheaper than MSRP on places like Amazon.com.
Remember those math story problems you had to do in school growing up? I know, I'm trying to forget them too. :-) They'd walk you through a scenario (A freight train leaves the station traveling 30 mph... ) and you'd work your way through the math problem. These exercises would help you learn some new fundamentals in math.
Matt Pierce, our Training Manager, has created something similar - a Camtasia Studio Walkthrough that will take you through a project to learn the fundamentals of Camtasia Studio. You can find the PDF here. Feel free to print it, pass it out at work or in your presentation, email it... share it any way possible!
Like this type of resource? What else could you use? We're always looking for new ways to help you!
One request I hear is to add OCR (Optical Character Recognition) functionality to Snagit. There is a work-around if you'd like to do this with Snagit.
Why would someone want OCR functionality? Well, say you need a list of all the file names you have in a directory (song list, photo names, expense reports, etc). You could manually type them out one by one, but that takes too long. Or, sometimes you might want to convert a picture or PDF that has text into editable text.
If you have Microsoft Office, there is an easy way you can utilize OCR with Snagit. You can use Snagit with Microsoft Office's built-in OCR software. It's called Microsoft Office Document Imaging (MODI). Chris McQueen recently made a great tutorial for the Snagit Newsletter showing exactly how to do this. Check it out here.
Try it out! It's a great time saver...
What other tasks would you like to do with Snagit?
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?
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.Â
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.Â
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)
Â
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.Â
Â
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?
I love getting simple tips that are easy to incoporate and improve the quality of your screencasts. I heard a great tip at lunch the other day I just had to share with you! For Jing and Camtasia Studio screencasts, try using a heavier weight cardstock for your scripts and notes. By using cardstock, it eliminates the shuffling noise of the paper when you flip through the pages of your script. It cuts down the noise your microphone picks up! Quick and easy!
Camtasia Studio SmartFocus - Remove the Green Frame
Posted on Tuesday January 20, 2009
When I was at CES earlier this month, I was talking with someone about Camtasia Studio's SmartFocus feature. They loved the feature, but hated the green frame. You know, that green frame that pops up before your screencast zooms? It gives your viewers an idea of where you will zoom in on the screen for more detail. There's a screenshot of the green zoom frame to the left.
So, I thought I'd make a quick screencast to show you how to apply SmartFocus, but turn off the green frame. It runs less than 2 minutes. I was feeling goofy tonight (must be the cold medicine!) so you'll have to pardon my drawing skills. :-)
And, in the interest of transparency, I wanted to let you know that Lenovo loaned me a Lenovo ThinkPad X200 Tablet to test with Camtasia Studio. I used the TabletPC in this screencast. I have to say it has been working great so far! I think the inking capabilities of a TabletPC look great in screencasts and make them visually interesting. I'll be running more vigorous tests and making several more screencasts with it. I'll share the results with you. Big thanks to Lenovo for letting me test it out.
If you'd like to see more about SmartFocus, check out this article in our Learning Center.
Holiday Screencasting Wish List, Advice and Gifts Ideas
Posted on Tuesday December 16, 2008
Growing up, I could never keep a secret. If I went gift shopping, inevitably I'd end up sharing with a family member about their gift well before the holiday we were celebrating. I was just so excited to give the gift that I could not contain myself! As an adult, well, I still have a hard time keeping a secret. Thankfully I don't have to keep your gift a secret!
For your gift this holiday season, I asked some expert screencasters to share with us their screencast wishes for the future, advice and gift list. I hope you enjoy their contributions! And, I'd love your feedback and additions. What wishes do you have for the future of screencasting, advice or gift ideas would you share? Comment away!
Tim Fahlberg - Mathcaster extraordinaire and Math 247
Looking for something to give to your favorite mathcasting student or teacher? How about a new Genius MousePen 8" × 6" graphics tablet (about $50 from Amazon or use Google Product Search). Or how about giving them a new voice with a new Logitech USB headset ($20-$40)? Or totally blow them away with a new LiveScribe Pulse SmartPen which can be used to create pencasts (including mathcasts like these) as well as capturing notes with voice and much more ($150 at Target or Amazon)? Or give them the free beta version of SMART Notebook 10 SE (Student Edition) which will be a fantastic tool for students to create mathcasts and much more.
Want to share your mathcasts or learn more about creating or sharing mathcasts? Visit our mathcasts wiki at www.math247.pbwiki.com or email Tim Fahlberg at tim.fahlberg@mathcasts.org.
Bill Myers - Bill Myers Online
Bill has a fantastic list and review of great products ranging from light kits to wireless microphones here. Since I travel a lot, this folding USB stereo headset on his list caught my eye.
Axel Becker - Camtasia Training Blog
My favourite screencast hardware is my new headset microphone from Shure. You can find German information at: http://camtasia-training.de/technik-tipps/ In addition to that I bought an external sound card: Alesis io|2 which makes it easier to record my screencasts.
Rob Bushway - InkCaster and GottaBeMobile
Looking for a way to make your screencasts more personal and engaging? Add handwritten notes and annotations by using a Tablet PC We'd recommend looking at Lenovo's X200 Tablet - plenty of speed and power, along with a beautiful screen to ink your next screencast on.
Daniel Park - dappertext, author of The Screencaster Newsletter and Camtasia Studio 5: The Definitive Guide book
A lot of folks have particular trouble with adding background music to their screencasts. First, you have a heck of a time finding a buy-out (read: royalty-free) source that's reasonably priced and high quality. Then there's the matter of implementing it. I always found the abrupt fading in & out of music to be the epitome of lazy, low-class editing, but custom-cutting the music to the exact length of your screencast is incredibly time-consuming, to say the least. But all these problems went away when I picked up SonicFire Pro 5 from SmartSound. This amazing product offers incredible quality tracks that automatically adjust themselves to any length. They support mood mapping, meaning that you can kick up the intensity of the music at critical points during your video as well as take it down a notch when you want the focus on your narration. Its easy search tools let you find the perfect track with record speed and ease. The Scoring edition prices in at just under $90, and comes with their Core Foundations music disc free.
Jon Udell - The father of screencasting!
I'd like to give screencasters (including myself) an easier way to record audio. I wish I could recommend a silver-bullet solution. But there are lots of moving parts -- operating systems, recording software, audio peripherals -- and I don't think the industry as a whole has done yet for digital audio what it has done for, say, digital photography.
Beth Kanter - Beth's Blog: How Nonprofits Can Use Social Media
This year, except for the kids, my gifts are in the form of charitable donations. For some people, I'm making a gift to The Sharing Foundation in their name or for others donating to their charity or using a gift card from global giving or Network For Good. Here's some more ideas on how to be a geek who gives.
Kathy Jacobs - OneNote MVP and Vitamin CH OneNote: Getting ready to create a screencast, but not sure what to say? I recommend putting together your outline of steps and things to say in OneNote. Build a two column table. First column gets the step, second column gets what you are going to say. Practice doing the steps and reading the content. When you have it down pat, start Camtasia and make your recording... When you have your recording done, use your notes to build the text that goes with the video.
What's on your Screencast wish list, advice or gift giving list? Don't keep it a secret - give us a gift!
Create Cool Twitter Profile Pics with Camtasia Studio
Posted on Thursday December 11, 2008
As you may know, I love Twitter! If you haven't heard of Twitter, check out a quick informative video here from Common Craft. Twitter has been great to keep up with friends, to get advice and answers to questions, and get feedback from the community.
I noticed something different about Twitter the other day. People's profile pics had started... well, moving! Profile pics in Twitter can be in a variety of file formats include BMP, JPG and GIF - which means you could use animated GIFs as your profile pic!
I noticed this post on Twitter from Nils Geylen. He mentioned how he used Camtasia Studio to create his animated profile pic!
I must admit, I had not put two and two together. The ability to create an animated GIF with Camtasia Studio is one of those options that I just don't think about or use very often. Thanks to Nils for shining the light for me to make an animated GIF for a Twitter profile pic!
Producing animated GIFs in Camtasia Studio is easy. I made a quick Jingcast that runs just over a minute showing you how to do this. Simply select in Camtasia Studio>Produce Video As>Custom Production Settings>GIF - animation file and you're on your way!
If you join Twitter, feel free add me and TechSmith as your friend! If you use Camtasia Studio to create your profile pic, let me know! I'd love to see your profile pic in action!
Sometimes when I narrate a screencast, I stumble over my words. OK, most of the time I do audio in a screencast, I mess up. :-) I was playing around with Camtasia Studio tonight and once again, I made a mistake on my audio. I was reminded of a quick audio trick I thought I'd share with you.
Whenever I make a mistake narrating my audio, I will often either tap the microphone or pause for a minute. That way when editing, I can quickly locate either spikes in the audio or dead time which signals to me where I need to edit my audio. It makes it a lot faster for me to locate the problem areas to edit.
Hope this helps you! See the screenshot below showing where I tapped the microphone to indicate to myself where I needed to start editing. The spikes in volume stand out on the audio track.
I'm still in Berlin this week for Berlin Web Week. Yesterday I attended PowerPoint Anwendertage (that's PowerPoint User Days for those of you who do not speak German). I attended a session about video and PowerPoint conducted by Axel Becker. That's Axel and I to the left at a Berlin Eisbären hockey game tonight (Eisbären won, if you're interested!).
This reminded me to share with you some resources to using SnagIt and Camtasia Studio with PowerPoint. One way to set yourself apart from boring PowerPoints is to spice them up with some great visuals and video.
I've seen many presentations completely derailed because the presenter ended up not having an internet connection that they were promised. I always liked to 'safety proof' my PowerPoint presentations with some Camtasia Studio videos. I'd simply use Camtasia Studio to record the website I wanted to show off, save the video, and add it to my PowerPoint slide deck. That way, it did not matter if I had an internet connection for my presentation.
Also, ever done a presentation and have someone ask for your slides? I don't about you, but my slides don't usually have a lot of text and I'm too lazy to write in-depth speakers notes. And, I often leave PowerPoint to show off software and websites. So, my slides are only one part of the story. Next time you present, hook yourself up on a microphone and use Camtasia Studio to record all elements of your presentation. That way you can share your entire presentation with anyone who'd like to review it.
I compiled a few links about using SnagIt and Camtasia Studio with PowerPoint, but there are many more out there. Check out:
A tutorial about how to record a PowerPoint Presentation with Camtasia Studio here.
A SnagIt Output accessory for PowerPoint. Use this Output accessory to send your SnagIt screencaptures directly to PowerPoint... and its free.
An example about how to add interactive images to your PowerPoint presentation with PowerPoint.
So, let's hear from you! How are you using SnagIt and Camtasia Studio with PowerPoint? Any tips and tricks you can share with the group?
This evening I have been sitting in a hotel room in Prague under a blanket! Yes, I looked silly, but there was a good reason behind my actions. :-) I had to make a quick Jingcast to answer a SnagIt user's question. And, I just could not get acceptable audio in the hotel room. It sounded awful. Lights were making a little buzzing noise, the fan was turning on and off, and the audio was bouncing off the wall and higher ceilings. To put it technically... it sounded flat out bad.
I remembered a quick audio trick that anyone can use... as long as you don't mind looking a little funny. Simply put a blanket over your head and microphone when you record your audio. It is not the equivalent of a sound booth, but it can help quite a bit quickly and easily.
I was also digging on our website and found this article with some additional audio tips.
Oh, and here's another quick tip. Forget your tripod for your camera or video camera while you're on the road? You can use a lamp for your tripod! The screw on top of a lamp for the light shade is exactly the same size as the screw on a tripod that you attach to your camera!
Do you have any audio or video tips to share with everyone?
I got a new laptop last week and yes, it has Vista on it. And, there's a feature on Vista that's is great for screencasting! Tony Dunckel, the SnagIt Product Manager, tipped me off to it last week when he was prepping for a webinar and it occurred to me that it would work well for screencasting too!
When screencasting, it is good to have as little distraction in your video as possible. You want your viewers to focus on the topic at hand. One way to do this is to clean up your desktop or other areas you will be showing off. A little 'house-keeping' is good! I made a quick jingcast to show you how to clean up your desktop quickly in Vista (Note: I learned this option is available on XP too from Pierre and Owen. See comments below!). The video runs less than a minute.
Got a screencast tip to share? If so, I want to hear it! Or better yet, Jing it to me!
I live on the internet, but I still like to read magazines and books in the good, old fashioned paper format! I was digging around on Twitter to see what questions there were about SnagIt and I came across one about capturing from a scanner.
That question reminded me of a little known feature in SnagIt that I thought I'd share with you. Did you know that you can use SnagIt to capture from a Scanner or Camera? I often come across articles in magazines that I'd like to archive, share and save as a PDF. I can do that easily with SnagIt and a scanner! There is a tutorial on our Learning Center here. Or, if video is your thing, I did a quick Jing screencast to show you how to set up your capture (sorry, no audio. I did not have a microphone at home and the built in microphone just sounded way too bad). It's a short Jingcast that runs under a minute.
One of our forum moderators and PowerPoint MVP from Germany, Ute Simon, also shared, via Twitter, her tutorial about how to capture from a scanner. Her tutorial is in German, but the screenshots are in English. You can see Ute's tutorial here.
And, if you're on Twitter, feel free to jump in the conversation and add me as a friend! You can find my Twitter feed here.
I try to have a pic or video in every blog post. We've talked in the past here about how the combination of words plus a visual is much more powerful than words alone.
So, it is no surprise that I use SnagIt or Jing for a graphic for every blog post. And, consequently, there are a few features I routinely use in the SnagIt Editor to create the screenshot for my posts - I almost always resize the screenshot to scale it down and I use the 'Save As' feature.
There's a little known feature in SnagIt Editor called the 'Quick Access Toolbar' that makes it really quick and easy to have access to your most frequently used tools and options. I used the Quick Access Toolbar to make buttons for the 'Save As' and 'Resize' options. Now I always have access to the options I use most often and it saves me time from having to go to different menu options in the ribbon.
It occurred to me that many of you might not know about the Quick Access Toolbar so I wanted to share it with you. You can find out more about the Quick Access Toolbar here complete with a screencast.
PowerPoint and OneNote MVP Kathy Jacobs has a great sneaky SnagIt trick on her blog. You can check it out here.
When Kathy has a computer process that she needs repeated screenshots of, she uses the Capture Timer option in SnagIt for timed shots. Or, another great use of timed captures is to document things that happen too fast to capture by hand. Kathy gave a great example of a time she got an error on software she was testing. She kept getting an error that disappeared before she could read it, let alone capture it. That's where automatic screenshots came in - run the software, captured the error with SnagIt's timed capture, and document the bug! Simple!
Read more ways that Kathy uses this feature here. She also shows you how to set up timed captures too.
Thanks for the inspiration, Kathy! There is also a tutorial on our website here. Have you used the Capture Timer in SnagIt before?
Before You Record - Storyboards and Project Planning
Posted on Saturday May 24, 2008
I've talked in the past about the importance of storyboards. I thought I'd also share another tool we use when planning our screencasts. We have a 'Video Project Form' that we use for planning before we record so we don't run into any 'gotchas' during recording or production. If you think about the goals of your video the audience before you make your screencast, it can change a variety of things like file format and video dimensions, if you use audio or captioning and other options.
You can download blank storyboards and a video project form here.
How do you prepare before you record your screencast?
Cap and gown, sheet cake, senior prank, diploma, Open House party, and SnagIt ...These are all things I associate with High School Graduation. And, of course, every Open House party needs an invitation, right? That's where SnagIt comes in!
Ryan Everett, a Sales Intern at TechSmith, created the invitation for his brother's graduation party. Several people asked who the "professional" was that created his brother's invites. Ryan answered, "SnagIt all the way!".
How did Ryan make the invites? Basically he captured two old photos of his brother with the "Ellipse" option. Then in SnagIt Editor, he added text and faded the background. I made a quick Jing screencast to show you how to make a similiar invitation. It runs just over a minute long.
I'm having a great time in Paris this week! When I'm not stuck inside at a conference, I've been a tourist and snapping lots of pics.
I also have a habit of changing my laptop's wallpaper frequently. I'd like to use a few of my photos from Paris for wallpaper so I can remember my trip long after I've returned home to Michigan. TabletPC MVP Craig Pringle recently wrote an article about how he creates wallpaper that works in both portrait and landscape mode and he used SnagIt as part of the process. Craig used SnagIt to change one of his pictures to grayscale which looked great! So, I thought I'd try the same thing! Here's Craig's article on GottaBeMobile.
I also made a quick Jing screencast that runs less than 20 seconds to show you how to change your pic to grayscale. Click on the video below to watch.
Note: TechSmith is one of GottaBeMobile's sponsors.
A little background music goes a long way and can set the tone and personality of your screencast. It can also make your screencast feel polished and professional. I get several questions about where we get the music for some of our screencasts. So, I thought I'd do a music round-up to share some sources we've found.
One option is to create your own music. I've used Cinescore and ACID Pro from Sony Creative Software. If you don't feel like composing from scratch, you can get some samples, loops and themes from Sony to help you create your masterpiece.
Creative Commons is also a great source music which you can search here. You can also try ccMixter for music that is free to download, remix and sample.
We use royalty free music that we purchase from Digital Juice often. The nice thing about Digital Juice is that most of their tracks are stackable which means you can pull out individual audio elements. So, if you find a track you really like but dislike part of it, you can just remove it.
DigitalJuice has a 10 second, 15 second, 30 second, 1 minute and a 3 minute version of each song. Here's a quick screencast about how to get to the galleries to listen to their samples. It runs less than a minute long.
The Camtaisa Studio Product Manager, Troy Stein, has compiled a list of his favorite music clips from Digital Juice's Stack Traxx. Here are Troy's favorites (the number represents the Volume Number):
04 RiverFlow (upbeat, fun)
06 ComeAndPlay (upbeat, little techno)
15 Mystique (lighter, subtle)
15 KickItBack (moderately upbeat guitar)
06 LookInside (un pocito espanol)
12 Letter of Intent (blue suit feel)
32 EstaBien (fun latin groove)
03 Magic (playful orchestra music)
37 Westcoast Vamp -- (bit of Jazz)
13 RadioActive -- (more of a driving, rockish sound)
Chris McQueen in Training used royalty free music for the Jing videos from Kevin Macleod at Incompetech.
Growing up in Michigan, I have always been a hockey fan. I often went to watch games at Michigan State University and even played on a roller hockey team in college. And, if I couldn't attend a game, I would sometimes watch hockey on TV. I remember back in the early 90's Fox Television developed a special puck (FoxTrax) with internal electronics that would highlight the puck on the TV broadcast. That way viewers could easily see and track the puck on-screen. Sometimes it was hard to follow the action of small, fast moving puck on TV.
Just as the puck could be hard to track, the same is true for your cursor when screencasting. It can be hard on your viewers to follow your mouse movements. And, on some backgrounds, it may be nearly impossible to see your cursor. That's why I love this tutorial from video expert, Bill Myers! He'll show you how he makes his cursor big and red so his viewers can easily follow his activity. The video runs just 3 minutes long.
And, don't forget you can also highlight Camtasia Studio's cursor for added visibility. There is a tutorial here.
As much as I love the computer, sometimes I need to step away from it. You know, to do things like go outside, read a book, go photowalking, hang out with my dog and family, sleep...
There's a little known feature in SnagIt that enables you to do screen captures whether you're at your computer or not! Set the capture timer on SnagIt and walk away - SnagIt will do the work for you capturing things like stock tickers, websites, software...whatever you like. You'll never miss the action on your computer again. There's a tutorial about it here. You can see some of the settings in the screenshot below.
Want to see this feature in action? Amit Agarwal from Digital Inspiration made a time-lapse video, made with SnagIt screen captures, showing how the website Techmeme homepage changed over 50 hours! His screencast is 50 seconds long. Check out the video and his blog write-up here. Amit also has a nice write-up about how he created the screencast here.
Do you think you'll try this feature? What will you capture?
Who doesn't need some extra time in the day? I thought I'd try out a new series on the blog and give you some time saving tips. I hope you like them!
First up, saving time with SnagIt. Did you know SnagIt has a batch processing feature? This can save you lots of time. Say you have several images you'd like to resize or maybe you'd like to apply a special effect (like a torn edge). Instead of selecting each file, one by one, and altering them individually, you could use SnagIt's Batch Converter to change them all at once!
Simply highlight all the images you'd like to change and then right click. Select 'SnagIt>Batch Convert Images' from the menu. Then follow the four step wizard! You can read the tutorial here
That's your time saver tip for this week. Do you have any time savers to share? What are you going to do with your newly found free time?! :-)
Get Better Webcam Video for your Camtasia Screencasts!
Posted on Saturday August 4, 2007
I have an apology to make to you. I've subjected you to bad webcam video in some of our screencasts. Remember back when Brooks Andrus and I made a screencast at PF Changs? Check out a screenshot of the webcam video below. It's bad, bad, bad! And, I'm sorry.
When I can, I try to use the better DV Camera I have versus my webcam, but if I'm traveling, I don't always want to carry the bigger DV camera, tripod and other gear. And, I always have the webcam hooked up in the office so often out of convenience, I like to use the webcam.
Well, I was excited to see this blog post over at Strobist blog. This is a blog post worthy of a bookmark!
And, you'll see how you can improve the picture from your webcam with a few simple tweaks. 5 tweaks to be exact:
For Pete's Sake, Don't Use Your Monitor as a Light Source
Soften the Light
Kill the Computer's Reflection in Your Eyes
Give Your Webcam What it Wants
Clean Up Your Background
Any tips you have to add to get better quality video from your webcam? Oh, and after getting tips from the Strobist, I promise I won't make you watch red webcam images anymore.
PowerPoint and OneNote MVP, Kathy Jacobs, recently wrote a blog post with a great SnagIt trick that I just had to share!
Ever need to fill in fields on a PDF? I have to do this periodically for contracts or sign-up sheets. And, if you're me, you can't fill out the form online because you don't own Adobe Acrobat. So, you know the drill...then you have to print it, write in your name, contact info, sign away your life, and fax it back. Too many steps for me. What to do? Well, Kathy saves the day and will show you how to use SnagIt to fill out those fields on a PDF form using SnagIt!
Protect the Bandwidth of Your Camtasia Studio Screencasts
Posted on Friday May 25, 2007
Bill Myers has done it again! I got an email from Bill about a tool he created for his Camtasia Studio videos...and he has made the tool free for everyone!
Bill has developed a 'video bandwidth protection' tool for use with your Camtasia Studio videos.
With this tool, you can control which site your Camtasia Studio video can be viewed on. And, this tool automatically causes your video to redirect to a specific URL if an attempt is made to display your video on a non-authorized site.
Why did Bill create this tool? Well, he wanted to protect his screencasts that he stores at Amazon S3 (or on any other hosting site) and make it difficult for anyone to steal bandwidth by displaying his videos on other sites.
You can find more information about the tool here. And, Bill even created screencasts to show how to use it.
Thank you, Bill! Check out Bill's site here - it's full of great resources and, of course, lots of screencasts!
The Definitive Guide to Camtasia Studio 4 Book is Available!
Posted on Sunday May 6, 2007
Last week, I was excited to see a package waiting for me in my office! In it was my copy of Daniel Park's new book, Camtasia Studio 4: The Definitive Guide. This book is over 500 pages of Camtasia Studio tips, tricks and techniques. The book will take you through your project from start to finish and the book is appropriate for users at all skill levels.
Daniel resides in Spain, but stopped by our offices for a visit around the holidays and we made a quick screencast. In this screencast, Daniel gives his top tip for your Camtasia Studio videos. Click the picture below to watch the screencast. It's a short one that runs less than 8 minutes long.
You can pick up the book from the TechSmith website here or from Amazon here.
I have a few copies of Daniel's new book to give away and a signed copy the last version of the book, Camatasia Studio 3: The Definitive Guide. The first 4 people to e-mail me ideas for future screencasts will get a copy. I'll post in the comments when I'm out of books.
Troy Stein, the Camtasia Studio Product Manager, was recently interviewed by Tom Cone over at Screencast Central. You can check out the interview here. You can hear how Troy uses Camtasia Studio 4 plus get his tips and tricks. You can hear Troy's thoughts on screencasting too.
I'm in the hot seat for an interview next week with Tom about screencasting and SnagIt. Anything you'd like us to cover?
And, if you haven't visited Screencast Central yet, give it a whirl. It's got lots of a great resources to get you started on your screencasting journey.
I ran into Kathy Jacobs at the APCUG Conference yesterday. You might remember her from this recent OneNote screencast. She sat down with me to do a quick screencast on how she uses SnagIt. She'll teach you new tricks and give you ideas on how to use SnagIt differently than you normally do.
The video is just over 11 minutes. Click the pic below to start the video. In my tests, the screencast ran fine on Internet Explorer, but I had problems with FireFox. I'll try to get this fixed on Monday. For now, please use IE.
To make the screencast, here's what we used:
Hardware:
Dell Laptop - Latitude D820
Panasonic MiniDV Camcorder
2 Lapel Microphones with a Y-cable/splitter
Software:
SnagIt
Internet Explorer
Camtasia Studio
Plus, one dark and cold conference room at the Riviera Hotel
Does this count toward my new years resolution of a screencast a week?
Bonus - Video #32 of 30. Get smooth videos with Camtasia
Posted on Thursday November 23, 2006
Were you feeling sad and lonely since we wrapped up our 30 videos in 30 days series? Well, fear no more....You get another bonus video! Our next video in the series is done by the Camtasia Studio Lead Developer, Dave O'Rourke. Dave made an extensive video with everything you need to know about how to get smooth looking videos.
If you've ever had a video with choppy mouse movements, this video is for you. Dave also talks about codecs in this video. I don't know anyone who can talk more about codecs than Dave.
Click on the screenshot below to launch the video. Any requests for future videos?
When planning our screencasts and videos, we'll often storyboard them out. Our storyboards are simply a rough sketch of what we want to cover in the screencast and the content we want to talk about. Our better videos happen when we pre-plan them out. Go figure. Storyboarding helps us organize the content of the video and makes sure we cover all topics we need to incorporate in the video.
For example, here's a pic of the storyboard used in a recent video Kelly Rush made about UserVue.
You can see the video created from the storyboard here. The part from the storyboard is at about 2m:33s into the video (almost the end).
I recently found these storyboard pads of paper at Levenger that I thought some of you might be interested in as well. They're nice to use when planning your screencasts.
Or, if you'd like a free template for a storyboard, download a copy of the ones we use internally here and here.
What have you found useful when planning for your videos?
Video #28 and 29 of 30 - Closed Captioning and What's Fixed and New in Camtasia Studio
Posted on Friday November 3, 2006
Looks like we're one video short this week. So, our final video will be posted next week. Thanks for sticking with us!
Up first is a video from our Senior Flash Developer, Brooks Andrus. He'll go over customizing the Flash Closed Captioning. This feature is new with Camtasia Studio v4. I guarantee you will learn something new with this video.
Click the screenshot below to watch the video. It runs just over 10 minutes.
Video 29 is with Dave O'Rourke, the lead Camtasia Studio developer, and Troy Stein, the Product Manager. They'll go over all that is fixed and new with Camtasia Studio v4. It's a longer one that runs over 25 minutes. There are a few funny moments in the video too.
Video #26 and #27 - Table of Contents and Smoother Demos
Posted on Wednesday November 1, 2006
Today you get two videos for the price of one!
First up, Video #26 is about adding horizontal navigation Table of Contents (TOC) to your videos. Troy created some sample nav bars that you can have. Download them in a zip file here along with a screenshot of the nav bars in this zip file.
Click the screenshot below to watch the video. It's a longer one that runs about 15:22.
Video #27 in our series is about doing smoother software demos in one take. I was talking to Troy and he mentioned how he's learned a lot creating these videos in our 30 days series. So, he wanted to share what he's learned with you. He's learned to do a minimal amount of scripting before the demo and that helps him to do fewer "take 2s".
You'll see how Troy uses PowerPoint for his storyboarding and records PowerPoint and the software demo in one fell-swoop.
Click the screenshot below to watch the video. It runs 6:40 mintues.
Video #25 of 30 - Working with PIP in Camtasia Studio
Posted on Monday October 30, 2006
Today's video in our series is all about Camtasia Studio and PIP - Picture-in-Picture. I like PIP video because they add that personal touch to training and presentations.
The video will go over how to record, edit and publish PIP videos. And, also Troy will talk about best practices.
Video #24 of 30 - Customized Web Menus with Camtasia
Posted on Friday October 27, 2006
We're up to video #24 (Yep, we owe you a video for yesterday). Today's video is all about customizing web menus in Camtasia Studio.
If you'd like to add DVD-like navigation to your Camtasia Studio video, this screencast is for you. Custom web menus make your content easier to use and navigate. Viewers can watch videos at their own pace.
This is a shorter screencast. It runs 4:22 minutes. Click the screenshot below to watch the video.
Video #23 of 30 - Reusing Video Segments in Camtasia Studio
Posted on Wednesday October 25, 2006
Today's video is all about how you can reuse sections of your already recorded videos. Sometimes you want to cut a portion out of your video, but want to reuse that clip in other araes of your presentation. This screencast will show you how to easily do this in Camtasia Studio 4.
This a short video that runs 3:21 minutes. Click the screenshot below to watch the video.
Video #22 of 30 - Podcasting, iPod video, Screencasting and more with Camtasia Studio 4
Posted on Tuesday October 24, 2006
Tonight, we're on our way back from the League of Innovation Conference on Information Technology (CIT ) in Charlotte, North Carolina. At the show, Troy Stein gave a presentation with Jacques du Plessis from the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. Jacques has a wonderful website about learning Afrikaans online. There are many Camtasia Studio videos on his site to learn Afrikaans - click here to watch one of the videos (pick 'Clothing 2' Movie off the submenu).
The presentation Troy and Jacques gave was all about creating podcasts, screencasts and Screencast.com, RSS, PowerPoint to iPod videos, and more. Troy recorded a video of part of his presentation. So, that's video #22 in our series.
Click the screrenshot below to watch the video. It's a long one clocking in at over 22 minutes. So, get comfortable and enjoy!
Video #19 and 20 - Consistent Audio and Custom Production Settings in Camtasia Studio 4
Posted on Friday October 20, 2006
In my opinion, some of the hardest parts of video is the audio portion.
Troy walks through some of the new audio improvements in Camtasia Studio 4 in Video #19. We worked hard to make your voice narrations sound better all the way around.
Click the screenshot below to watch the video. The video runs just under 5 minutes.
Video #20 is all about custom production settings. Maybe you always want to produce AVIs that is 725x540 in dimension with high quality audio. You can set up a custom production setting to do just that. Troy will walk you through creating your own custom productions settings for consistency across your videos. Troy even talks about how to share your custom production settings with others.
Click the screenshot below to watch the video. The video runs just under 4 minutes.
OK, we're in the home stretch for videos. Anything you'd like to see covered over the next 10 videos?
As you may remember, I'm addicted to my video iPod. So, naturally, one of the new features in Camtasia Studio 4 that I'm really excited about it the ability to easily create a video for the iPod. You could do this before, but it wasn't easy.
In the 18th video in our series, Troy walks us through recording, editing and zooming in the video (this is important for videos played on the small screen), producing and getting your video on the iPod.
Click on the screenshot below to start the video. It's a longer one that runs about 13:30 minutes.
Anyone making videos for the iPod that they're willing to share?
Video #15 and 16 of 30...PowerPoint, hot spots, and cold spots...oh my!
Posted on Monday October 16, 2006
When giving presentations, I like to embed Camtasia Studio videos in in PowerPoint to show off a website or application. Then, you don't have to worry about multi-tasking while presenting and running a demo at the same time. I'm free to move about the room as well.
Click here to watch Video #15. The video runs just over 5 minutes.
You've heard about hot spots before, but what about cold spots? Aren't you intrigued now? Video #16 is about advanced interactivity and creating interactive simulations.
This video does not show a new feature in Camtasia Studio, but rather a new way to use an existing feature.
Click here to watch the video. It's a longer one clocking in at over 9 minutes.
Take a trip down memory lane back to Comdex (I miss that tradeshow) with today's video. One year at Comdex, Troy saw a presenter give a flawless demo...using Camtasia Studio. Troy shares some tricks about giving self running demos using Camtasia Studio and the Pack and Show feature.
Video #13 of 30 - Camtasia Studio 4, Share and share alike...
Posted on Wednesday October 11, 2006
Today's video is all about sharing...sharing your Camtasia Studio projects with others for editing or collaboration as well as sharing notes with others.
Not only is this new feature useful when you're working on a team but it also creates meta tags so when you publish your videos you can have project, author or iTunes information associated with your video.
Video #12 of 30 - Get the most out of your recordings
Posted on Tuesday October 10, 2006
Video #12 in our series is available. Dave O'Rourke, the lead Camtasia Studio developer, walks you through Camtasia Studio recordings and how to make the most of them. Ever wonder what a 'CAMREC' file is? Dave will answer that question as well as how to share AVIs for editing and more.
Video #11 of 30 - Noise Reduction in Camtasia Studio 4
Posted on Monday October 9, 2006
Ever made a Camtasia Studio video and played it back only to hear your computer's fan churning noisily in the background? Or, Remember those videos I made at the airport, tradeshow floor or hotel lobby with users? There's lots of background noise. Not always ideal for your listening pleasure. A new feature coming in next version of Camtasia Studio helps alleviate that problem.
It's all about timing...do you ever find your Camtasia Studio video is too slow or too fast? Maybe you want to just extend a frame. You're in luck - in today's video, Troy covers all these topics as well as splits, transitions, clip speed and more.
You know what to do - click the screenshot below to start the video!
Do you like these videos? Would you like to a 30 day video series for our other products like SnagIt or Morae? I know where the SnagIt and Morae product managers sit in the office - I can twist their arms for you. ;-)
Video #7 of 30 - Precision Editing with Camtasia Studio
Posted on Tuesday October 3, 2006
I get tongue tied and stumble over my words all the time. And, when making videos, it's no different and it is not pretty.If you're like me, you may want to edit that out. And, the good thing is that you don't have to remake your recording. You can simply edit your video. Today and tomorrow's video from Troy is all about precision editing with Camtasia Studio.
Troy goes over the clipbin, preview window, timeline, navigating and cutting in Camtasia Studio. I know you'll learn several new things in this video.
I'm jealous of John Madden. I think it's cool how on Monday Night football, he gets to draw all the Xs and Os on the screen. It's a nice way to draw attention and illustrate examples on the screen. Plus, everyone likes a visual example to go along with words.
Well, if you'd like to imitate John Madden but don't have a Tablet PC, you can still do this in your Camtasia Studio recordings with a little feature called 'Screendraw'. You can learn more about Screendraw here.
Check out the next video in our series all about Screendraw! Click the screenshot below to watch the screencast.
One of the best tips I got from Troy for making Camtasia Studio videos was about this great little freeware app called 'Sizer'.
When making videos, often you want a uniform window size for the screens you're recording. You can do this easily with Sizer. Sizer allows you set a resize your app, Web page or any window to a predefined size. It's great when record your video, because you can make the windows in your videos a consistent size.
Check out video #3 all about using Sizer with Camtasia Studio. Click the screenshot below to start the video.
Video #2 of 30 - Vista Videos with Camtasia Studio
Posted on Tuesday September 26, 2006
I've seen some great videos made with Camtasia showing off Vista like this one and this one.
Wondering how to best make your own videos of Vista? Troy Stein has made a video doing just that. Check out today's video by clicking on the screenshot below.
Recently, a question was posted on the blog asking us to clarify some different terms like vlog, podcast and screencasting. If you've ever taken advantage of our free tech support, you may have talked or emailed with AJ Morris. AJ was kind enough to sit down with me for a screencast to go through the terms.
Click the screenshot below to meet AJ and watch him talk more about some new terms. It runs just over 6 minutes.
Here are some links to definitions from the screencast:
Podcast
Vlog
Screencast and Jon Udell
Webcast
Inkshows and GottaBemobile.com
What other questions do you have for tech support? We're ready to personally record you an answer!
Listen Up! Terry Brock's Top Tips for Public Speaking
Posted on Wednesday August 16, 2006
Professional speaker, Camtasia user, and all around good guy Terry Brock recently stopped by our offices by way of Florida.
I'll be honest, I'm not a public speaker. And, if you've seen any of my screencasts, you know this...really well. Maybe too well. :-)
So, I had to take the opportunity when Terry was here to get some of his top tips for public speaking in hopes that it would help my screencasting. And, you also get the benefit since we recorded it!
Click the screenshot below to start the video. It runs just over 10 minutes.
To learn more about Terry, visit here.
What would you like the next screencast to be about? (Need help overcoming any other fears, phobias, snakes on a plane?)
Often I do the same screen capture over and over...Region capture, torn edge effect, saved to a file in .jpg format. Ever do routine screen captures like me? I got really tired of manually setting up that same screen capture over and over. Did you know you can save your favorite or most commonly used screen captures with your own custom SnagIt Profiles? And, even share those profiles with others?
Microsoft Word MVP, Dian Chapman has a great SnagIt tutorial this month about Custom Profiles in her newsletter, TechTrax. Check it out - She's a lot more articulate than I am, so I'll let her walk you through it step by step. Click here to read the tutorial.
If you're looking for more great tips and tricks about using computers, sign up for Dian's newsletter here.
On my last trip to Chicago I was lucky enough to meet up with Dian and Greg Chapman. She gave me a great insider's tour of the Windy City in her convertible! Here's a pic from our visit...Greg Chapman (far right) is pretending to shoot me at the site of the St. Valentine's Day Massacre in North Chicago!
I love my iPod and I'm addicted to it...I admit I have a problem! I also love Camtasia Studio, so what better than putting the two together?
So, I was pleased to hear that I can make Camtasia Studio videos for mobile devices - videos to watch on the go!
Kelly Mullins from our technical writing team has written a guide called Creating Portable Media on how to convert your Camtasia Studio recordings to many different devices, including the Apple iPod, Sony PSP, Palm and Creative Zen Vision. Now I think I need to get each gadget to test each out myself...
You can download the Creating Portable Media guide here.
We also have a great tutorial video about how to create content for the video iPod by Dan Kazup, our training manager. The video will take you from start to finish through a project.
Click the screenshot below to view the video:
It's a 15-minute video, so depending on your internet connection, it might take some time to load, but it's worth the wait.
Now I just need to stop watching videos while I'm driving! Just kidding.
Is anyone else doing this? Any tips to share with others? Show them off - post a link to your videos in the comments.
Confused about captioning, Camtasia Studio 3.1's new feature that allows you to add text to your videos? Want to learn more? Well, I have a treat for you.
Glenna Shaw, PowerPoint Magician and Microsoft MVP, recently wrote an article for us about all the ins and outs of captioning - complete with videos that have captioning in English, Spanish and German! You can read the captioning article here.
As you can see from her picture, she really is a PowerPoint Magician!
Her article offers lots great information about types of captioning, plus the difference between subtitles and captions. It also has links to some great resources.
Last time I saw Glenna, she was wearing a great t-shirt that was 'captioned', if you will. The PowerPoint guru's shirt said, "*.PPT: Weapons of Mass Instruction".
Would you like to contribute an article for us to share with others? E-mail me if you'd like to discuss article ideas!
Screencasts about Camtasia Studio 3.1 - Captioning
Posted on Thursday January 19, 2006
I wanted to go more in depth about the new features in Camtasia Studio 3.1 for you.
So, I asked the Camtasia Studio developers to make screencasts of the features they worked on. Who better to tell you about the ins and outs of the new features than the person that actually made them?!
So let me introduce developer Marty Gardner! His screencast focuses on captioning - one of the new main features of 3.1. He gives great tips on making it easier to add captions to your video.
Click on the screenshot below to start the screencast!
What's the next feature you'd like to see a screencast for?
I was talking with Dan Kazup, our Software Training Manager, and he told me a video editing trick. It makes editing videos faster and easier for me, so I thought I'd share it with everyone.
The Microsoft IntelliMouse I use has five programmable buttons. The mouse's software interface allowed me to program the mouse for specific applications. So, I programmed my mouse buttons to correspond with Camtasia Studio's hotkeys.
Here's a screenshot of the Camtasia Studio-specific settings:
Now when I fire up Camtasia Studio, I can use my mouse to insert a marker, split a frame, and switch to the storyboard view.
Also, when I leave Camtasia Studio, the mouse settings return to normal - no need to worry about it interfering with any other software.
If you have a programmable mouse...give it try and see if this works for you.
Now I need to figure out what I'm going to do with all the extra time I'm saving...Maybe talk to Dan more often.
I met with Echo Swinford, PowerPoint MVP extraordinaire, at PowerPoint Live. We talked about doing a screencast, but we were just too busy having fun to sit still long enough to make a video.
Thankfully, after Echo returned home she recorded a Camtasia Studio screencast on a little-known PowerPoint feature: Select multiple. Ever heard of it? I bet you haven't - that's why it's her top PowerPoint tip.
"Select multiple" is a really handy feature when you need to select objects on slides that are hidden by other objects, or objects that so near others that they're difficult to select individually.
Click the screenshot below to start the screencast.
Thank you so much, Echo, for your PowerPoint tip and Camtasia Studio video ... video ... video ... (You didn't think I'd close out without one reference to Echo's name, did you?)
Anyone else have some tips to share with us? Send me your video or share your link in our comments.
I bugged the Camtasia Studio Product manger, Troy Stein, to make a screencast about making screencasts. Say that several times in a row.
In this video, Troy gives us his tips for creating a screencast that will play inside of your blog or Web site page. Click the screenshot to view the screencast:
Why screencast? Several reasons really.
Show AND tell! It's more interesting for your blog readers, and sometimes ... words just aren't enough.
It saves you time - how long would it have taken me to type out instructions on how to screencast? Much longer than it takes to make a narrated screencast. And with zero typos.
Show your personality.
It's a great way to promote yourself and your expertise.
Be different - need a way to stand out in the blogosphere? Start making screencasts!
Greetings from the show floor at PowerPoint Live! I'm having a great time in sunny San Diego.
I was able to get a few minutes with PowerPoint MVP and author Kathy Jacobs,and she sat down with me to do a screencast on the show floor. We managed to find a quiet corner in the conference room, I hooked her up with a microphone, set up my Logitech QuickCam Pro 4000 webcam, and launched Camtasia Studio for a quick video.
In this screencast, Kathy shares with me her top three tips for PowerPoint Users. See how much I don't know . . . yet! Click the screenshot to launch the video.
I'm learning a lot at the show, but I have severe PowerPoint shame after seeing the PowerPoint presentations done by the MVPs. They trulyare works of art.
Creating a side-by-side video presentation with Camtasia Studio
Posted on Thursday September 15, 2005
The product manager for Camtasia Studio,Troy Stein, was asked by a customer this week, how to present twovideos in a side-by-side layout: powerpoint on one side andcamera video on the other.
It takes some doing (this is not for the faint of heart) but the results can look quite nice.
If you've made Camtasia Studio videos like this, I'd love to show them off to our blog and newsletter readers! Send me an email or please leave comments.
Raise your hands...How many of you have ever seen a speaker show a video in a presentation only to have the projector display a black box on the screen while the audio and video plays just fine on the laptop?
I'm here to admit that I have been this presenter. In a crowded room, I went to show off one of my Camtasia Studio videos and you guessed it...black screen of embarrassment. After fumbling around for what seemed like forever, I remembered to go into the Control Panel and the Display Properties to disable my hardware acceleration. Problem solved.
Obviously, this isn't a Camtasia Studio issue. It's a video issue. It doesn't matter what you use to create the video...it's your default computer settings.
This page contains an archive of all entries posted to The Visual Lounge in the “Tips and Tricks” category. The blog entries are listed from oldest to newest.
Jaclyn Nagel is a digital media intern at TechSmith. She goes to Michigan State University and enjoys road trips, going to sporting events, music and bike riding. Email her at j.nagel@techsmith.com. 
