Camtasia Guide

2. Editing your Video

Contents: Cleaning the audio, cutting & using Camtasia "call-outs"

1. Audio Cleaning

Microphones record the background noise of the room you are in - this background noise can be sampled in camtasia, and subsequently removed using an automation within the Software, as shown below.

Choose a part of your timeline where there is only silence and no voice, this is the background noise which we want to capture. (blue area) Select a second or two of this "silence" between the red & green selectors and then click "Manual Noise training on selection" to clean the audio. Enable the noise removal check box if not already done automatically and your audio is clean.

2. Cutting your Video

Cutting your video is good if you make a mistake, or if you want to remove any unnecessary silences - at the push of a button. Select where you want to cut the Video and simply press "S" on your keyboard. You can then make another cut to create a slice, which you can edit or remove completely by pressing your "Delete" key.

Be Careful: When you cut your Video, the audio track will also be cut at the same location - please keep this in mind or your Video can end up making no sense. First we need to split the Audio from the Video, and then lock the track we want unchanged. To do this we click the blue circle next to the padlocks followed by clicking the padlock of the track we want to lock. Keep in mind if you cut something from the audio / video track, it's length will change.

3. Callouts (Censoring, Watermarking & more)

"Callouts" are a function in Camtasia which allow us to add elements to the video, such as a watermark, or a "blur" Callout to censor, for example, a players screen-name. Callouts appear on the time-line, which allows us to choose their duration, fade in/out and we can specify the dimensions of the Callout itself on the video preview.

Avoid using the fade options if you mean to censor something in your video. Also, before recording remove all nicknames from HUD and pop-ups and make sure not to move any tables during the session, as well as moving the replayer window.

To add a watermark to your Video, choose the image callout option - specify the dimensions and location in the preview and the duration and fade options on the timeline. A typical example is a small image in the bottom right corner with high transparency.

Approach your Poker School contact should you need further assistance!

Removing zoom spots:
If you did not disable this feature before recording, it could be that your screen focussed/zooms in to parts of the screen which messes up your presentation. If this is the case, you can still remove it from the .camrec file.
If you want to remove the zooming from your video, go to the timeline of your video, and manually delete the diamonds from the timeline (the diamonds are the zoom spots).

3. Rendering the Video

Saving in .camrec (Recorder settings) allows us to go back and change the video in many ways without compromising on quality. So it's good to keep all your projects in .camrec for this reason.

The final render of your video should be .mp4 as this our preferred format. When we render to .mp4, we reduce the file-size drastically and as such the video quality decreases (an acceptable amount) so there is a good balance between file-size and video quality which we aim for. A rough guideline we use is 500 kb/s bitrate in the .mp4 format, although the optimal range is dependent on the video itself.

"Rendering" is what we do to shape the video the way we want. And so when we render, we produce our video according to any specifications we desire.

This is where the important part comes in - Camtasia always saves the dimensions of the previous project, so we need to specify each time the maximum resolution to ensure best quality is maintained at this stage. The resolutions can be changed to the top-left of the video preview screen in the main window of Camtasia.

You will also be prompted to choose the resolution when you drag your video from the Clip bin into the timeline, you should always select "Recording Dimensions" - if you fail to do this, your video will have a very bad quality.

Camtasia should be open, either with your file already on the timeline, or in the clip bin (if so, you should drag to the timeline and choose the resolution)

As standard, you should implement certain post-edits to your production routine, such as noise removal and volume optimization amoung other things. This ensures a standardized higher quality to any video you make.

Now click on "Produce & Share" at the top to specify the dimensions of your render.

A new series of window will open, use the following settings as shown in the screenshots:

(Click to enlarge)

When you have applied all the settings - begin your render. When completed, conduct a final quality check on your .mp4 and ensure it meets your own high standards of production.

i have this problem that although i have chosen full screen recording then camtasia still records only the part where my mouse pointer is and very rarely records the whole screen. When i move my mouse pointer from one corner to the other then it records that new corner and etc. How to disable that?

Looks like you have auto-zoom on. When you edit the video, remove those diamonds from callout section. And select from options auto-zoom off.

tnx, you seriously saved a lot of hair
Here's how to disable it for ver 7:
Tools--->Options--->Zoom--->untick 'Apply SmartFocus in clip added'

thanks

hey, cant enable the powerpoint add-in, does anyone know a solution to this?

thx

Originally posted by DrObst
hey, cant enable the powerpoint add-in, does anyone know a solution to this?

thx

sorted via skype- open office != powerpoint
I can recommend to record the full screen of your 2nd monitor when you run the presentation, just like you would do if you would record normal tables when playing live.