The company I am employed by has recently acquired a new software application in which the original developers embedded some elearning modules. The modules are a combination of static slides and screen recordings. The tool of choice by the developers was Camtasia. I’ve used Camtasia in the past but only for quick, no edits needed recordings of my screen. It works great for that, better than Captivate.
So when the boss told me to edit the Camtasia-produced modules, I initially thought, “Cool. I’ll finally get around to learning how Camtasia works beyond just ‘hit record, stop, and then save as an flv’.
Well, I was wrong. Not quite. I now know all of Camtasia’s features. It only takes about 30 minutes to get intimately familiar with it if you are comfortable with timeline-based apps or any video editing software. The problem with Camtasia is editing is basically not possible. Yeah, you can split video files, slap ‘callouts’ (ie, graphics and text) over top of the videos, and a few other minor features, but that’s about it. And if, during recording, the recordee screws up, you can’t edit it. Not unless the recordee was kind enough to return their cursor/app to the exact spot they were at before screwing up, and then redid it correctly.
Camtasia is cool if you’re a one-person show and you need to quickly slap together powerpoint and/or video captures of your screen, and you’re fine with mistakes or the agony of not being able to edit.
As much as I complain about Captivate, after spending some time with Camtasia, I have a newfound appreciation for it.
Yeah, the bloated BMP screen capture backgrounds, the transparent caption bug, the bloated filesize, and overall bugginess gets on my nerves. But at least I’m able to edit and maintain things that are created with it. Can’t say that about Camtasia.
Do you agree?
6 Comments
As buggy as it is, Captivate is still #1. Camtasia is great whenever you need full-motion captures (which I find I rarely need), but otherwise Captivate is more flexible. However, I think Captivate is also a perennial underachiever… I think it could be a much more robust (and better-looking) product if Adobe put more resources into it. For example, the quiz feature is not quite as good as Articulate Quizmaker 2. Having said that, there isn’t much else out there in terms of competition, so I suppose there’s no fire under Adobe’s butts.
You’re exactly right. I think the ability to edit runtime is the most beneficial feature of Captivate over Camtasia. I love the fact that I can screw up while narrating (a common occurrence for me), then simply edit the audio in post production. It’s why we changed from full motion to screen capture in the first place.
We’re able to let Subject Matter Experts with no experience in rapid development tools create tutorials. I tell them “When you mess up, go back to the last completed sentence and say it again. I’ll fix it for you later.”
Totally agree. Captivate lets me “fix it in the mix” rather than having to nail it the first time. Plus, Captivate is great for simulations as well as demonstrations.
I think you are completely right. I’ve quite some experience with both applications and I very much prefer Captivate. It’s flexible and you can easely create interaction.
I am using Captivate currently in conjunction with Demo Builder. There is an elegance that seems to be missing in Captivate. And Demo Builder lacks some of the power.
I do agree about Camtasia. Nice little program that really misses the mark as a demo and training production tool. And for quick “show me” no edits, you might as well use Jing (by the same folks at TechSmith).
I’d love to know what others are using to build training!
I disagree a little bit of your argument, because I used the Camtasia can not say that I met many requirements, insatisfaz the requirements to be able to modify some things, and with the arrival of 4 Captivate have more innovation and synchronization with other programs as Connect the Pro, Photoshop, LMS fact can only agree alleviates the error occurred in the development.
Fabio Oliveira