Camtasia Studio Tips

Camtasia is great software for recording audio/screen presentations.  Here are some tips and standards we've used:

Recording

  • Change the recording options to record to ''AVI format'' (the CAMREC format can lose audio/video sync over a long recording)
  • Recorded movies should be 800x600 or less unless there is a specific reason to record larger.  Using the smallest capture size possible improves the readability and reduces the file size.
  • All videos should start with an announcement of what is being demonstrated (e.g. "This is a demonstration of the Device Capture System introduced in Cashwise 3.7)
  • Don't record the application window; set one of your screens to 800x600 and record the screen.  This ensures that any popup windows or menus remain within the recorded region.
  • If recording other than the primary screen, select 'region' and select then entire alternate screen
  • Hide any toolbars or other desktop clutter.
  • Run a short test to be sure that audio/video are working before recording a long demo

Storage

  • Files should be recorded to AVI format. Recommend settings:
     Video Codec:    TechSmith Screen Capture Codec
     Audio Codec:    MPEG Layer-3 Codec
     Audio Format:    32 kBit/s, 24000Hz, mono, 3KB/s

Content

  • Before delving into details, give a high-level description of the purpose of the feature and a high-level description of the components of the feature.
  • Consider dividing the topic into multiple videos if it is possible that someone might wish to view topics separately
  • Try to keep videos under 10 minutes long
  • Don't script out the content.  If necessary, create a brief outline to ensure each important facet is discussed.  It's hard to listen to scripted speech.
  • If you realize that some topic is missing from a video, record an addendum rather than re-record the whole thing (unless there is a mess of addendums)
  • Keep a reasonably fast pace.  A video says even more than a thousand words.  The viewer can always pause or rewind.
  • Try to keep the content timeless; e.g. do not say things like "this is a new feature".
  • Try to spend more time on abstract concepts, gotchas and special cases that might not be readily apparent rather than mundane descriptions of the obvious.

Comments

Anonymous said…
Great tips, thanks!
6:23 AM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Don't Repeat Yourself... Really!

...And I hope that someday That you, you people will all have the chance To read The Helping Friendly Book And experience the wisdom Of the great, the great and knowledgeable Man who wrote The Helping Friendly Book  Because he is, the great and knowledgeable He is the one, the only author of The Helping Friendly Book He is the man The great man The only, the special His name is The author of The Helping Friendly Book He is the great The knowledgeable, the one and the only The great, the knowledgeable Person who wrote The Helping Friendly Book His name could only be The one, the only, the only, the special The author of The Helping Friendly Book... -Excerpt from Icculus by Phish There are few mantras that are as universally agreed upon by Software Engineers as Don't Repeat Yourself or DRY.  It rings deeply and globally true that any form of code duplication is at best a compromise, at worst, an abominable trap.  Writing and maintaining...
Read more

Enough software patent madness!

Say patent, and one might get a nostalgic tear in their eye as they envision a brave garage inventor, who, protected by his patent, earns what's due him thanks to legal protection against large greedy corporations. Enter reality. Now picture large corporations able to easily crush or control small businesses. Picture large companies being relentlessly attacked for money even though such companies have made every effort to respect other's claims. Picture an environment where anyone wishing to innovate is all but unable to do so because such effort will invariably step on an almost infinite and unknown set of patent "toes". To make things worse, there are those that are pushing for even more liberal patent laws , such as first-to-file, rather than first-to-invent. Something must be done to stop this! Patents are ruining the software industry and causing tremendous indirect damage to our country! Software shouldn't even be patentable. Patent law prohibits the...
Read more

Virtual Appliances... poodoo

What I wish to address is this: "With the rise of virtualization, applications will transform into virtual appliances. Virtual appliances simplify application deployment by delivering the complete software stack—from OS to the application—as a single, integrated unit." -SDTimes Web Seminar Abstract Lest I be seen using VMs and am accused of being hypocritical: Virtualization is great for configuration testing. There is no better way to test against Oracle or Windows 98 without having to install such icky things than a VM. "Virtual Appliances", however, are a different story. Though they may “seem” exciting, and may be a practical solution given today’s technology and today’s problems, I find the trend disturbing. Why? ...Because a) the entire approach is grossly inefficient; and b) this is just another chapter in the long history of industry repetition. Setting aside the inefficiency aspect for a moment, isn’t this form of “run anywhere” virtualization exactly...
Read more