Setting Up Your Recording

Before we get down to the business of setting up our next recording, I’d like to take a brief moment to introduce you to the Camtasia Recorder window. Out of the box, it looks like the figure to the right:

As you probably recall, in setting up our first capture, we didn’t adjust the Recorder itself, but rather went through the New Recording Wizard. This time, we’re going to set up our recording options in the Camtasia Recorder app itself. Don’t worry; if you’re really pining for the wizard, you can always go back to it by choosing Capture > Wizard…. And if you’ll recall from the wizard, our two main sets of choices for setting our recording involved selecting the capture area and then choosing which streams to record. We’re going to make both of these selections again, and the Capture menu is where it’s all happening. Along the way, we’ll familiarize ourselves with Camtasia Recorder’s user interface and see how we can customize it.

Selecting Your Capture Area

Opening the Capture menu will reveal a number of options.

The first set of commands control the actual record status of your capture: Record, Stop, Delete. It’s unlikely you’ll use these menu options very much because you already have far more accessible hotkeys and toolbar buttons that do the same thing. With the next set of commands, however, things get interesting. Here is where you can specify what part of the screen you want to capture. Note that this can also be done from the main Recorder interface.

Your options are as follows:

• Screen. Choosing this option will execute a full-screen capture the next time you record. When using a dual-monitor setup, a red highlight (similar to Window capture) will appear, allowing you to choose between the two monitors by highlighting the desired monitor and clicking.

  

• Window. When you begin a recording session, a red highlight will appear as you mouse over window content. This will let you automatically select a window (or, in many cases, a portion thereof) to record. Just click, and you’ve made your selection. If you entered this mode in error, a simple right-click will cancel the process.

• Region. Allows you to draw a rectangular marquee around your chosen capture area by clicking and dragging. Once you begin dragging, the total pixel dimensions will appear at the bottom right-hand corner of your selection. While using this method is not exactly precise, it can give you a certain amount of control over your video dimensions. Again, a right-click of the mouse will exit this mode.

At this point you may be wondering, “Hey, what about the size and location fields from the wizard that let us specify the exact dimensions of our recording area?” Well, friends, look no further than Fixed Region, which has its own dialog.

Clicking the Select button will turn your mouse cursor into a region selection cursor. Select your area just as you would when doing a region selection, and the corresponding size and location data is entered into the appropriate fields below. Even if you have exact specifications regarding the size of your recording area, using this tool can at least get you in the ballpark in terms of location. I very often select first, and then tweak the numbers to my liking.

Note that you also have the option of specifying a Fixed starting point. If this option is unchecked, your X and Y coordinate fields will be grayed out, and the capture selection process is significantly different. If you only give the Camtasia Recorder sizing information to work with, you have to specify the location each and every time you record.

When you start the recording process, you’re given a frame of the specified dimensions that follows your mouse cursor around the screen. As soon as it’s in the right spot, just click once to drop it in place. A right-click will cancel the capture.

However, if you have Fixed starting point checked, then the Camtasia Recorder already has all the information it needs to begin the recording process right away. Rather than having to take time selecting a new recording area, you can get right down to business, which can be a real time-saver. But that’s not all. It has the added benefit of providing consistency between your clips.

So what do I mean by this? Say you’re recording a video of your favorite application. The work day ends, and you shut down your computer. You come back the next day and fire up your application. Provided the program adheres to standard Windows conventions, the application window should reappear in the same location, at the same dimensions, that you left it. Now you start up Camtasia Recorder. If you’ve selected Fixed Region as well as specified a fixed starting point, the recording area will also appear at the same size and dimensions as before. If you failed to do so, and have to reselect a recording area by hand, you’re unlikely to get a pixel-perfect match of your capture area settings from last time. This results in a jarring visual shift when stringing together the video clips from yesterday and today. Using Fixed Region will help you avoid that subtle “pixel jump” that would otherwise mar your project and expose you as an amateur.

Note 

Here’s a quick note for those of you with dual-monitor setups. The X and Y location coordinates apply specifically to that monitor designated by your system as Monitor 1. You can obviously still record content from the second monitor, but its coordinates depend on Monitor 2’s placement relative to Monitor 1. For example, if your monitors each have a screen resolution of 1024 x 768, and Monitor 2 is placed directly to the right of Monitor 1, then the coordinates of the top-left corner of Monitor 2 will be 1025, 0. If Monitor 2 is to the left of Monitor 1, you’ll start going into negative digits. Keep this in mind when recording from a second monitor.

If you’ve already made one video, Camtasia Studio will remember what method you used for choosing a recording area. For example, if you selected Screen last time, and you don’t change this option, the Recorder will do another full-screen recording next time. For Window or Region, you’ll be prompted to choose a new window or region when you start recording. For Fixed Region, you’ll maintain the same video dimensions as last time, and either be prompted to pick a new location for your recording area (Fixed starting point unchecked) or automatically start recording from the same location (Fixed starting point checked).

Now that we’ve established what area we’re recording, it’s time to figure out what other kinds of information we want to include in our video.

Choosing Which Streams to Include

In addition to the screen video that Camtasia Studio is famous for, the Recorder also offers to record a few additional streams of data along with your screen video. To wit:

Camera Video

Just click the Record Camera check box on the main Recorder inter- face (choose Capture > Record Camera) to include a stream from your web camera or other video device. A digital camcorder actually makes a great video device; just plug it into your computer’s IEEE 1394 (Firewire) port, and you’re ready to rock. The individual settings for your camera device can be adjusted on the Camera tab of your Tools Options dialog, which we’ll talk about in Chapter 7. Additionally, if you want to see a preview window of your camera video (regardless of whether you decide to actually record it), you may do so by checking Preview Camera (or by choosing View > Camera Preview). Finally, keep in mind that both the Record Camera and Camera Preview commands can be toggled by way of the Camera toolbar, as shown here:

Don’t worry if you don’t currently see the toolbar; it’s hidden by default. We’ll discuss this as well as the other toolbars at your disposal a bit later in this chapter.

Caution 

One last note about recording camera video: If you’ve altered your file settings such that you’re recording to an industry-standard AVI rather than Camtasia Recorder’s proprietary CAMREC format, you cannot record camera video. You simply can’t store a second video stream inside an AVI. If you need camera video, use CAMREC instead. So, if you receive an error message when trying to enable camera video, do the following:

1. From the Tools menu, choose Options….

2. On the Capture tab, select Save as CAMREC.

3. Click OK. Try enabling Record Camera again.

Audio

If you wish to record audio during the recording process, you can do so by clicking Record Audio on the main Recorder interface, or by choosing Capture > Record Audio. This will let you lay in an audio track with your voice narration while recording the screen video. You can also toggle the audio using the first button on the Audio toolbar, which you can bring up by choosing View > Audio Toolbar. Let’s explore this toolbar a bit further.

The next two buttons will insert mouse click and keyboard sound effects whenever you click the mouse or press a key. Done in small doses, they can help convey to the user exactly when you clicked or typed, and depending on the application and circumstances, this could be critical information. Don’t overdo it, though; torturing your audience with the constant clickety-clack of keypresses and mouse clicks is unlikely to win you any fans. Finally, there’s a button on this toolbar I like to call the “panic” button. It instantly mutes all audio recording as well as audio effects. When enabled, all other audio options are disabled. You can also set a hotkey for the mute function, so that you can access it even when the Recorder user interface isn’t visible (see Chapter 7 for more information on setting hotkeys).

All four buttons on this toolbar are toggle buttons, meaning that they can be turned on and off by clicking multiple times. Additional settings for these tools can be found in the Effects Options and Tools Options dialogs, which are discussed in Chapters 6 and 7.

Markers

While not technically a stream, the welcome addition of markers packages another useful set of information in with your video recording, and as such bears mentioning here. Like the camera video and audio narration streams, it too is perfectly synchronized with your screen video. A marker is just what it sounds like: a placeholder in the video that marks something of note. While markers can also be added within

Camtasia Studio after recording has already taken place, they’re often handy at record time when you want to mark a new section or witness other events you want to make note of.

Most people use markers to denote a new topic or some other change. For our own practical purposes, the markers in Camtasia Studio are used for three essential reasons:

• Basic editing. While recording the latest video clip in your project, say you screw something up. Hey, it happens (in fact, for me, it happens often). Rather than stopping and then restarting the process over from scratch, you just insert a marker. This marker serves to remind you, “Hey, I just messed up and now I’m starting over.” When you conclude your recording and move into Camtasia Studio for editing, you can see your marker at a glance and instinctively know to delete everything that came before it. With the aid of markers, you no longer have to go blindly searching for different “takes” inside a long video. You already marked them.

• Setting up a table of contents. Markers can also be utilized to take advantage of a great feature in Camtasia Studio. When recording a lengthy video, say you decide to add a marker for every new topic. When you start editing in Camtasia Studio, all your added markers can be given meaningful names, from which you can automatically set up a table of contents for your footage. When watching your video, as soon as the user clicks the link with the corresponding marker name, the video’s playback head moves immediately to that spot.

• Chopping up a lengthy video file. If you’re recording a really long video, consider adding a few markers at pivotal points. When producing your file, you can tell the Production Wizard to split your video into separate files based on your markers. That way, when circumstances force you to record a marathon session, you can easily break it into palatable chunks. They’re easier to sit through, and the file size is infinitely more manageable.

So, how do we add a marker? You can put this wonderful technology to work for you just by hitting a specified hotkey while recording your video. By default, this hotkey is Ctrl+Shift-M. You can add a marker at any point during recording. So as not to detract from the recording, you won’t hear a tone or see any kind of visual indicator that a marker was added, but as soon as you conclude your recording and bring it into Camtasia Studio, sure enough, there it will be. We’ll talk more about working with markers in Camtasia Studio when we get to Chapter 9, “Working with Camtasia Studio.”

Caution 

As with Camera video, recording markers won’t work if you have the Camtasia Recorder set to record to AVI format. CAMREC files are required to make use of markers at record time, so if you need to make use of this feature, make sure you’ve got Save as CAMREC enabled. It’s located on the General tab in the Tools Options dialog.

The Camtasia Recorder User Interface

By design, the user interface of the Camtasia Recorder window is highly customizable. If you don’t like the Statistics and Properties area of your window, just collapse it. Never use the Zoom & Pan toolbar?

Turn it off, and it won’t distract you ever again. In this section, we’ll talk about adjusting the views and toolbars of the Recorder as well as examine the other elements of your main user interface. To help get your feet wet, below you’ll find an illustration of the Camtasia Recorder window at its installation defaults.

These are the eight main parts of the Recorder’s interface. The image on the left shows the Recorder in its ready state, and the image on the right shows its interface after recording has been initiated:

1. The menu bar. All commands are available from here.

2. The toolbar palette. This palette consists of the Main toolbar (which contains almost all available menu commands and is always present, regardless of the view), and anywhere from zero to five additional toolbars that can be toggled on and off at will.

3. Capture area selection. Clicking this button allows you to select what portion of the screen you wish to capture.

4. Video options. This section provides information about the capture area as well as a link to your video preferences, including frame rates, codecs, and special capture modes.

5. Audio options. This section contains a toggle check box for turning audio capture on/off, a volume slider for setting recording sensitivity, and a link to the Audio Setup Wizard. The recording device and source are visible here.

6. Camera options. This section includes toggle check boxes for recording from a webcam or video camera as well as a preview window for the camera. Additionally, you have a link for displaying camera preferences.

7. The Statistics and Properties area. Depending on the view you’ve selected, this area may not necessarily be displayed.

8. The status bar. You’ll often find helpful tips here when mousing over the various toolbar buttons.

Adjusting Your View

The Camtasia Recorder window is designed to have a small footprint so that it stays out of the way of whatever application you’re recording. Depending on your needs, you have the option of making the window even smaller by only keeping those elements you’re actually going to use. Let’s begin by cycling through the three available views in Camtasia Recorder: Standard, Compact, and Minimal. The Standard view is your default view, and contains all the interface components mentioned in the previous section.

Want to trim the fat? Here’s how to go about selecting a different view:

1. From the View menu, choose Compact. Notice that your Statistics and Properties area disappears. If the information contained in this area isn’t important to you, then it makes sense to choose Compact view, which saves a lot of space.

2. If you want to crunch things down even further, choose Minimal from the View menu. Now the menu bar and status bar disappear, leaving only the toolbar palette. Your Main toolbar is the only absolute must; the others can be toggled on and off as you like.

3. Of course, now you’re left wondering how to switch back to one of the other views now that your menu bar is gone. No worries. The View tool on the Main toolbar contains all the same commands. Clicking the tool itself will cycle through your three views with a minimum of fuss. Alternatively, you can click the tool’s corresponding drop-down arrow and select any command (including the three views) offered by the View menu.

   

When looking over the View options, you probably noticed that you had five additional toolbars at your disposal: Annotation, Audio, Cursor, Zoom & Pan, and Camera. The Audio and Camera toolbars involve the inclusion of additional streams with your video. The other three toolbars are devoted to special effects, and we will cover them in detail in the next chapter. If you open the View menu, you’ll see that check marks appear next to these two toolbars. The check marks indicate which toolbars are currently visible in the toolbar palette. By selecting toolbars from this list (using either the View menu or its corresponding button on the Main toolbar), these toolbars can be toggled on and off.

By default, the toolbars appear in a particular order, but if you don’t like the way the Recorder organizes your toolbars within the palette, you can click and drag on the toolbar’s handle to move it around the palette to a location you like better:

With the exception of the Main toolbar, all toolbars in Camtasia Recorder have a handle with which you can move them around.

Finally, note that your View options sport two other settings, from which you can bring up windows that aid in recording:

• Camera Preview. If you’re recording to a CAMREC file (which is the default), you can bring up a preview window that monitors what your video device (webcam, camcorder, video capture card, etc.) is currently capturing. Obviously, you have to have some sort of video device attached to your computer. You can initiate the preview before the capture begins, but to continue viewing it while recording, you’ll have to have Record Camera enabled.

• ScreenPad. This window will allow you to place graphics on your screen, which you can then record. A pre-established library of graphics is at the ready, and you can also add your own graphic files. While this feature has been largely supplanted by callouts in Camtasia Studio, the ScreenPad still has its uses. You’ll find a full tutorial on the ScreenPad in Chapter 6, “Special Effects of the Camtasia Recorder.”

Other Menu Options

At this point, we have covered the tools available from the Capture and View menus. Obviously, there’s more ground to cover. There are entire chapters devoted to the remainder of the menus, but since we’re talking about the user interface (of which these elements are a part), I’d be remiss in not mentioning them here as well as telling you where to find out more.

• Effects. This is a handy menu for selecting the options of the various toolbars without actually needing to bring those toolbars up. It also includes access to the comprehensive Effects Options dialog. These will all be addressed in Chapter 6, “Special Effects of the Camtasia Recorder.”

• Tools. From this menu, you can instantly launch any of the other programs in the Camtasia Studio suite of applications, as well as Screencast.com, Tech Smith’s video hosting service.

  The Tools menu also offers access to the complete list of program preferences located in the Tools Options dialog. This dialog can also be accessed by clicking the Options button, shown at the upper right, on the Main toolbar.

  

  Additionally, by clicking the tool’s corresponding drop-down arrow, you have direct access to any of the tabs that are part of the Effects Options or the Tools Options dialogs.

  

  To get the skinny on all the fantastic preferences in the Tools Options dialog, be sure to check out Chapter 7, “Recorder Tools Options.”

• Help. In addition to accessing Camtasia Studio’s detailed help files, you have a number of other options such as instructions for getting support, version/upgrade information, and other tools. The Help tool on the Main toolbar will take you directly to the help file.

  

  For details about the various options on the Help menu as well as other resources you have at your disposal, turn to Appendix D, “Getting Additional Help.”

The Statistics and Properties Area

If you haven’t yet adjusted any of the Recorder’s internal settings, then the Recorder window should minimize automatically when recording begins. However, if you pause the action, the Camtasia Recorder window reappears, and we get the chance to view the Statistics and Properties area of the main Camtasia Recorder user interface:

With the Recorder’s Statistics and Properties info, you can tell a lot about the current recorder settings as well as how the capture is going.

Under Statistics, you have the following pieces of information:

• Frames. This is the total number of frames you’ve recorded at this point. If the Report dropped frames check box on the Capture tab in the Tools Options dialog is checked, then the total number of frames dropped due to system load will also be reported on this line.

• Rate. This is the actual number of frames per second at which you are currently recording. If the system cannot handle recording at your specified frame rate (which can sometimes occur if you’re recording animations or other kinds of content where the screen image radically changes), you’ll see this number begin to drop.

• Length. The current running time of your video. It’s an easy way to check how long the current clip is getting. Keep in mind that this displays the actual running time of the video, not necessarily how long you’ve been recording. (It’s important to make this distinction for when we discuss Time Lapse recording in Chapter 7, “Recorder Tools Options.”)

• Zoom. This shows the current zoom level (in terms of both pixel dimensions and percent of original video dimensions) at which you are recording. We’ll discuss zooming and panning in greater detail in Chapter 6, “Special Effects of the Camtasia Recorder.”

• Audio. If you opted to record audio narration, you should see a bar that indicates the presence of sound. To check your audio levels, simply speak into your mic. If nothing happens on the bar, then it’s a sure sign that your hardware isn’t set up correctly, your recording volume is too low, or you have the wrong recording device selected. For tips on troubleshooting your audio, please refer to Chapter 10, “Working with Other Media: Audio, PIP, and Title Clips.”

We also have four additional pieces of information in the Properties area:

• Size. These are the specified dimensions of your video, regardless of any zoom functions.

• Colors. This is the color depth of your video, and usually ranges from 256 to 16,777,216. This value is taken from the color depth of your monitor, not from any setting within the Camtasia Recorder. To change this setting:

  1. Choose Start > Control Panel (in Windows 2000, it’s Start, then Settings, then Control Panel).

  2. Double-click the Display icon. The Display Properties dialog opens.

  3. Click the Settings tab.

  4. Choose a color depth from the Color Quality (or Colors) drop-down list.

  5. To save your settings, click OK, then Yes (or OK in Windows 2000).

  6. If recording from PowerPoint, close and then reopen the application. PowerPoint optimizes its templates based on the current color depth. If you lower the color depth without executing this step, some banding may occur in template backgrounds with color gradients.

Tip 

I generally choose Medium (16 bit) as my color depth when recording. It tends to save a bit on file size compared with 32 bit (depending on your method of compression), and the visual difference is nearly imperceptible.

• Rate. This is your specified frame rate. It is set on the Video tab of your Tools Options dialog (to which I’ve devoted an entire chapter later in this unit). Remember that this value only mirrors your desired setting; it is not necessarily reflective of the actual frame rate (which you can see in the Statistics area).

• Codec. This is the compression algorithm used to compress your video into a manageable size. It will almost always be the TechSmith Screen Capture Codec (TSCC). You’ll have the opportunity to learn much more about video and audio codecs in later chapters.

The Camtasia Recorder System Tray Icon

There’s one final part of the Camtasia Recorder interface you should be aware of. When running Camtasia Recorder, there is a small icon in your system tray that you can use to access much of Recorder’s functionality without ever needing to see the main user interface of the Recorder application. When the Camtasia Recorder window is minimized (whether automatically at record time or executed manually by you), then the system tray icon is the only part of the Camtasia Recorder you’ll actually see. If you decide that you miss the Recorder win dow, you can always bring it back by double-clicking the system tray icon, regardless of whether the application is currently recording, paused, or stopped.

Whether the Recorder window is visible or not, you can access a whole heap of Recorder functions by right-clicking the system tray icon to display its context menu.

The commands you can execute are as follows:

• Control the actual recording. Record, Pause, or Stop.

• Select or toggle any toolbar item. Choose Effects, and then drill down to your desired option. Check marks (for those items that can be toggled) or bullets will display next to any effects options that are already enabled.

• Options. Pick a tab, any tab, and it will launch either the Effects Options or Tools Options dialog, with the desired tab already open.

• Exit. Quit the Camtasia Recorder without even having to bring up its window.

So there’s your whirlwind tour of the Camtasia Recorder user inter- face. Now that you’ve familiarized yourself with the basics of recording and gotten to know how the interface works, it’s time to discuss some “special case” kinds of recording situations where you’ll need to adjust some settings in order for the capture to function correctly.

Special Circumstances

When crafting your videos, there are certain situations that will require you to adjust settings, either within the Camtasia Recorder itself or within the application you’re recording, so that you can execute the capture successfully. Examples of this include games (and other applications that utilize DirectX), media player content (such as videos), and Flash animations. Another special circumstance is that of recording PowerPoint presentations. Because there’s so much to know about capturing PowerPoint, I have split this particular topic off into its own chapter, which you’ll find at the end of this unit.

Recording Games

The capture of computer games is something users have enjoyed doing with Camtasia Studio since its inception, and for a myriad of reasons:

• Game companies use it to create video trailers of their upcoming games.

• Action gamers record their games to document their high score or create tutorials on how to find “Easter eggs” and other secret areas.

• Players of MMORPGs (massively multiplayer online role playing games), such as EverQuest and World of Warcraft, utilize Recorder to make “home movies” of their virtual characters and friends.

Unfortunately, you have a few roadblocks standing in your path. Nothing insurmountable, mind you, but you should at least be cognizant of them:

1. Today’s games are pretty processor-intensive, as is the recording of video content. To record the latest games, you will require a higher end system, which means a fast processor and a heavy-duty graphics card.

2. You may recall reading back at the beginning of this chapter that Camtasia Studio works best when display acceleration is disabled. Well, folks, most current games (at least the really graphic- intensive ones like first-person shooters) require your display acceleration to be on. So there’s obviously a conflict here. Again, a good video card may help you record at a decent frame rate even when your display acceleration is on.

3. The TechSmith Screen Capture Codec (TSCC) excels at encoding most kinds of screen video content. It likes backgrounds that don’t change much, and solid blocks of color with no color gradients or photographic content. Doesn’t sound like your average game, does it? Remember when I said that TSCC should be used almost all the time? Well, this is one of the exceptions. To record our games, we’ll require a different codec, one that plays nicely with cinematic screen content.

These roadblocks aside, don’t let the seemingly stiff hardware requirements put you off. While there are obviously limitations as to what you can do with a less than top-of-the-line system, there are some tricks you can employ to get the smoothest captures possible from even the most demanding games.

Here’s a step-by-step guide to capturing games with Camtasia Recorder.

1. Check to see whether the game in question really does require display acceleration to be enabled. I’ll discuss display acceleration at length in Chapter 7, but for now, let’s just go ahead and turn it off globally, like so:

   1. Choose Start, and then select Control Panel. Double- click the Display icon.

   2. On the Settings tab, click the Advanced button.

   3. Click the Troubleshoot tab. Under Hardware Acceleration, drag the slider all the way to the left from Full to None. Click OK.

      If your game runs fine without it, so much the better.

2. If the game refuses to run at this point, then it does in fact require display acceleration. Turn it back on (repeat Step 1, this time dragging the slider to the right). Also, in the Camtasia Recorder, we need to make sure that Recorder doesn’t disable the acceleration for us. Choose Options… from the Tools menu.

   

   On the Capture tab, make sure that the Disable display acceleration during capture check box is unchecked. Otherwise, display acceleration will be disabled when you try to record, resulting in either a completely black game screen or a spectacular crash. Either way, the capture won’t be successful.

3. While on the Capture tab, there are a few more settings that will make your life easier. Three of them, actually. While these aren’t “have-to” settings, I find them helpful.

   • Pause before starting capture. This setting is handy for making sure that the recording doesn’t actually start until you’re ready for it to start.

   • Report dropped frames. When checked, data will show up in your Statistics and Properties area during recording that shows the number of frames dropped. It’s useful for determining whether your system can handle the load you’re giving it.

     

     Not sure if your system is capturing the game adequately at your current settings? Check to see if you’re dropping any frames.

   • Round frame size to a 4 pixel boundary. Certain codecs can only tolerate capture dimensions where the x and y coordinates are in multiples of four. The TechSmith Screen Capture Codec does not have this limitation, but since you’ll be working with other codecs when recording games, it’s best to keep this setting checked.

   To summarize, this is what your Capture tab should look like:

   

   You can obviously activate the other options as needed, but these are the ones that should be checked at a minimum.

4. There are a few additional things we need to set up within the Camtasia Recorder. First, we need to specify an input. From the Capture menu, choose either Window (to record the entire game window, including the title bar) or Region (to record a particular region; useful for capturing the game but nixing the title bar). If your game refuses to be run in a window (more on this a bit later), then your only viable option is to select Screen.

5. Now we need to set a frame rate, the number of frames per second captured by Camtasia Recorder. This is usually set to Automatic, meaning that Camtasia Studio will capture as many frames per second as the processor will allow. When recording a game, however, you’re going to want a little breathing room so that the game itself doesn’t lag.

   Let’s go back into our Tools Options Video tab, and click the Video link on the main Recorder interface. Then go ahead and click the Manual button, and enter a frame rate into the Capture frame rate field. Usually 10 to 15 frames per second will do the trick, although you may need to experiment to find that happy medium between smooth game play and a smooth capture.

6. As long as we’re here on the Video tab, let’s go ahead and change our codec to one that’s better equipped to handle game content. Codecs may be a completely foreign concept to you now, but not for long. They’ll be covered in full in Chapters 7 and 12. Don’t worry for now; just follow these handy instructions and you’ll be fine.

   Click the Video Compression… button. In the dialog that appears, click the Compressor drop-down menu to choose a new codec. I’d recommend some flavor of MPEG-4 codec, such as DivX, Xvid, or 3ivx. Xvid is open-source and therefore free; the others may cost a bit of money depending on the exact iteration of the codec you choose. Keep in mind that if kept in this format, your audience will also need to have the same codec installed on their machines, so you might want to think about converting it to a more distribution-friendly format later. We’ll talk about this in Chapter 12, “The Production Process.”

7. By clicking the Configure… button, you can specify a bit rate, and can sometimes choose between better compression and faster compression. If the capture makes the game lag, you can try reducing the bit rate and/or opting for faster compression. Different codecs have different configuration settings; feel free to experiment to see what works best for you.

8. If you also want to include the game’s audio, you’ll need to set up the operating system to record your system sound. Just click the Audio button on the main Recorder interface to open the Audio Setup Wizard, and then choose Speaker Audio (what you hear). Full instructions on how to do this can be found in Chapter 10, “Working with Other Media: Audio, PIP, and Title Clips.” Do keep in mind that when you start recording an additional stream, you place extra load on an already taxed processor. Don’t record the audio unless you think it’s really necessary.

9. In an effort to keep the system from choking during capture, it’s important to give Camtasia Recorder as small a recording area as possible. Smaller dimensions mean less load on the processor. Most games support different monitor resolutions to accommodate both high- and low-end systems. A game may look positively glorious in 1024 x 768, but it will certainly capture better at 800 x 600, since it takes fewer resources to record this smaller area. Now, most games offer a Video Options screen, where you can set the resolution directly within the game. If that’s not the case with your game, then we’ll need to reset our monitor resolution:

   Just go to Start > Control Panel (Start > Settings > Control Panel on Windows 2000), then double-click the Display icon^[*]. Choose the Settings tab. Then drag the Screen resolution slider down to 800 x 600, as shown here:

   

   If you try to capture your game and the recording is still quite choppy, you can try taking the resolution down even further to 640 x 480. Note that Windows XP doesn’t particularly like this resolution, and takes extra steps to hide it from you. Here’s how to flush it out:

   From the Settings tab in the Display Properties dialog (where you changed the resolution the first time), click the Advanced button. On the Adapter tab, click the List All Modes… button. Choose one of the 640 x 480 modes, and click OK.

   If you’re capturing a game that supports being opened in a window, then reducing the screen resolution may not be necessary. But it’s important to know, just in case.

10. Making sure that Camtasia Recorder is still running, launch your game. At the game’s title menu, try pressing Alt-Enter to see if the game supports running in a window. If it does, you can try resizing the window down even further to get a better capture. If not, you can still capture the screen, but you have a bit less control over the video dimensions and the portion of the screen you want to capture, as you’re pretty much stuck with a full-screen recording.

11. Press the Record hotkey (F9 by default). If you chose Window or Region as your input, go ahead and select the game’s window or a region thereof. Play the game as you normally would. Stop the recording whenever you wish by pressing the Stop hotkey (F10 by default). Preview and save the file as you would any other.

Recording Media Player Content

People utilize Camtasia Studio for all kinds of reasons. One unconventional (and perhaps unintended) use for Camtasia Studio has been the conversion of media player content from a proprietary format into an industry-standard AVI (as well as several other file formats). Many people attempt to record videos directly from a media player window, but not all succeed. Why? That darned display acceleration is getting in the way again. Depending on the media player, its version, and the content, it doesn’t always interfere. But when it does, it must be disabled or you’ll end up recording nothing but a black screen. You can turn off the display acceleration globally, as demonstrated in the previous section on game capture. However, there’s usually a way to turn off display acceleration within the individual media player instead of having to do so globally. So, if you do wish to keep display acceleration active for general purposes (playing games, using CAD programs, etc.), but shut it down for a particular media player, I’ll show you how to do this for the “big three” players: Windows Media Player, QuickTime, and RealPlayer.

To disable display acceleration in Windows Media Player,do the following:

1. From the Tools menu in Windows Media Player, choose Options…, and then click on the Performance tab. If you have Windows Media Player version 6.4 or earlier, choose instead View > Options > Playback.

2. In the section labeled Video Acceleration (which, depending on version, can also be called Hardware Acceleration), drag the slider all the way from Full to None.

3. Click OK, and then restart your video, recording the window per usual.

To disable display acceleration in QuickTime, do the following:

1. From the Edit menu, choose Preferences, and then QuickTime Preferences (may also be called Streaming Transport in earlier versions).

2. In the dialog that appears, click the Advanced tab. For earlier (tabless) versions of QuickTime, choose Video Settings from the drop-down list.

3. Click the Safe mode (GDI only) radio button. Click OK to save your settings, then click the X in the upper right-hand corner to exit the dialog.

   Note 

   It is unnecessary to disable display acceleration in QuickTime for recording video content from the QuickTime plug-ins for Internet Explorer and Firefox. If your QuickTime movie plays inside your browser, it can be captured, even if display acceleration is enabled.

To disable display acceleration in RealPlayer, do the following:

1. From the Tools menu, choose Preferences….

2. Click the Hardware category.

3. In the section marked Video Card Compatibility, move the slider all the way to the left, from Best Performance to Most Reliable. Click OK.

The actual process of capturing media player windows is fairly similar to that of capturing games. Therefore, please at least skim the previous section. Pay particular attention to the proper selection of a codec, as the same codecs work for both games and real-world video. The default TechSmith Screen Capture Codec doesn’t work well for either. One exception: Unlike game content, media player windows are small and don’t commandeer the entire screen, so there’s no need to adjust your screen resolution. You may freely skip that step.

Caution 

Prior to starting a cavalcade of captures from the various media players, do keep one thing in mind. If you find a particular video in only one proprietary format, there may be a good reason for this. Doing things like format conversions and editing to the intellectual property of others is of questionable ethics and legality, and may carry penalties ranging from bad karma all the way up to fines and jail time. Do your best to respect the rights of the copyright holders.

Recording Flash Animations

Macromedia Flash, for those who aren’t familiar with it, is a wonderful tool for creating animated content. The small size of its SWF and FLV files, coupled with the fact that every major web browser can play them, make it ideal for distribution on the web. The SWF file format has in fact become so ubiquitous that Macromedia Flash is far from the only software program that can create SWF files. Many applications now offer export to SWF, including Camtasia Studio.

But the Macromedia Flash authoring tool can do things that Camtasia Studio cannot, such as animated cartoons, dynamic title screens, and other whiz-bang motion effects. For this reason, I see Macromedia Flash as being complementary to Camtasia Studio. I often turn to the Flash authoring environment whenever I want to add a little sizzle to my video with dancing text, diagrams that fly around the screen, and other really cool special effects.

While a tutorial on using this handy application goes far beyond the scope of this book, if you happen to be familiar with Flash, and you happen to create something in Flash you want as part of your Camtasia Studio video, and you happen to wonder how this can be accomplished, never fear. I can get you the rest of the way there. Here’s what you need to do:

• First, unlike the previous two cases (games and media players), display acceleration may be fully disabled, and it won’t impact your ability to successfully record a Flash movie.

• You also don’t need to actually produce your project to a SWF file in order to record the content with Camtasia Recorder. Recording your video from inside the authoring environment will work just fine. In fact, utilizing the authoring environment is actually preferable in this case because you can adjust the movie’s frame rate (more on this in a moment).

• Unfortunately, the Recorder’s Window capture doesn’t automatically detect the edges of the Stage. You need to select Region, and when it comes time to record, carefully draw your region around the edges of the Stage, like so:

  

  Be sure to make good use of the pixel dimension indicator shown here. Once you have the right dimensions, the frame can then be moved into the correct position by clicking and dragging on one of its handles if the placement isn’t quite right.

  Fixed Region capture comes in very handy here - barring some bonehead maneuver on your part like resizing your project window or scrolling the Stage, you should only have to get it right once.

• Go ahead and start the recording process. Making sure that your playback head is at the beginning of the desired sequence in Flash, press Enter to play back your content. Once finished, stop the recording and save it as you normally would. Poof, done.

Or are you? Recording animated content is still pretty processor-intensive, and even if the Recorder doesn’t report any dropped frames, you may notice in the video’s preview that your content came out rather choppy. And there’s nothing worse than a jerky animation. I’ve seen this phenomenon even with high-end systems. Fortunately, I invented a workaround that takes care of this little problem, and it involves the use of Camtasia Recorder’s Time-lapse feature.

It works like this: In order to make sure that the Camtasia Recorder captures every single frame of your desired content, we’re going to slow down the playback so that the Recorder has a better opportunity to do its thing (I usually make it 1/3 speed). Then, using time-lapse recording, I’ll record the slowed down content at a certain number of frames per second (I usually go with 15 fps, but whatever you’re comfortable with is fine), and then set the playback speed to 3x that frame rate (45 fps in my case). So, you’re recording an excruciatingly slow movie, but when recorded and played back, your video will play the content at normal speed, and completely jerk-free. Clear as mud? Perhaps going step-by-step will alleviate any remaining confusion. Note that these instructions presume the use of Macromedia Flash MX 2004 (basic or professional) or Flash 8. You may need to check your documentation if using other versions.

So, here’s how you record Flash content using time-lapse recording:

1. Launch Macromedia Flash and open the desired .fla file.

2. Click anywhere on the Stage, and then look in the Properties palette. You should see an editable field labeled “Frame rate.” I usually create my Flash movies at 15 frames per second (I believe the default fps is 12). Fortunately, these are both divisible by three. Take your frame rate and divide it by three. This would give me an fps of 5.

   

3. Open Camtasia Recorder if you haven’t already done so. Bring up your Tools Options Video tab. At the bottom of this tab is the Time-lapse capture check box. Check it. Now click the Time-lapse setup… button.

4. A dialog appears that allows you to set the capture frame rate as well as the rate at which the video is played back. In the AVI Capture Rate section, enter 15 frames per second (or whatever frame rate you generally use). In the AVI Playback Rate section, enter a frame rate equal to three times that of your capture rate. For me, this would be 45 frames per second. This produces a dialog that looks like the following:

   

5. Click OK twice. Now we’re ready to record. Start the Recorder if needed, and then select your Stage for recording as previously instructed. Pause the recording if necessary.

6. If you have enough screen real estate, try to position the Recorder window so that it appears next to the Stage, outside the recording area. It’s useful for keeping an eye out for any dropped frames as well as monitoring the developing length of your video in the Length field of your Statistics and Properties area. Remember, this is the length of the final video, which will be three times faster than the rate at which you’re currently recording. As such, one second will tick by in the Length field for every three seconds you’ve spent recording.

7. Begin recording. Making sure that your Flash Stage is the active window, press Enter to start the playback head in motion. Stop the recording and save when finished.

When you play back your video, you’ll notice that the animated effects now flow like water. This is a great technique because it’s easy to do and it doesn’t add appreciably to the file size. In fact, when adding this clip to your overall presentation, it won’t hurt the smoothness of your animation to produce the entire video back at 15 fps (or whatever setting you typically use). However, there are a couple of caveats you need to be aware of:

• When recording in Time-lapse mode, both the audio and camera video streams are disabled, so if you need to add either of these elements, you will need to do so after the recording process, while editing in Camtasia Studio. If you’re working from a script, you’ll want to play back your Flash file several times to make sure the timing is right (using your original frame rate, of course). Make any needed adjustments before doing your recording.

• If you use Time Lapse fairly often, always check the visual indicator in the Recorder interface to see whether you have Time-lapse capture enabled:

  

  Before moving on to other kinds of content, make sure you go back into the Video tab and shut it off, or your next recording is guaranteed to be ruined.

^[*]If you have Windows XP and do not see the Display icon, then the Control Panel is probably in Category View. Click Appearance and Themes, and then choose Change the screen resolution.