Camtasia Studio is pricey, Is It Worth It?

[crankit98]

Hi to Lynn and other web site gurus,



I need to purchase a screen capture software to create videos that can
be used on my cdroms? I've seen Camtasia but its $299.00 and want to
know if there are any cheaper software that can do the same.



Any suggestions will be a great blessing.

[Lynn Terry]

Welcome to the new forum!

I use Camtasia, but I second the free recommendation at: http://camstudio.org/ Also very good.

[ScottTousignant]

I love Camtasia and think it's well worth it. Is it really $299 now? I got it recently for $150

For videos shorter than 5 minutes I've also used the free version of Jing http://www.jingproject.com/

[retta719]

I use the free Camstudio and like that fine for the projects that I have so far. My understanding is that Camtasia has some added benefits and perks to it, but in a lot of ways they both do the same thing.

I've also used Jing that Scott mentioned and those came out nicely as well.

I think if you're just sort of dipping your feet in the water on videos the free products like camstudio and jing are perfect. If you need heavier machinery, so to speak, later on then you can always go grab Camtasia when that time rolls around.

[TraciKnoppe]

I also use Camtasia, and tried CamStudio and didn't care for it. I started with the free Camtasia 3 when they offered that, then upgraded to version 6.

[CoryZ]

CamStudio was a plain old time sink. I spent forever trying to get it work work without crashing (it's finicky). Then, I wasted more time figuring out how to edit and convert to a different format. It will do the job, but it's finicky.

Camtasia is on my one of these days lists. I wish I had scored one of the free license codes for the older version awhile back. I don't know of any better screen capture software than this.

I've used their free Jing program which is great for 5min clips. Very handy program.

[ChristineCobb]

Start putting your pennies in the jar to get Camtasia Studio. You'll be glad you did.

Jing works fine but it takes some planning to stick within the 5 minute limit.

[Paul Richardson]

Hi to Lynn and other web site gurus,



I need to purchase a screen capture software to create videos that can
be used on my cdroms? I've seen Camtasia but its $299.00 and want to
know if there are any cheaper software that can do the same.



Any suggestions will be a great blessing.

Hi CranKit98,

If have all the screen capture video programs and here's my take on the subject:

If you plan well and know the drawbacks of all the programs, each will do exactly what they do best...for you.

If you purchase camtasia, you can make enough $ in the trial period to purchase the software many times over by doing video marketing.

The features I like with camtasia are:

zoom (even though the zoom mouse from microsoft works well with all programs)
includes:

the video editor and audio (although limited),
the plugin for powerpoint
you can set your frames/sec (if I need a crystal clear video, I set the frame rate to 60 frames/sec...produces a huge file, sometimes 60 Gigabytes but I can render later with a more powerful compression program)
batch production...saves a lot of time, edit during the day, produce at night while you sleep
presentation formats are the best in the industry ie. camtasia theater, expressshow, menu format.

Lon Naylor's training for Camtasia is superb and he has a free forum to get advice (another great forum very similar to Lynn's (great, giving, experienced folks if Lynn approves, I'll post the link (no affiliate) later).

All the best and hope this helps.

Paul

[crankit98]

Awesome,


Thanks for the help on Camtasia. I'm going to try Camstudio first
and download Camtasia's trial version.
Thanks again to all

[PatFlynn]

I'm using Camtasia for Mac right now. Great product, easy to use, and the customer service has been brilliant so far. I had a lot of my questions answers via twitter, actually, from the techsmith twitter person almost immediately the other day. Good stuff.