Camtasia: Versatile and Easy to Use
April 14, 2021

Camtasia: Versatile and Easy to Use

Glen Gummess | TrustRadius Reviewer
Score 9 out of 10
Vetted Review
Verified User

Overall Satisfaction with Camtasia

At the University of St. Francis in Joliet, IL, Camtasia is used as the screencast production software of choice to create visual learning experiences from orientation to a learning management system or website to drill-and-practice training, primarily for faculty and students. It provides a visual opportunity to understand often technical information in combination with written or oral narratives consistent with multimedia learning theory (Mayer, 2009) that suggest learning succeeds when a combination of two sensory modalities (visual plus written or visual plus oral) are addressed.

Mayer, R. E. (2009). Multi-media Learning, 2nd Ed. Cambridge University Press, NY/NY.
  • Ability to edit the video is precise and easy to accomplish
  • The editor can add "callouts" and other highlighting features to the screencast.
  • Project preferences are fairly easy to establish.
  • Publishes to video as a standalone mp4 file or can be uploaded to YouTube, Vimeo, etc.
  • You can only play a video on the timeline at only one speed, realtime.
  • There is no audio scrubbing when you scrub the video with the playhead.
  • You cannot save timelines for future use; you must save the project under a different filename.
  • Interactive features (prompts to the user to click) are not robust and are arduous to implement unless you have a subsription to publish to TechSmith Screencast.
  • Ease of use
  • Versatility
  • Speed of production results.
  • Integration across multiple platforms and services.
  • Not directly applicable. Our service does not charge faculty or students other than through regularly paid course fees.
Captivate is high-end to the extent that it is beyond the use of a "typical" user. It has a steep and lengthly learning curve. Camtasia's learning curve can be mastered potentially within an hour to be productive, and it weds with Snagit to become versatile in presenting information visually.

Do you think Camtasia delivers good value for the price?

Yes

Are you happy with Camtasia's feature set?

Yes

Did Camtasia live up to sales and marketing promises?

Yes

Did implementation of Camtasia go as expected?

Yes

Would you buy Camtasia again?

Yes

For creating learning experiences that require visuals from desktops, Camtasia is intuitive and produces content that works seamlessly in many video carrying platforms. The software also includes pixelation or blurring techniques for obscuring details that would otherwise identify people, potentially in violation of student confidentiality laws or Institutional Review Board restrictions. A convenient library of visual graphics, icons, backgrounds and music beds enables the producer to add attention-getting "pizzazz" to presentations, a library that can be augmented with original user-created content. Some instructors use it to present concepts that require a visual component. It would be a significant improvement to allow multiple timelines to be saved, and for audio-scrubbing to be included in the editing toolset. One project, for example, could support an orientation of a learning management system for faculty, and then one for students, if two separate timelines were allowed.