It was great to meet Betsy Weber and the TechSmith team in the Autodesk University Exhibit hall. She told me I was featured on her blog, screencast of the week (26/11/2007), again! About this time last year a Camtasia Studio recording helped me get to AU 2006 and it seems that little video made quite an impression. It’s had about 1,350 views and I was amazed how many at AU 2007 still remembered “The AU 2006 Paper Plane guy”.
That presentation was a mix of AutoCAD, PowerPoint, Corel animation and live video but it was Camtasia Studio which pulled it all together. It’s a brilliant way to share/capture information and just before Autodesk University 2007 TechSmith released the latest version, Camtasia Studio 5.
I’ve only had a quick look at the trial version so far but one new feature alone justifies an upgrade for me. If you are not recording full screen Camtasia can now resize the application window and recording area to a selected size. This is brilliant when you are recording several clips to be merged especially if, like me, you run higher than average screen resolution.
It’s best for file size and compatibility to record screencasts at 640x480, 800x600 or 1024x800 resolution, or less. Previously this required fussing about with graphics settings or “hand sizing” windows which meant getting consistent sizes could be tricky. Now you just set your desired production size in the recorder, pick the target and let Camtasia coordinate the window and clip mask to suit. Very nice!
