In version 6, to add custom images to your videos, you had to add something called a Custom Callout (in a somewhat complicated procedure) before you could add them to your timeline.

In Camtasia 7…it’s sublimely simple!! Check it out:

I totally love this new feature!!

Seriously, this could be worth the price of upgrading alone.

Oh…and this is a very small taste of the kind of content in my new, soon-to-be-released Camtasia 7 Training Course. Stay tuned!

Lon

Today, Techsmith has released Camtasia version 7 and these are my initial impressions after having been testing out the software for a couple of weeks with a pre-launch evaluation copy from Betsy Weber.

I’ll keep this short for now and give you some highlights. Of course, I’ll have more in-depth tutorials on the way!

Here’s a little preview video I did using the Search Story concept to show off a few of the features:

What’s New in Camtasia 7?

1. A New Look

The first thing you’ll notice is a sporty new look in Camtasia Studio.

I’ll be honest with ya…it does take a little getting used to if you’re a seasoned Camtasia user. It is, after all, a major interface change.

That being said, I’m finding it to be a well layed out structure as I work with it more & more. Especially as it incorporates some of the new features and how you access them.

Thumbs Up

2. Camtasia Library

One of the most useful things is a new Library feature that let’s you store all of your video elements (music, custom callouts, sound effects, video backgrounds, etc.) in one place! Nice…

One click access to all this stuff is useful enough but it gets even better…

You can also highlight any content on the timeline and right-click to ADD it to your library making it ready for future use! This is especially handy for Title clips & Splash Intros or anything else you might want to “re-use” in future projects with a simple drag-n-drop.

I like the fact that they have include some royalty free music tracks to use and some wicked cool new animated backgrounds, Title clips, and lower third “sets’” from folks like Digital Juice that you can use!

And also, you can share libraries with others.

Techsmith is providing some Library additions that you can grab:

Camtasia Studio Library Assets

Two Thumbs Up!

3. New Callouts

Camtasia 7 has some upgrades & additions to it’s Callouts. The legacy ones are all there but a new batch of shapes have a much nicer, less cheezy look and Effects like transparency, new Styles with greater control over how they look.

A few new “specialty” Callouts are also available:

Sketch Motion Callouts

I love these! They are animated callouts that you can use that “draw” themselves!

It’s like you have a pen (your choice of color, thickness, etc.) and you can have a circle or oval, square or rectangle, or arrows drawn in the video in real-time to highlight an area. I also like the “scribble it out” one.

Keystroke Callouts

These let you show viewers exactly what keystrokes you used and when you used them. I haven’t played with this one enough to decide if it’s useful but you can also just insert a “Control-C, or “ALT-D”, etc. image to indicate keystrokes for your viewer.

Two Thumbs Up!

4. Cursor Effects

This I find to be wicked interesting. In previous versions, you could add a little highlight, or rings when clicked, etc. to your cursor when recording.

Now, as long as you save your recording as a CAMREC file, you can add or modify all those attention-drawing items (and more) at editing time!

Included are also the long awaited “spotlight” & “magnify” effects and a cool new “warp” effect. You can also just make your cursor bigger!

No more having these effects burned directly into your recording. Add or change them while you edit. Nice!

Two Thumbs Up!

5. Audio Enhancements

OK…I’ve always had extremely mixed feelings about Camtasia’s “Audio Enhancements” like Noise Removal, Volume-Leveling, etc. More on that in a minute…

New to this version is the ability to get some nice control over fading in and fading out and volume levels for an audio track.

If you are adding intro / outro music or want a music track playing throughout your video but still be talking over it? This is awesome!

That’s the good news…

 Three Thumbs Up!

Now…the BAD news:

The other audio enhancements like noise removal and volume level?

Still mess with EVERY AUDIO TRACK!?!? OMG!!! Ouch…

How can I use this neat feature to get my intro music just right…and then have it basically destroyed if I need to level the volume of my narration??? FAIL.

The workaround is to do  noise & volume stuff first, render out to AVI and the pull it back into Camtasia…ugly.

Ya…oh well.

6. Widescreen Presets

As you saw in the video above, there are now more presets available including new widescreen dimension settings. This is becoming increasingly important for certain viewing devices and for uploading to YouTube.

7. YouTube Integration

This feature is now improved from previous versions. Basically, you can now connect directly to YouTube at production time. It works as a preset so…you can’t really change any of the quality settings.

I don’t know…not very useful in my opinion but for those looking for “easy” I guess it’s OK.

No Thumb Opinion…yet.

8. Improved Recording Engine

This is really kinda sweet. Under the covers, Camtasia now records your content much better and faster. On XP machines you’ll notice a significant difference in the speed at which it captures and records motion on your screen.

Vista and Windows 7 users will see upwards of a 40-50% improvement in capture frame rate.

If you are recording videos playing in your browser, Flash animations, full screen motion, stuff like that…this is a big enhancement!

Worth the Upgrade?

The pricing for Camtasia Studio 7 is the same as previous versions and the upgrade bill is still $149.

When you look at the performance improvement, new features and gadgets I think an upgrade is a reasonable consideration.

I think most users will have to weigh in the factor of a bit of a learning curve since there is a new interface (I’m still getting used to how you “select” with the new Timleline Playhead…) and my feeling is that…

As with Camtasia 6 when it first came out…lots of users will take a wait-and-see stance.

You can download the 30-day free trial and check it out for yourself:

Camtasia 30-day Free Trial

This is a fully functioning trial. You can install it and run version 7 right along with any previous versions you have installed…it doesn’t write over your current installations.

Love to hear what YOU think!

Lon

New Camtasia 7 Callouts

Adding callouts to your videos is always a quick & easy way to add visual interest or emphasis to a talking point.

Camtasia 7 has some new callout styles and, even cooler, something called sketch motion callouts. These are “animated” callouts you can drop in that will “draw” themselves into the video. Nice…

Camtasia 7 Cursor Effects

In Camtasia version 7 you will be able to help your viewer follow along better by editing the mouse pointer to enlarge it, creating a spotlight, and visual “clicks”.

“But Lon…we could do that in Camtasia 6!”

Ya…but not on the fly during the editing process! Ya.

Plus…there are new and much cooler effects (a spotlight and better looking “click” highlights) and a Cursor Track added to the timeline for more control over the effects.

Stay tuned!

Lon

The rumors are true!

The next version of Camtasia Studio from Techsmith is on it’s way and will be available very SOON. This new version is considered a major upgrade and we’re excited to see everything it has to offer!

Check out a couple of teaser videos from Techsmith on the new release of their flagship product Camtasia Studio.

Will it really make screencasting as easy as a “piece of cake”?

We’ll see!

And here’s an interview with the new Product Manager, Shane Lovellete done by Technical Evangelist Betsy Weber:

Shane says:

We’ve got some great new stuff but we’re also addressing a lot of the smaller issues that have been problems for awhile that we want to help make it easier for people to use…

I’ll keep you posted!

Lon

Google Search Video Post

Check it out and leave a comment and/or Tweet it if you like!

Lot’s of folks want to know how I did that so I made a tutorial covering the details. Here ya go:

PRESS PLAY

I talk about a couple of main concepts used in this video that are applicable in a wide variety of screencast work:

1. Recording in “Scenes” - Have you ever gotten frustrated with trying to record a video because you messed up at some point or gotten out of sync? Maybe you’re just trying to do too many things at once!

2. Recording for Clarity – A couple of useful tips for getting crystal clear captures.

3. “Speed Typing” Effect – 3 ways you can get the nice fast typing effect.

4. The Power of Music – Music = Emotion and can change the entire “feel” of your video and the emotion of your message.

Cool Search Tips

Doing standard searches can be effective when telling your story but don’t forget to think “outside the box”. Here are some links to interesting things you can use that you might not know about:

• 15 Awesome Google Search Tips and Tricks
• Google Search Tips (Ultimate Google Guide)
• Top 10 Obscure Google Search Tricks
• Google Search Tricks and Tips

Music Links

• Stock20 – Register and get a song comped to you
• MusicBakery
• Digital Juice
• StudioCutz

Please leave a comment and/or Tweet!

Enjoy!

Lon

Well, they said it might never happen and I must admit I’ve had a
few doubts over the last 2 months but…

Screencast Profits v2.0 will go live this week!

And for my valued members, I’m happy to announce that you get a special pre-launch shot at upgrading to the Gold member level at the current price…

AND…being “grand-fathered” in for all the new modules and bonuses that will cost 50% more later this week!

Yep. ALL Gold members get upgraded access to all the new stuff like:

* New Screencast Profit Modules – Specific ways to profits with screencast videos:
- Affiliate Marketing
- Product Creation
- Sales & Marketing videos
- Growing Your Business with video

* New bonuses
- Royalty free music tracks
- Cool custom callouts
- A most excellent course called “Video Settings in Plain English”

I’ll be throwing in a few more unannounced goodies as well.

So…if you’ve thought about it and forgot or if you were going to
but didn’t…

NOW would be a VERY good time to get your Gold member Screencast
Profits Course.

Just log in at the top menu (or join if you’re not a member):

http://screencastprofits.com

You will see your available upgrade option and can check out the
current content.

I’ll have full details at launch time of course but by then it will
bee too late to get this special deal…this is folks who take
action and pull the trigger.

I’ll be in touch soon!

Thanks!

Lon Naylor

1. As I get ready to launch Screencast Profits version 2, I wanted to find out what kinds of things were giving members problems, You know…what questions did they have. The best product value I can create is providing answers to those kinds of questions and solutions to problems people are having in creating Camtasia videos!

2. I get questions all the time and thought that having a live event where I could just address issues on the minds of my members would be fun and a good way to say “Thanks for being a member”.

The event went great except for one little (OK…maybe a big) hitch.

About 50 minutes into the deal my brand new, wiz bang, Intel I7-3TB of disks-12GB of RAM-64-bit, laugh in the face of death, live on the razor’s edge computer….BLUE SCREENED!

Ouch! I did manage to salvage the recording up until that fateful moment so here’s what I got:

Resources From Webinar (in order of discussion):

Logitech ClearChat Wireless Headset – This is the mic I am currently using for my webinar events

Camtasia 6 In-depth Review - Not sure if Camtasia 6 is worth the upgrade price? I did a full review of new features and why I decided to upgrade.

Camtasia Version Comparison page - Here’s a page that will let you compare your current version to the latest Camtasia version side-by-side.

Jing – This handy little tool probably won’t replace Camtasia but for short videos in High Quality for upload to YouTube the Pro version ($14.95 per year) is interesting. Plus, you can do screen image captures.

Kiosk Web Hosting – I use Kiosk as my web host. Great service & support make a big difference!

Amazon S3 – I store and deliver my video content on the mighty Amazon servers for pennies.

Sony Vegas Movie Studio Pro – When it comes to editing videos, Camtasia is OK…but quickly hampers my ability to do real editing. I reach for a full featured video editor to do almost all of my work in the edit bay.

Wacom Bamboo Graphics Tablet – Great tools for adding some interesting visuals and interactivity to your work by “drawing” on the screen in a whiteboard fashion.

Annotate Pro – I use this tool with my graphics board to select pens, colors, boxes, arrows, etc. for writing & drawing into my video content.

Give Away of the Day – Everyday, a new piece of free software. Sometimes there are really nice utilities & programs you can add to your toolbox.

Cool Iris – Wow. I’m playing with this awesome app to create some dramatic visual effects.

Audio Technica AT202 USB Studio Microphone – A great value, outstanding quality. When you’re ready to get serious about your voice narration without complicated external gear, a studio quality USB condenser mic is hard to beat. 

More Help?

Screencast Profits!

Techsmith Technical Support

Techsmith User Forum

Camtasia Users Group Social Media Site

Lon on Twitter – Follow me on Twitter ’cause I send out some pretty sweet tweets!

I’m ALWAYS interested in what you think. Please leave a comment about this webinar or what you would like to see from me!

Thanks!

Screencast Profits Version 2 will be very focused on user requested content!

So…

What can I show you?

What can I help you with?

What drives you crazy about using Camtasia?

What am I currently providing that you like or what could I do better?

I’d love to hear any and all comments you might have so just drop a note in the comments section!

And…this Thursday, June 25th, at 6PM Pacific Time (9PM Eastern) - I’ll go over comments and questions on a LIVE webinar session where you can ask whatever you like!

To catch this free, open discussion just click this link to register and I look forward to chatting with you then!

REGISTER—> Camtasia Q & A Webinar Session with Lon Naylor

Lon

This tip is actually a video response to one of our members, Todd Doyle, and his question of “How to I make a clean, crisp, image for the bottom of my videos that shows my web address?”

I show two methods to do this:

1. Using simple Callouts in Camtasia Studio but adding a couple of design considerations to put a little flair into the mix…

2. Recognizing that Camtasia is not a full fledged graphics editor and pulling out a new graphics tool, the free to download and use PhotoShop alternative…GIMP.

GIMP is the GNU Graphics Manipulation Program. It’s a great addition to your toolbox! I highly recommend you check it out.

Hope this helps!

Lon

The really cool thing about this is that the new HQ features of YouTube take advantage of these settings.

Here’s a sample video using the HD 16:9 aspect ration that YouTube now likes:

[youtube]http://in.youtube.com/watch?v=Q1lsbA8RhiI[/youtube]

This was created and rendered in Camtasia version 6 but the result is the same.

Capture your video in Jing and shoot it directly up to YouTube, Vimeo, or FaceBook. If you want to put the YouTube video on your web page, don’t forget to add “&fmt=18″ (without the quotes) to the end of the URL to display it in HQ.

With the Pro version, the Jing branding at the beginning and end of the videos? Gone!

And if you want…edit your capture in Camtasia Studio. There is also a Mac version.

So now there is no excuse (like the 300 bones for Camtasia Studio!) NOT to start making killer screencasts.

Of course, to learn how to do THAT, head over to Screencastprofits.com