二零零七年十二月十五日
By 1月时特约编辑
专题文章

评论:TechSmith Camtasia 5

TechSmith集团.’s Camtasia is one of my "go-to" tools that lives on almost every Windows-based computer in my office. I use it for a range of screencam projects, from informal "here’s how you use the review feature in Microsoft Word" videos to send to authors I’m working with to polished screencams for clients, 杂志网站, 以及我自己的dvd教程. So when new versions of Camtasia come out, I get pretty excited.

As it turns out, there’s a lot to get excited about, but there are also some caveats. The new SmartFocus feature should help all producers, as will the lower profile but equally important Restore Cursor Location after Pause feature. I also like the new streamlined recorder window, though some of the related features didn’t fully work for me. Throw in a new AutoSave feature and there’s more than enough to justify the $149 upgrade price ($299 retail) and to keep Camtasia at the top of the heap for those capturing, 编辑, and producing screencam-based presentations on Windows.

概述
对于那些刚进入市场的人, Camtasia is a full-featured screen capture and 编辑 program with outstanding output capabilities. The program can capture screens and voice, and it can also merge PowerPoint presentations with recorded narrations, so you can present live once and distribute a narrated PowerPoint presentation, 完成说话的头部覆盖, 如果需要, 从你的网站上看了很多次.

大多数项目都涉及屏幕录制, 有和没有实时叙述, since you can easily add narration in Camtasia’s 编辑 application Camtasia Studio. Studio is like many timeline editors with tracks for different content. It can add callouts, transitions, captions, and even a picture-in-picture video to your presentation. 比如Adobe的Captivate, Camtasia can produce quizzes and surveys, though Captivate is probably a better choice for all but the simplest quizzes. Captivate also goes much further with scenario-based training.

另一方面, Camtasia’s output capabilities are much more comprehensive than Captivate’s, which can produce any streaming format you’d like as long as it starts with FL and ends with SH. 与此形成鲜明对比的是, Camtasia可以生产Windows Media, QuickTime, AVI, 和RealMedia流媒体视频, as well as animated GIFs and iPod output. This is not academic stuff; I use the QuickTime output to output video that I can edit in Adobe Premiere Pro, and I use other editors when my 编辑 needs exceed those offered by Camtasia Studio. Camtasia can also produce polished Flash presentations with linkable tables of content, and you don’t have to be a programmer to do it.

作为一家公司, TechSmith talks the talk and walks the walk, and its website is complete with lots of useful tutorials and other presentations, 主要是screencam-based. There are also very active forums and other avenues to get questions answered, 以及一个功能齐全的, 30-day downloadable trial version of Camtasia. Overall, Camtasia is a complete package, and TechSmith is a great company to do business with.

有了这个背景, let’s discuss the new features in order of importance, 从SmartFocus开始.

SmartFocus
One of Camtasia’s most powerful features (especially as compared to Captivate) has always been the ability to pan and zoom around the captured screen, which is particularly important when capturing large screen resolutions and producing for smaller windows. 例如, many applications simply don’t function properly at resolutions of less than 1024x768 or even 1280x1024. Publishing at these resolutions would require too much bandwidth, so most screencams are produced at 640x480 or smaller. 在这些生产决议中, 然而, a 1280x1024 screen would look squished and illegible, which is why the ability to zoom into the screencam in order to highlight critical operations or controls is so important.

While desirable, panning and zooming has always been time-consuming. The promise of SmartFocus is to automate this process, and it largely delivers. 短暂的, SmartFocus works by analyzing input such as cursor movements, 鼠标点击, 文本输入, and window opening and closing and then shifting the display window to focus on those activities. It’s applied as a post process while 编辑 in Camtasia Studio, so you record your file as normal.

下一个页面