1 RWTH Aachen University CLS – Center für Lehr- und Lernservices ExAcT – Excellent Academic Teaching www.exact.rwth-aachen.de

Introduction to Camtasia

Table of contents

1. Requirements 2

2. Preparation 3

3. Basic functions 4

3.1. Recording 4

3.2. Saving your recording 5

3.3. Editing your video 5

3.3.1. Cutting 6

3.3.2. Markers 6

3.4. Finishing your video 6

4. Recording in PowerPoint 8

5. Shortcuts 9

5.1. During recording 9

5.2. During editing 9

6. Further editing options 10

7. Upload videos to the RWTH streaming server 10

2 RWTH Aachen University CLS – Center für Lehr- und Lernservices ExAcT – Excellent Academic Teaching www.exact.rwth-aachen.de

1. Requirements

To record your lecture, you need:

a laptop with your presentation and the recording software Camtasia

a microphone – a microphone integrated in your laptop is sufficient, for better audio quality an external

USB microphone / headset with microphone is recommended

optional: a camera integrated in the laptop or an external webcam to video-tape the lecturer

The software can be installed on two computers with one license, but cannot be used simultaneously.

The system requirements for Camtasia are given by the manufacturer as follows:

Camtasia (Windows)

Microsoft Windows 7-SP1, Windows 8.1 and Windows 10 (required: 64 bit versions only).

(recommended: Windows 10)

2.0-GHz-CPU with dual core processor minimum (recommended: 2.8 Ghz 6th Generation

Intel® Core™ i5 Processor with 4 CPU Cores or better or equivalent or better AMD processor)

Intel and AMD integrated graphics are acceptable. However, NVIDIA and AMD GPU’s are

recommended for GPU acceleration and 4K and/or 60FPS media.

GPU Acceleration requires Windows 10 or Windows 8.1

4 GB RAM minimum (recommended: 16 GB or more)

2 GB of hard-disk space for program installation

Display dimensions of 1024x768 or greater

Microsoft .NET 4.6.0 or later version (included)

Dedicated Windows-compatible sound card, microphone, and speakers (recommended)

Windows N requires the MediaFeature Pack for Windows N

Camtasia (Mac)

Mac computer with an Intel® Core™ i5 Processor with 4 CPU Cores (Recommended: 2.8 Ghz

Intel® Core™ i5 Processor with 4 CPU Cores or better)

MacOS 10.12 or later (Rendering is not supported on external USB monitors)

4GB of RAM (Recommended: 8GB of RAM or greater)

4GB of available disk space (minimum)

PowerPoint Import requires PowerPoint 2016, 2019 for Mac

Playback using the Smart Player is supported on Internet Explorer 11+, Microsoft Edge (Windows 10

Anniversary Update or later), latest version for Chrome, Firefox, and Safari, iOS 11+, Android 5+

(Latest Chrome required)

3 RWTH Aachen University CLS – Center für Lehr- und Lernservices ExAcT – Excellent Academic Teaching www.exact.rwth-aachen.de

2. Preparation

Before recording, note as follows:

If planning a screen recording, consider carefully which programs you need, and close all others.

o Also tidy up your desktop and consider your background picture.

If recording audio, make sure that the environment is quiet (no ventilation, background conversations,

system or notification sounds etc.).

Do not place the microphone close to mouse and keyboard, because otherwise the clicking will be

heard in the recording.

Speaking spontaneously can cause increased use of “umm” or straying off topic. A script or an outline

can help you to prepare your wording.

Test the lighting conditions and camera and audio recording quality before recording to optimize video

and audio quality.

Rehearse the recording.

Important: If you want to edit/save the project on another device, you must export is as .zip file

(otherwise the recording file .trec will not be saved).

If only recording a PowerPoint presentation with audio via microphone, you can do so using the

PowerPoint Add-in. For more information on this, see chapter 7 of this document.

When recording, please always note the legal prerequisites for copyright and citation law which you will find in the instructions and handouts under https://video.cls.rwth-aachen.de/ gebrauchsanweisungen/.

4 RWTH Aachen University CLS – Center für Lehr- und Lernservices ExAcT – Excellent Academic Teaching www.exact.rwth-aachen.de

3. Basic functions

3.1. Recording

After starting the program, the start screen opens (fig. 1). Here you can choose between different options:

To start recording right-away, choose the option ”new recording“.

This hides the Camtasia start window and opens a menu at the lower right corner of your screen (fig. 2), where

you can configure and start the recording. With this menu, you can adjust all preliminary settings regarding your

recording without having to go to the main program. The most important functions are located at the top. Under

Tools Options General Saving File options, you can choose where to save the recording.

Choose the area of your screen you want to record. When clicking “Full Screen”, the whole screen is recorded.

When clicking “Custom”, you can adjust the recorded screen area manually by dragging the green dashed

frame to the area you want to record.

With the buttons ”Camera“ and ”Audio”, you can choose to record using the camera and/or the microphone in

addition to your screen recording. With the small arrows next to the corresponding button, you can choose the

source to be recorded (e.g. integrated or external microphone). On the right of the “Audio” button, adjust the

recording volume, so that the amplitude averages in the middle.

By clicking the red “rec” button, you start the recording. A countdown of three seconds and a recorder menu

with the following functions appears (if not, click the red Camtasia symbol in the quick launch bar at the bottom

of the screen):

New project Create a new project

New

recording Record a screencast

Open project Open a project you have already worked

on

Tutorials Tutorials about different Camtasia

functions

Figure 1: Start screen of Camtasia 2019

Figure 2: recording tool bar

5 RWTH Aachen University CLS – Center für Lehr- und Lernservices ExAcT – Excellent Academic Teaching www.exact.rwth-aachen.de

3.2. Saving your recording

To terminate the recording, click Stop in the recorder menu or press F10. Camtasia automatically saves the

recording file (.trec).

Afterwards, the main program opens automatically, so that you can start editing your recording.

3.3. Editing your video

The editor (fig. 4) is made up of four areas:

Tools Panel Here you find all tools Camtasia has to offer

Media Bin Contains the recorded video and imported media

Canvas Shows the recorded video

Time line Contains the tracks you recorded and cutting functions

Figure 4: Editor

Delete Deletes the recording

Pause Pauses the recording – can be continued (alternatively F9)

Stop Stops the recording (alternatively F10) Figure 3: Recorder menu during recording

6 RWTH Aachen University CLS – Center für Lehr- und Lernservices ExAcT – Excellent Academic Teaching www.exact.rwth-aachen.de

3.3.1. Cutting

To remove material from your video, go to the timeline and select the area by dragging the red and green

handles of the play head and click the scissors button to remove it. To define the area precisely, use the zoom

slider above the timeline to zoom in. Note that all tracks are selected when cutting.

3.3.2. Markers

You can add markers to the timeline to create a table of contents. Thereby, the viewers can navigate the finished

video to find specific topics faster. To set the markers, choose “View” “Show Marker Track” in the menu bar

above (alternatively: Ctrl + M). Move the mouse to the position where you want to set the mark and set it by

clicking on the + sign.

By right-clicking on the label, you can rename or delete the marker. Please note that the name of your markers

are used for navigating your video later (table of contents). You can shift the marker position by dragging it with

the mouse.

To be able to use the table of contents after the Upload to the RWTH streaming server, you need to create a

WebVVT file and upload it as well. Https://video.cls.rwth-aachen.de/gebrauchsanweisungen/ provides a

template which you can edit using a text editor. In the file, you have to add time stamps and markers from the

video. Unfortunately, an automated export from Camtasia is not possible.

3.4. Finishing your video

To export your finished video file, click the green button “Share” “Local File”, if you want to save the video

locally. Alternatively, you can export the video directly to the mentioned web services.

The production wizard opens. Here, you can choose the profile to convert your video into via the drop-down

menu. “Custom production settings” offers the most extensive settings and is recommended. Then, choose the

file format for your video – recommended is “MP4 with Smart Player (HTML5)” for greatest possible

compatibility.

In the next step (Smart Player Options), you can set different options:

Controller Options regarding controller elements and pause at the beginning

Size Choose size of video (see editing dimension)

Video settings Set frame rate und quality (recommended: 60%)

Audio settings Set bit rate (recommended: 192 kbit)

Options Show Table of contents, captions und quizzes in the video

After setting all relevant options, click “next”. In the next step, you can choose further options (e.g. inserting a

watermark).

If your video contains markers, you will be lead to a next step “marker options”. Here you can number the marker

entries, choose to show or hide the table of contents at the beginning and select display options for the table of

contents (fixed-left or fixed-right).

7 RWTH Aachen University CLS – Center für Lehr- und Lernservices ExAcT – Excellent Academic Teaching www.exact.rwth-aachen.de

Then click “Next” and choose the production name and folder to save the video in. Then click “Finish”. Your

video is being rendered. Depending on the length of your video, this can take a few minutes. Upon completion,

a summary of production settings appears. Click “Finish”.

Note regarding finished video size:

When uploading to the opencast streaming server of RWTH or YouTube, automatically the video is recoded.

Hereby, a bit rate suitable for streaming is adjusted. Also, the video size is adapted.

As a thumb rule: create the video in MP4 format to obtain the best quality at smallest file size. MP4 is the

standard exporting format and favored for web-based delivery.

If you want to reduce the file size nevertheless, you can set the following the options when producing the file

via “Custom Production Settings” “MP4 with Smart Player (HTML5)“.

Video Dimensions (in pixels)

A high video resolution can increase file size drastically. Try these options to reduce file size based on video

dimensions:

In the tab “Size”, set a limit to maximum 1280 times 720 pixels

Do not record the whole screen

Reduce screen resolution bevor recording the screen activity

Motion scope in the video File size increases with increasing motion in the video. For example: recording text-based presentation slides leads to a smaller file size than recording a live video.

Avoid unnecessary movements in the screen recording. Avoid e.g. moving windows on the screen or animations in PowerPoint presentations.

Frame rate The frame rate determines the number of frames per second in the video. The custom production settings allow frame rates from 1 to 30 frames per seconds (FPS). The standard value is 30 FPS.

In the tab, “Video Settings”, set the frame rate to at least 24.

8 RWTH Aachen University CLS – Center für Lehr- und Lernservices ExAcT – Excellent Academic Teaching www.exact.rwth-aachen.de

4. Recording in PowerPoint

The Camtasia Add-In toolbar allows you to start, stop and control your recordings right from within PowerPoint.

To use it, open your presentation and locate the Camtasia Add-In toolbar (fig. 5) under the “Add-Ins” tab.

Figure 5: PowerPoint Add-In toolbar

First, choose the recording options you want to enable. The four buttons on the right let you enable microphone,

camera, preview your camera view and adjust further recording options. Then, you can start recording by

clicking the “record” button.

Now, a small window (fig. 7) appears, where you can test the volume and then start the recording.

Figure 6: Volume check window

To finish recording, press “Esc”, name the presentation and choose a folder to save the recording in.

Then you can choose to produce or edit the recording. When choosing “produce

your recording”, the finished video is created. When choosing “edit your

recording”, Camtasia opens so you can edit the recording. A window opens,

where you can choose if you want to import your PowerPoint notes as captions.

This means that the first sentence of your notes appears in your slides. In most

cases, you probably do not want this, so click “No”. If you want to remove the

captions afterwards, you can do so via “Modify” – “Captions” – “Delete Captions”.

Note: during recording, Camtasia creates a marker for every new slide for the table of contents, these can be

edited afterwards in Camtasia.

9 RWTH Aachen University CLS – Center für Lehr- und Lernservices ExAcT – Excellent Academic Teaching www.exact.rwth-aachen.de

5. Shortcuts

5.1. During recording

F9 Pause / Continue recording

F10 Stop recording

Strg + M Add marker

5.2. During editing

N Open annotation tab

Ctrl + P Produce / Share

Spacebar Play / Pause

Period Step forward on timeline

Comma Step backward on timeline

Shift + M Add marker

Shift + A Add custom animation

Shift + T Add last used transition

Ctrl + G Group

Ctrl + U Ungroup

Ctrl + Shift + S Split all tracks at play head

Ctrl + Alt + I Stitch selected media

Alt 1. Hold Alt and drag the edge of an object on the canvas to cut it to size.

2. Hold Alt and drag end of clip to extend or shorten the frame.

Shift 1. Hold shift while dragging a clip to shift all media on the same track.

2. Hold shift while dragging the play head to insert space on the timeline and move all media to the right.

10 RWTH Aachen University CLS – Center für Lehr- und Lernservices ExAcT – Excellent Academic Teaching www.exact.rwth-aachen.de

6. Further editing options

In the tool bar, you find more editing options you can use to add effects to your video, including the following:

Media The media bin contains the recorded video clips. Also, you can import media (e.g. video clips, PowerPoint slides).

Library Here, you can integrate different elements like icons, intros, lower thirds, motion backgrounds, music tracks and outros into your video.

Annotations Here, you can insert annotations using callouts, arrows and lines, shapes and more.

Transitions Here, you can animate transitions using different effects.

Behaviors Here, you can animate objects using different effects (e.g. drifting, fading, pop up).

Animations Here, you can use animation effects in the video.

Cursor effects Here, you can animate clicks and cursor moves using different effects.

Voice narration Here, you can record audio clips like your voice.

Audio effects Here, you can edit audio tracks (e.g. noise removal, fade in, fade out).

Visual effects Here, you find further effects to edit your recording.

Interactivity Here, you can add quizzes to the timeline or a selected medium (please note that these functions are not supported when uploading to the RWTH streaming server).

Captions Here, you can add captions to the recordings.

Using the Download button on the top right (small downward-facing arroy next to “Share”) you can add further effects (some are subject to a charge) from the TechSmith homepage.

7. Upload videos to the RWTH streaming server

At Using videos on the RWTH streaming server you find a manual for uploading videos to the streaming server

opencast. Here, you also learn how to upload the WebVVT file necessary for the table of contents.