Camtasia Studio 6 is the latest version of TechSmith’s well-known screen recording and editing tool. The previous version was so fully featured that I, for one, would have had a tough time thinking of any more features left to add. The developers at TechSmith, however, managed to think of a few. I decided to see what they’d come up with...
Here I am recording a marked area of the screen. The unrecorded area is automatically ‘dimmed’ by Camtasia. The Recorder tool at the bottom of the screen lets you start or stop recording and preview any video (recorded via a webcam) if that option is selected.
Some of the new features in Camtasia might be described as ‘keeping up with the times’. An obvious example is the move away from the Flash FLA format in favour of the MPEG-4 format for Flash videos. MPEG-4 provides optimized high-quality video payback in Flash and is (apparently) becoming the standard video format on the web. Camtasia 6 also has a YouTube production option which auto-selects a set of recommended settings for videos to be uploaded to YouTube.
The editor has been improved by ‘decoupling’ the audio and video tracks so that they can be edited independently which should make it easier to make alterations or re-record segments of a track to fix any mistakes.
Once you’ve recorded one or more clips you can create the finished video in the Camtasia editor. Multiple clips can be dragged onto a timeline and cut, moved or edited. ‘Picture in picture’ videos may be added and effects such as Zooms and transitions may also be used.
One of the flashier new features is the ‘3D Tilt effect’. This lets you zoom in on one side of a video as though you were viewing it at an angle on a flat screen. In theory, the 3D Tilt lets you focus the viewer’s attention. I’d say this is something that is probably best used in moderation, however!
Other changes include customizable shortcut keys to do things such as add callouts and transitions with the press of a single key, more precise timings to controls effects such as transitions and various improvements to the Camtasia Recorder.
If you want to add a touch of perspective, the new Tilt option lets you move the 2D recording around as though a virtual three dimensions.
Overall, this release seems to me to be a more of a ‘polish up’ of the software than a major overhaul. It smoothes out a few rough edges here and there and adds a few new tools and options. But there are no huge new features. Then again, there don’t need to be. Camtasia 5 already was, in my opinion, the best screen recording tool available. The updates in Camtasia 6 help to ensure that it remains so.
For a complete list of new features see: http://www.techsmith.com/camtasia/history.asp#600
Previously reviewed versions of Camtasia:
Camtasia 5.0
Camtasia 3.1
Camtasia 3.0
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