Screen Recorders for Streaming

You won't find any post-production tools in Screenwatch--it's focused on getting your presentation published to your LMS (learning management system) or to the Web easy and fast, just the way you recorded it. It's designed to support live or on-demand content creation in bulk by automating and templating the entire process and integrating seamlessly into your network. While Camtasia is an impressively flexible tool for the individual creator, Screenwatch takes the bazillion-step-process required for institutional and enterprise content creators to prepare, produce, and publish a presentation and reduces it to a few clicks.

Camtasia's screen codecs (its own CAMV for RealPlayer and the WM9 Screen Codec for Windows Media Player) are available for playback only on Windows systems. Screenwatch provides playback support for Windows Media player on Windows, as well as RealPlayer on Windows, Macintosh, Linux, and Solaris.

A More Detailed Look at Camtasia
Open Camtasia's Recorder window and the simple interface you see belies the power buried in the menus and toolbars. To get started, you simply select your Input Options (Screen, Window, or Fixed Region), your Output Options (File or Live Source), and press record. If you've got a microphone, you can record narration along with your screen recording. When you're done, press Stop. That's all there is to a basic recording. Using Camtasia's toolbar options, you can add effects to your capture for emphasis. For example, you can add captions, a timestamp, or a watermark to your movie. A drawing tool lets you draw directly on the screen as you record; or you can have the mouse highlighted in a yellow circle to make it easy to follow.

When your recording is done, Camtasia will open the movie in Camtasia Studio, the tool you'll use to edit and publish your presentation. Camtasia studio uses a traditional timeline metaphor for assembling different media objects in your presentation. The screen recording and audio tracks open up by default, but from here you can add other videos, images, or additional audio tracks to your movie. Using Camtasia Studio, you can't really make complex edits to your recorded audio or video, but you can add, move, and replace tracks as needed. A nice touch is the ability to create transitions between visual images and tracks.