Using screen-recording software has been a godsend to me over the years. As an instructional designer, who spends a lot of time creating technology tutorials and other online learning materials, it’s great to be able to record my on-screen activities, my voice, and even webcam video to create dynamic web-based video presentations. (It sure beats explaining everything with text and screenshots.) Camtasia Studio has been my product of choice for creating screen-capture videos since 2003. My college may soon become a MAC institution, though, so I am currently attempting to find a Camtasia equivalent for the MAC. (Unfortunately, Camtasia Studio is only compatible with PCs.)
My discussion below will start with an overview of how I use Camtasia and what features have been most beneficial in my work. I’ll then provide some resources and commentary related to some applications that may serve as counterparts for the MAC.
Camtasia
Most of my Camtasia projects have been focused on teaching people how to use software tools like Moodle, WebCT, Elluminate, and (yes) even Camtasia itself. Here are a few examples of projects I’ve created in recent years using Camtasia 4.0:
Camtasia Fast-Track Training
Using Windows Movie Maker and a Webcam to Create a Video
E-Learning System: Grading
As evidenced by these examples, my own preference when using Camtasia is to capture a portion of my computer screen that is 640 x 480 pixels (or in some cases 720 x 480 pixels). I then make edits and changes to my video and use the Flash export option to create a web page with an embedded video presentation. I prefer the Flash (.swf) format because of the excellent visual quality, the small file size, and the fact that 99% of Internet-enabled desktops in mature markets already have Flash Player installed. (See “Flash Player Penetration” for more details.) In many cases, I’ll also use Camtasia Theater (a sister program included with Camtasia Studio) to combine a variety of screen-based recordings into a single project and include a left-hand navigation bar to give users easy access to portions of the presentation.
Another one of my typical uses of Camtasia is to convert a narrated PowerPoint presentation into a Flash-based video for online delivery. For example, our college often calls upon experts from around the world to be one-time presenters. Rather than have these presenters learn Camtasia, it’s usually easier to have them record narrated PowerPoint presentations and then deliver their work via FTP or CD. Once I receive a narrated PowerPoint file, I use Camtasia to record the presentation and convert it to the Flash format for online delivery. Here is one such example:
Medication Therapy in the Management of Hyperlipidemia
One of the most powerful features of Camtasia (especially when it comes to these types of lengthy presentations) is its ability to automatically break up a large video into a series of smaller files. Once you record a PowerPoint presentation, Camtasia dumps the recording onto a timeline and creates a “marker” where each slide transition takes place. Marker names are based on the slide titles from the PowerPoint presentation itself. When exporting the presentation to the Flash format, Camtasia gives you the option to add a table of contents by creating “multiple files based on my markers.” The beauty of this option is that it not only creates a navigation bar based on the markers, but it also makes the online playback of the presentation much more manageable. Rather than dealing with one extremely large file, the end user ends up watching several small files that play in succession. The other hurdle that this option helps to overcome is the fact that SWF files have a limit of 16,000 frames. For example, a Flash movie rendered at 10 frames per second would reach its limit at a little over 26 minutes. (This would be a problem if the presentation were 60 minutes.) Breaking up the project based on the markers within the presentation provides greater flexibility in terms of producing the final Flash-based video.
ScreenFlick
The first piece of software I investigated as a possible Camtasia equivalent for the MAC was ScreenFlick. While this software is very intuitive and produces nice-looking screen-capture videos, it falls short of my needs in a few areas.
When I first launched ScreenFlick, I was encouraged by how easy it was to set up my screen recording. I was able to establish a recording area of 640 x 480 pixels on the screen and adjust the frame rate of the capture to 15 frames per second (the software actually allows a maximum capture rate of 60 frames per second). ScreenFlick also immediately recognized my USB headset microphone. From there, I clicked the large record button and was off and running.
However, once I completed my test recording, I discovered the shortcomings of the software. First, ScreenFlick does not let you edit your videos. Therefore, if you make any mistakes, you will need to start from scratch (or use another program for editing purposes). Second, while ScreenFlick does provide a variety of compression formats for both audio and video, ultimately you are only permitted to export to the QuickTime Movie format. It does not include the Flash format (or other formats like .avi or .wmv).
Overall, this software is rather limiting in terms of the types of projects you can produce. It is basically a product for recording screen-based presentations and creating QuickTime Movies. I think this software would be most appropriate in cases when you just need a simple screen-recording program to make a quick “flick” to demonstrate (for example) the steps for how to complete a computer-related task.
However, if I ever needed to make this type of quick screen recording on the fly, I would most likely use TechSmith’s Jing instead. Unlike the full-blown version of Camtasia Studio (also made by TechSmith), Jing is cross-platform and free. With Jing, the recording process is very easy and the program automatically converts your movie to the Flash (.swf) format. The real benefit to Jing, however, is how easy it is to share your work. Jing provides integrated controls for uploading your work to your own server or Screencast.com (TechSmith’s free hosting service). Once you upload your work, the URL of your video is automatically placed on your clipboard. This makes it very easy to paste the URL into an email, a text chat, a web page, etc. My only complaint with Jing is that the quality of the audio is not quite as clean as I would like. However, the software’s ease of use and powerful sharing features trump this very minor issue.
ScreenFlow
Winner of two 2008 Apple Design Awards (Best Mac OS X Leopard Application and Best Mac OS X Leopard Graphics and Media Application), ScreenFlow is much more on par with Camtasia Studio. With ScreenFlow, you can capture your computer screen, your voice, and webcam video. You can also edit your media on a timeline before exporting to a sharable format. The following tutorials/reviews provide more detailed information related to the features of this software:
ScreenFlow: Screencasting on Steroids
ScreenFlow, creating great looking screen casts
While this software is head and shoulders above ScreenFlick, I was still a bit disappointed by the absence of a few features that I really appreciate in Camtasia.
First, with ScreenFlow, you cannot establish a specific capture area at the beginning of your recording process. For example, when creating videos in Camtasia, I specify a recording area of 640 (or 720) x 480 pixels and indicate exactly where I want that recording area to exist on my screen. These screen dimensions assure that when I create my final exported product, the presentation will be viewable on any computer screen (even those set to 800 x 600 pixels). Furthermore, because I created a video with the exact dimensions I wanted from the start, this prevents me from having to shrink down the video and risk degrading the visual quality. With ScreenFlow, you are forced to record your entire computer screen as step one of the process. After you have captured the whole screen, you can then crop the video display to certain pixel dimensions and drag this window to a new location on the screen. The problem with establishing your preferred display dimensions after the fact is that the on-screen content you captured may not fit within this new window.
ScreenFlow’s audio editing tools are also a far cry from what Camtasia offers. For example, with Camtasia, I can use an “Audio Enhancement” menu to even out volume levels, remove background noise, and even filter out pops and clicks. ScreenFlow, on the other hand, only lets you make adjustments to volume.
Like ScreenFlick, ScreenFlow only allows you to export your projects as QuickTime Movies (there is no Flash option). My hesitation with using the QuickTime Movie format is that it cannot compete with Flash in terms of creating very small files with excellent visual quality. QuickTime Player is also only present on 65.5% of Internet-enabled desktops in mature markets. (See “Flash Player Penetration” for more details.)
ScreenFlow also does not have the ability to “create multiple files based on markers” like Camtasia. ScreenFlow does allow you to place markers on the timeline of your video. However, these markers only create a dropdown menu of “chapters” in QuickTime Player. Therefore, a lengthy PowerPoint presentation recorded with ScreenFlow would ultimately end up as one large QuickTime Movie file. Using chapters would allow the user to jump to various places within the video, but the large file size of such a video would likely make it difficult to open on some networks.
Based on the reviews and rewards it has received, ScreenFlow appears to be my best bet for doing screen-recording on a MAC. I can foresee myself using this software to capture my footage on a MAC. From there, I will likely need to convert the QuickTime Movies to a format that will work in Camtasia, so that I can then export to the preferred Flash format and include a left-hand navigation bar. My hope is that ScreenFlow will eventually add to its feature set to be more like Camtasia (or better than Camtasia).
