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But the need to train employees to use new applications and products isn’t going away, nor is the need to give detailed demonstrations of products to partners and potential customers. This, of course, makes screen recording products that can create rich demonstration and training videos more important than ever.
A longtime player in screen recording products is TechSmith, which recently released version 6 of their Camtasia Studio. Camtasia Studio 6 builds on the product’s already good usability and functionality by adding several interesting new features, including the ability to create high-definition video presentations. And at a $299 pricepoint, Camtasia Studio comes in at less than half the cost of main competitor Adobe Captivate.
Camtasia Studio 6 includes several presets to help users create a video presentation geared for a specific format. These presets include options such as DVD, YouTube, iPhone and TechSmith’s screencast.com service.
Most interesting, though, was the preset for creating HD quality video. I have to admit that my first thought was “why would I need to create an HD quality training video of an application or Web service?”.
But there are many areas where high quality video can pay off, especially in product demos or in areas where the video will include HD video or high resolution photography. This option also makes it possible to deliver quality live presentations on HD displays or projections. In tests the HD quality video looked very good and was not considerably larger than some of the other high-quality video outputs.
Recording a presentation is very easy in Camtasia Studio 6. I simply started the recorder application and was presented with multiple options for recording my application or browsing session. These included windowed, full screen and a very nicely implemented custom screen feature for capturing content. I also liked that I could save the custom settings for future use.
Once content is captured it is possible to enhance and edit the recording in multiple ways. As always, Camtasia Studio lets users zoom into areas of a screen and also add icons and callouts. An interesting new feature made it possible to tilt the content in the screen to any specific angle.
Editing audio and video content is also easier in the new version of Camtasia Studio. It is now possible to decouple audio tracks from video tracks, making it easier to edit audio and video independently within a project.
For more information on Camtasia Studio 6 or to download the fully functional 30-day trial, go to http://www.techsmith.com/camtasia.asp.