Camtasia Studio Screencasting

Camtasia Studio from TechSmith is a full-featured commercial (Windows, $300/Mac, $100) screencasting software that is my default option for creating formal screencasts.

Cmatasia Studio Screencasting

Screencasting is the practice of recording on-screen activity accompanied by voice-over narration.

I’ve used Camtasia extensively to:

  • Create public relations case studies,
  • Turn PowerPoint presentations I’ve given into videos,
  • Demonstrate new features in social media channels,
  • Analyze search engine results,
  • Conduct heuristic website reviews,
  • Record software demonstrations, and
  • Create How To videos.

Camtasia has many features, among them:

  • Import and edit video and audio clips,
  • Apply noise leveling,
  • Apply zoom and pan effects,
  • Create transitions and text overlays,
  • Apply a logo watermark,
  • Add window-in-window video to on-screen action,
  • Include background music or a soundtrack.

Camtasia is a very flexible tool that can also double as pretty functional straight-up video editor. Compared to what you’ll pay for high-end video tools, it delivers a lot of value for the buck.

This Camtasia Studio promotional video provides some examples of how it can be used.

This playlist will give you an idea of what Camtasia can do on Windows:

And this playlist will give you an idea of what Camtasia can do on a Mac: