Review: TechSmith Camtasia 5
Another useful feature would be the ability to set a zoom maximum, especially for smaller presentations. For example, when producing at 320x240 resolution, displaying at 100% appeared too large, as if it showed too much forest and not enough trees. It would have been nice to be able to set a minimum—say 75%, which would illustrate the detail but keep the perspective.
Still, without question, SmartFocus is a total win-win for users since, by inserting the Zoom-n-Pan effects for you at the appropriate places, Camtasia is performing 90% of the work. By using the Zoom-n-Pan Properties window, you can quickly scroll through and customize window size and placement to your liking. Instead of taking 2 or 3 minutes per pan and zoom effect, TechSmith knocked it down to 15 to 30 seconds, which is a real improvement.
Restore Cursor Positioning
Another killer new feature is subtler but perhaps even more important than SmartFocus, especially if you pause and resume capture a lot as I do. In Camtasia 4, if you paused capture, you had to manually return your mouse cursor to the same place it was when you restarted, otherwise you’d have a "mouse jump" that viewers (and perhaps more importantly, supervisors and clients) would notice. This was challenging to do if you Alt-Tabbed and started rooting around in other applications on the computer while capture was paused.
In the third Capture preference from the bottom, you now have the option to "restore cursor location after pause." As long as you pause and restart using the F9 key, Camtasia restores the mouse cursor to the right position before restarting recording. However, if you use the Pause/Resume button beneath the capture window to pause and restart, Camtasia doesn’t return the cursor.
Streamlined Capture Interface
Next up is the new Recorder interface, which has a lot to like but wasn’t perfect in my tests. If you’ve used Camtasia, you probably recall that selecting the size of the recording screen involved a multistep wizard. In version 5, TechSmith has placed all the critical options on one screen, which is much more convenient.
You have two choices when it comes to selecting the capture area: Select area to record or Last area. Select area to record is a bit of a visual misnomer since you’ll seldom use the crosshairs shown on the button, which is actually a good thing. That is, once you click the button, Camtasia starts highlighting the different windows in the application, which you can choose by clicking. Or, you can choose the entire application by clicking the bar at the top of the application, which is easier and more accurate than defining the area with crosshairs.
The other option, Last area, captures the area that you captured last, which you’ll probably use 99% of the time, and it is a welcome addition. Once you’ve selected the area to record (or clicked Last area), Camtasia opens a new window where you can refine your selection of the recording area, with access to preset sizes as well as recent screen capture areas. Again, very convenient. You’ll also notice the Lock to application checkbox, which is where things started going south for me.
To explain, locking to an application performs two basic functions. After choosing an application to record, if you click the Lock to application checkbox, you can resize the application and the capture window at the same time. This feature is useful when you’re attempting to find the optimal capture size for an application.
With previous Camtasia versions, you had to resize the target application and then resize and adjust the capture window, a two-step process that was imprecise and often off by one or two pixels on any and all edges. Now, once you target and Lock the application, you can drag any edge to any size and the application and capture window will follow. This worked well in my tests.
The other function that Lock to application is supposed to perform is to keep all application windows within the defined capture area. If you’ve produced screencams in the past, you’re familiar with the problem. Specifically, you’re happily capturing along, then you choose File > Print or you open a preferences or configuration window and it opens outside the capture area. This forces you to mouse over, grab the application, and drag it to the center of the capture window.
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