Chapter 13: CD-based Videos with Camtasia MenuMaker

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Overview

While the development of Camtasia Studio has focused more on web deployment in recent years, output to CD-ROM or DVD-ROM remains the best way to deliver your videos with exceptional image and sound quality. With Camtasia MenuMaker, you can:

• Assemble your videos into one cohesive package

• Better control exactly how these videos are displayed

• Create an attractive front-end menu that autoloads upon insertion of the disc

In this chapter, we’ll discuss all the juicy details of using this component of Camtasia Studio to create a world-class CD-ROM to distribute to your audience. We’ll cover the entire process - from selecting a template and adding files to adjusting the look and functionality of your menu and testing and exporting it. But before we get ahead of ourselves, let’s start with getting the program open:

You can open Camtasia MenuMaker in one of four ways:

• Choose Start > All Programs > Camtasia Studio 4 > Applications > Camtasia MenuMaker.

• From within Camtasia Studio or the Camtasia Recorder, select Camtasia MenuMaker from the Tools menu.

• From within Camtasia Studio, click the Launch other tools button on the Main toolbar, and then select Camtasia MenuMaker.

  

• From within Camtasia Studio, choose Create CD menu… from the Task List, under the heading Produce.

  

Now that we’ve opened Camtasia MenuMaker, the main interface window appears, along with a special dialog that asks how we want to begin. Since MenuMaker is project-based, we’re given options for either opening a menu we’ve made or creating a new one from scratch.

MenuMaker’s Welcome dialog. If desired, this dialog can be turned off by unchecking the box at the bottom of the window. You can always turn it back on by choosing Tools > Options… from the main MenuMaker interface, and then checking Display welcome dialog on startup.

The options are as follows:

• Create a new project using the Wizard. This will allow you to choose from a multitude of pre-existing templates, add your files, and give the menu a title before you’re thrust into the main user interface.

• Create a new project (Advanced). Actually, there’s not too much distinction between this and the previous option. You’re brought to a special dialog where you can select a template as well as give your menu a name. The only critical difference is that you aren’t actually given the option of adding any files until you’re working within the main user interface.

• Open an existing project. Just like it sounds. A dialog opens that lets you browse for your project file (example: myfile.cmmp).

• Open a recent project. Selecting this option activates a drop- down list, in which your last four most recent projects appear.

Simply select the project you want and then click OK to open that project. Note that you also have access to the last four most recent projects under the File menu, available in the main user interface window, which we’ll come to in a bit.