July 2020 Main Meeeting
This month we welcomed Payton Towler the Regional APAC Manager for the TechSmith Corporation. TechSmith have a range of products including Snaggit screen capture and Camtasia video editor.
Payton was scheduled for last month but we had problems connecting so he agreed to return this month and gave us a great presentation of Camtasia. Payton had offered some copies of Camtasia and last month we raffled one of them so this report is a video review of Payton’s talk on how to use Camtasia.
To allow for size constraints I have divided the presentation into four parts.
Payton started with how to use the template option showing the various pre-set styles. He then discussed how you can use a blank canvas with a range of intos, (editable introductions) outros (editable endings) backgrounds and “lower thirds” which we will see late.
After that we looked at how you can record content for your video. There is a big red record button on the top left side of the screen. Payton showed us how versatile your recording can be. He then spoke about the audio recording and how you can capture the computer audio or use a microphone.
Payton then looked at what we can do with this raw content. He started with how you can import video and other media into your project. He showed this by importing a photo and showing how you can manipulate how it appears. Having added the photo, he showed us how you can add “behaviours” or vary how the photo is presented. We then looked at some of the detailed methods of audio editing. Payton showed how you can remove extraneous noise, something I haven’t got right yet. Payton also showed how you edited the media, changing or add content including a whole range of royalty free music to use. There are fade in and fade out controls.
We then moved back to libraries and looked at “lower thirds”. They are a sort of animated call out and is a way to add visual comments to the video. One use for thirds is to indicate who is speaking another is to comment on the content you are showing in video. One thing Payton mentioned was how Camtasia holds your changes in a cache so making a mistake is not a crisis. We spent some time on adding annotations and other behaviours. One tool Payton noted was blur or pixelate. Found under annotations this tool allows you to remove sensitive information like Surnames or unwanted brand names. You can blur a name or pixelate an area containing sensitive information. To finish the editing we looked at zoom and pan which allowed you to zoom into or highlight an area. In his example he highlighted a text box enlarging it to make it readable.
In our final part Payton looked at putting the video together in a final product. This is done by sharing it with the world. Clicking on the red share button opens a range of ways you can export a video. These include exporting to YouTube, Vimeo, Google drive or to a customised format on your local drive. To show Camtasia’s versatility Payton opted to export a custom video. You can have an mp4 or opt for a wav, AVI file or gif animation. The mp4 by default has a media player and exports with a complete web page to upload. Using the customised settings gives you real control over size, video and audio settings and other options like close captions.
We haven’t included the Q & A session but one question was on closed captions. Close captions are those words that appear across the screen for those who can’t hear. Camtasia will capture the audio from your video and create a set of captions or you can create your own captions.
You may notice that the captions are not that close to the audio. While Camtasia will convert audio to close captions, as Payton noted Camtasia needs a little practice to understand your speech. The quality of the audio on this recording was not good which also affected Camtasia’s ability to transcribe the audio. In time I will revisit the audio and amend the close captions.
You may notice that the captions are not that close to the audio. Camtasia will take the audio and convert it to close captions however as Payton noted Camtasia needs a little practice to understand your speech. The quality of the audio on this recording was not good which also affected Camtasia’s ability to transcribe the audio.
You can download a trial copy of any TechSmith product and there are some great video resources available. Here is the link to Camtasia site.
The products as licenced can be used for any purpose.Here is the pricing site, and if you like you can buy a maintenance subscription which gives you access to the next version and priority support.
The Raffle
Thanks to Payton we had two copies of Camtasia to give away
.Our winners where
John and
John
Our Next Main Meeting
is on Tuesday, 258th August 2020.
Our main meeting will still be on Zoom.
Go to: Previous Main Meeting's Index
