Screen Capture apps on the Mac are like the todo list apps of the iPhone. There’s just so many of them it’s hard to cover them all at once. However, now with the built in screen capture and editing functionality of QuickTime X in Snow Leopard, the basic apps will go obsolete clearing the market for the higher end tools.
When I first heard about Camtasia coming to the Mac, I was not impressed. Judging by the Windows screenshots I thought it would utterly fail on the Mac platform. Boy was I in for a pleasant surprise. I hereby pronounce Camtasia to be the current best screen capture application for the Mac. So how did I come to such a strong conclusion?
1-2-3-Go
Start Camtasia and you’re presented with an easy to use record palette. The Windows-ness of the developers can be seen here in terms of icon design, but we’ll ignore that for now. So by default it records your screen, but with a click you can make it record audio from a line-in or mic, the iSight or attached camera, and even the system audio. Camtasia records the full screen. So far so normal.
Once you’re done recording however, the full interface presents itself. To the left is the library and effects. In the middle is the canvas. The right shows tool configurations. And at the bottom lies a standard timeline. The user interface reminds one of Screenflow, the current leader in screen capture for the Mac.
No more drone work
While the UI elements aren’t exactly ‘tasty’, the user interface has been made into a super easy to use drag and drop affair. Click the video effects, and hover over a thumbnail to see a preview of what it does. To apply it to a clip just drag it onto the timeline and you’re done. Camtasia makes it super easy to apply zooms, fades, and flips. I know how difficult it is to add a fade-out/fade-in effect for clips, and to have it done just by drag and drop is nothing short of amazing.
Those blue green blocks are fade-ins and outs, dropped in from the effects.
One of the most tedious tasks of adding effects, is panning from one window to the other. Camtasia has something called ‘SmartFocus’, which automatically detects mouse movements and adds these pans in between. Granted it doesn’t quite get the location right, but it at least sets you on the right track. You can then adjust the video, all of which can be acheived within a minute or two.
Jazz it up
Camtasia also comes with a bunch of effects that will help spice things up. You can choose from regular effects like colour adjustment, sepia tones and drop shadows to frame glow, reflection, and a beautifully done Window Spotlight. With the window spotlight effect applied, Camtasia blurs out the background and any other windows while focussing the frontmost window. The result is a much more focussed video while still keeping the desktop in perspective.
You can control the amount of blur, opacity, and even size up the focussed window.
Adjustments
On the right is an adjustment pane which allows you to control all of these effects. As you apply effects to your clip, they stack up along with their settings. To remove an effect just delete it from the stack. You can adjust nearly anything from the blur amount in window focus to the size and rotation of your canvas.
Make it fly
Camtasia comes with support for exporting to iTunes compatible video for use with the iPhone, AppleTV or computer playback. You can also directly export video to YouTube or Screencast.com, both of which are very handy additions indeed. And finally, for those wanting total control, you can use the advanced export to adjust codecs and compression to your hearts content.
I’ll be using it for sure
It took me five minutes to get familiar with the user interface, and produce a decent screencast at the end of it. I love the way it takes not more than two steps to apply crucial effects like zooming and panning, ‘skimming’ over library clips, and video effects are just icing on the cake. All through editing the UI acts just the way you wanted to. One feature worth the mention is ripple delete, which allows you to remove a clip as well as the space it occupies in your timeline. And lastly, if the app crashes, it’s nice to know that Camtasia had been saving your work all along and offers to recover it. This is my initial impression, as I haven’t had much time to go through the app for a considerable amount of time. I’m sure some niggles will show up, but at first run it’s proven itself.
Camtasia for Mac is completely different from the Camtasia Studio for Windows. The application looks and feels like a Mac application, is very stable, feature rich, and I’m happy to recommend it to anyone looking to create good screencasts. At $99 for a single user it’s worth it, but only for those who are serious about screen capture; the rest can use QuickTime X.
