Inside Camtasia Studio 5: Part 3

This week we look at more of the improvements made in Camtasia Studio 5 and how you can make use of them in your productions. Specifically, we're going to look at clips, stability improvements, changes in frames per second (fps) for better editing, editing procedures, working with callouts and new transition options.

Working with Clips

To work with a video project you need to use clips. These can be audio, video images, etc. All of these you import into the timeline for editing. It's important to know that clips in the Clip Bin aren't affected by timeline edits. When you add a clip to the timeline, you're actually making a copy.

When you save a project, you now have several options, to keep the source clips in the current locations, copy source clips to project folder or move source clips to project folder. This will help you with organizing your projects.

Stability Improvements

Since the previous version, TechSmith has improved the stability of the software. There's been quite a bit of feedback about issues to do with editing. (I had trouble in this area myself. Despite zooming into the maximum level, I had trouble with making clean edits.) Also, when cutting out audio portions, the results were unpredictable. This problem has been fixed.

If you zoom all the way into the editing timeline (as seen above), you'll notice the fps counter. If you look at the readout from the cursor, you'll notice that you can now do 30 fps editing, which makes the process more precise.

Another stability choice is to access AutoSave, which is available by selecting Tools: Options from the main menu. This brings up the Options dialog box. Here you can enable AutoSave and adjust the saving intervals as necessary.

In other ways, the editing process hasn't changed all that much. To read up on the process in more detail, have a look at a previous tutorial on the subject.

Callouts

A Callout is a graphical element that appears on top of your video. You would use these to draw attention to a particular area of the screen or a process. Callouts combined with text offer additional information. Another callout option is to use a Flash Hotspot. Using this option allows viewers to jump to certain sections in the video, link to extra information, take customers to an order page, etc. You'll learn how to use Callouts shortly. Right now I want to introduce you to another option, which is where you use the Jump to URL option when a video finishes playing. Here's how it's done.

To get started, click on the Produce Video As heading under the Produce section of the Task List. This brings up the Production Wizard. Click on which Production Preset you want to use, then click on the Manage button at the top right.

This brings up the Manage Productions Presets dialog box. At the top of the box, click on the Edit button

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Created: June 5, 2003
Revised: November 30, 2007

URL: https://webreference.com/video/column7/1

Inside Camtasia Studio 5: Part 3