Producing videos using Camtasia Studio
When producing the final video it is important to consider how it will be
viewed by the end users. Click here for information about avoiding problems such
as blurry videos and unreadable characters in produced videos.
- The Camtasia Recorder produces AVI files from which Camtasia Studio can
produce the following media types: Macromedia Flash .swf movie file, Macromedia
Flash Video file .flv(Macromedia Flash MX 2004 Professional Required), Quicktime
movie file .mov, Windows Media streaming media file .wmv, RealMedia streaming
media file .rm, Camtasia for RealPlayer .camv streaming media file, or a GIF
animation file. We recommend that you use the Flash format due to the fact
that it produces higher quality videos and most users already have the Flash
Player installed on their computer.
- The first step in producing
a video for distribution is to import the video to the Studio clip bin. This
is accomplished by clicking on Import Video in the Import section of the Task
List. The open dialog box opens which allows you to browse in or input the location
and name of any files you want to add to the clip bin.
- To select videos to
add to the production, first click on the show storyboard option in the lower
section of the screen. Drag the desired clip(s) into the storyboard which is
highlighted in the image below.
- In the task list select
the Produce video as option. The Production wizard will open with the dialog
box shown on the left below. Select the desired video format and click next.
For streaming video of the highest possible audio and video quality, the best
choice is to choose the Camtasia for RealPlayer option. If you do not want
to stream the video we recommend producing the video as a Macromedia Flash
Video. Using this format will produce high quality videos that can be viewed
on many different computer platforms. Another advantage of using Flash is that
most computers already have the player installed. The dialog box will now look
like the one on the right below. In this portion of the wizard the target audience
is chosen as well as the audio format. For most cases the best choice for the
audio is MP3 format with an audio attributes setting of 11.025kHz, Stereo,
20 kBits/sec. Click next to continue to the next step in the wizard.
- The video size dialog
window shown on the left below will open. It is best to choose the option Largest
Video Size, as it will automatically frame the output to match the recording
and minimize distortion of the video image. It is very
important that this setting is used or the videos will be blurry and of low
quality. This
is the only option normally changed in this step of the wizard. Click Next
and the Video Options dialog box shown on the right below opens. In this step
of the wizard watermarks can be added. Click next to continue.
- In the Produce Video dialog box shown below, enter the desired destination folder and the file name.
In the Post Production Options section select the option Show production results.
To view the video played in the selected format, select the Play video after
production option.
- Click finish and Camtasia will begin rendering the file into the selected format. Depending on the type selected, this may take quite a while, in some cases it will take twice as long
as the running time of the video clip selected. When the process is completed, Camtasia will display a Production Results Window like the one shown below.
This tells about the files created in the process, the video length, file sizes, and some statistics about the total number of frames encoded and the number
of dropped frames. The lower the number of dropped frames the higher the quality of the final video which is obtained. If this number is too high the video and/or
audio quality will suffer. Click on close after reviewing the results, and the video production is complete.
After Production
- For instruction on streaming or embedding the video see Uploading
Camtasia Files to UASHome
- If you are saving to a CDROM see the Creating CDROMS Using Camtasia Menumaker
- Contact IT Services if you plan on using these from a network drive.
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