Review: Camtasia for Mac
September 11, 2009
For years, Mac users lagged far behind their Windows-using counterparts in the screencasting department – a sad but undeniable fact. Sure, we had Snapz Pro, which many users still swear by, but ultimately the long-in-the-tooth tool does little but basic capture. Other apps offered some additional functionality, but nothing served up the entire enchilada like, say, Camtasia for Windows.
Everything changed last year with the introduction of ScreenFlow, a beautiful Mac-esque application that provided a full suite of editing tools and effects. TechSmith, the 800-pound gorilla of the Windows screen capture world, had just announced their intention to enter the Mac market, and 18 months later released their much anticipated Camtasia for Mac (an agonizing 8 months later than they had forecasted). Was it worth the wait? Let’s have a look!
Users of ScreenFlow will notice that Camtasia for Mac looks remarkably similar to…ScreenFlow. Which in my book is just fine and dandy – why fix what isn’t broken? I can only thank the gods of software design that TechSmith didn’t try to replicate the interface from Camtasia for Windows, which frankly is an unmitigated mess (I say this as a Camtasia for Windows owner and user). Thankfully they wiped the slate clean for Camtasia for Mac, and this approach paid off beautifully.
Inevitably I’ll want to compare Camtasia to ScreenFlow, but in this review I will refrain from doing so. Watch for a post in the near future in which I’ll compare the two contenders in a head to head battle for screen recording supremacy. Telestream will be releasing ScreenFlow 2 in the next few months, which will make things even more interesting. But back to Camtasia.
Installing Camtasia is a simple “drag to your Applications folder” affair, like most Mac applications. To capture system audio, Camtasia does require the installation of Soundflower, a system extension for OS X, but Camtasia makes this process short and painless.
The first thing you’ll see after launching Camtasia is the recording control panel, and that’s where an initial moment of panic sets in. We Mac users can be a highly discriminating bunch, and we watch for that ferocious attention to detail with an all-seeing eye. And what you see in that initial control panel shows some non-Mac-like sloppiness that makes one fear for the polish of the rest of the app. Note the fuzzed button text and the jagged edges of the record button:
Not a good way to start. While such fit-and-finish faux pas are tolerable (typical?) in the Windows world, Mac users demand a step above. God is, after all, in the details (Mies van der Rohe). Windows users may dismiss such demands as sheer snobbery, but uncompromising quality should be an expectation, not a luxury.
Is this initial stumble indicative of the quality of the rest of the app? Thankfully, no. For the most part, Camtasia for Mac is Mac-tastic joy. Features wise it falls short of ScreenFlow in some aspects and leapfrogs it in others (which, again, I’ll talk about more in an upcoming post), but overall I find Camtasia much more intuitive than ScreenFlow. Effects and editing tools are logically placed and easy to find. Like ScreenFlow, the dark interface helps you focus on the important stuff – your screencast – and not on the editing app itself (Camtasia for Windows could take a lesson here) and gives it that Apple pro app vibe you get in FinalCut and Logic, among others.
Like ScreenFlow, Camtasia for Mac has one capture mode: full screen. Some Camtasia for Windows users may gripe about the inability to capture specific windows or regions, but personally I prefer the full screen approach. Just grab it all and let me choose what I want in the editing process – a level of flexibility that some may underestimate.
Effects are easy to choose, implement and manipulate – just drag and drop the effect you want onto the appropriate spot on your timeline and tweak them to your liking from there. Unfortunately the drag/drop effects elements are unnecessarily ginormous, even on my 24″ display at 1920×1200, which necessitates scrolling through the list. TechSmith could easily make these half the height and retain plenty of visibility while reducing the need to scroll. Note the ability at the top of the list to filter down to a specific effect type: Transitions, Filters and Actions. Nice touch!
A few of the effects fall squarely into the “Just Because You Can Doesn’t Mean You Should” category (an area in which PowerPoint is master), primarily the highly-questionable flips, rotates and spins. Most users will wisely shun these effects, but others will be tempted to use them if only because they’re there. And that makes me sad.
Camtasia also provides the basic collection of annotation tools, including text, arrows, boxes and bubbles:
Like the effect tools, the annotation tool elements are also unnecessarily oversized, which will force users with smaller screens to scroll through the list.
There are a few other nits to pick. One flaw I discovered is in the way Camtasia renders text. Text appears in your screencast with an ever-so-slight stroke and some jaggies, and if you’re like me it’s something you will immediately notice and thereafter be unable to ignore. Below is a sample of what text should look like (left) and what it looks like in Camtasia (right). Hopefully this is something TechSmith can fix quickly.
Resizing the canvas appears to be flawed as well. You cannot grab a side handle to resize disproportionately. Do you want your canvas to be 600×100? Too bad, you can’t do it by dragging. Corners, sides, it doesn’t matter – all resize the canvas proportionately. If you want to deviate from the norm you’ll have to enter a numeric value. Frustrating. Particularly under the “record the entire screen” philosophy that Camtasia for Mac adheres to. If TechSmith wants this to be Mac-like (or even computer-like), the side handles should allow you to resize disproportionately while the corners are used for proportionate resizing.
For me one of the biggest shortcomings of Camtasia is the lack of keyboard navigation in the editor. The inability to jump around the video timeline via the keyboard (Home, End, etc.) is a real workflow downer. This needs to be fixed.
One feature with which Camtasia kicks sand in the face of ScreenFlow is SmartFocus, which automatically zooms in on the relevant action, sparing you the time and hassle of doing it manually. A killer feature to be sure.
Sharing your final video is a snap, with Camtasia providing one-click publishing for iTunes, Screencast.com and YouTube.
You can also export to QuickTime with a single click or select another format (AVI, DV stream, etc.) under the Advanced Export option, though I found AVI publishing to be problematic under Snow Leopard. Problematic as in I couldn’t get it to work. At all. Camtasia gave me a progress bar to indicate that things were going swimmingly, but after completing the process there was no AVI file to be found.
Upon completion of the export process, Camtasia gives you this handy little dialog box that allows you to reveal your exported file in the Finder. Another very nice touch.
Ultimately Camtasia for Mac is a beautiful piece of software that is intuitive and enjoyable to use – and bargain-priced at one third the cost of its admittedly more features-rich (but ugly and clunky) Windows comrade. Does it suffer from the typical version 1.0 rough edges? Yes, but not as many as I expected. TechSmith did a fantastic job with this initial release. Despite the need for a little spit polish here and there, a handful of bug fixes, and the addition of a few features found in its primary competitor, ScreenFlow (and perhaps a few from Camtasia for Windows as well), Camtasia for Mac is a solid addition to any Mac-based eLearning developer, presenter, or screencaster’s quiver at a no-brainer price.
A free trial is available, so go grab it, kick the tires, and let me know what you think in the comments section below (good, bad, ugly). Comparisons to ScreenFlow by seasoned users of that application would also be appreciated.
My hat is off to TechSmith for an impressive initial foray into the world of Mac software, and I look forward to seeing how Camtasia progresses, as well as the arrival of other products (ahem, Snagit) they have in the pipeline.
Posted in Apple, Reviews, eLearning Development Tools
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September 12th, 2009 at 5:06 am
Chris,
Great review. You have an eye for detail that’s for sure. I didn’t catch the Record button or font issues. You must have younger eyes than mine
TechSmith has done a great job with Camtasia for the Mac. It puts it’s ugly duckling sibling on the Windows side to shame. Having been a Camtasia/PC users since version 3, I’ve always thought it was a cobbled together Windows Movie Maker app. It’s a mess that they thankfully fixed for us Mac users.
I’ll be looking forward to your ScreenFlow comparison. As a registered owner of both applications, I think there is a time & place to use both. While I do have my own personal preference, in my review at http://www.skillcasting.com/comparison-camtasia-mac-vs-screenflow/ I ultimately think THE CUSTOMERS win this one. It’s great to have a choice and healthy competition in the market among two great products. WE win this battle because both companies have produced great apps at a fair price.
[I hope Adobe is listening to that last comment about a great product at a FAIR price for their upcoming Mac Captivate product]
I look forward to both our reviews when the new ScreenFlow launches. In the meantime, happy screencasting.
Scott
September 13th, 2009 at 4:57 pm
Thanks Scott. Your head-to-head comparison of Camtasia and ScreenFlow is great. ScreenFlow certainly offers some compelling features over Camtasia (the onscreen keyboard effect is great). It will be interesting to see what other goodies ScreenFlow brings to the table with their next update.
And you’re absolutely correct: the winner in this battle of software apps is us, the users.
September 14th, 2009 at 11:39 am
[...] Here is a great review by eQuixotic [...]
October 1st, 2009 at 6:08 am
Great review Chris. I have used ScreenFlow previously and am excited about the upcoming V2. You are right, Camtasia for Mac is very similar. I have not checked it out until now. But I have been dying for this for a minute as using Camtasia through Parallels did not allow me to grab my Mac screen. I used ScreenFlow for that anyway. But seeing as how the Mac version is only $99, methinks that I shall grabbeth it. I will definitely be checking Scott’s head to head review. Do you have any examples online here of things that you have created in ScreenFlow vs Camtasia for Mac?
Robert K.
October 26th, 2009 at 4:38 pm
[...] Summer/Fall 2009 is turning out to be a golden season indeed for Mac-based screencasters and eLearning developers, with Telestream releasing ScreenFlow 2.0 today. This Mac-only screencasting app goes head-to-head with the recently-released Camtasia for Mac, which I reviewed last month. [...]
November 19th, 2009 at 10:04 am
[...] also-horrible UI of the Windows version of Camtasia and designed a beautiful Mac-like interface (as covered in my review of the application). Adobe, in contrast, is taking a more middle-of-the-road approach. Rather than create a Mac-like [...]
February 9th, 2010 at 7:30 am
Hi all,
Just wanted to let you know about my own experience of ScreenFlow 2.0 and Camtasia, I think you may read this with interest, particularly when dealing with Telestream, the company behind ScreenFlow.
I was recently given the task of selecting some screen casting software for my company, we have over 129 goegraphical sites throughout the United Kingdom and are the largest company in our field. We wanted to allow the managers to produce their own training videos for the many staff we have and reduce the time on the road for our trainers and managers visiting the various sites.
I realised this could be done by producing a centralised resource of training videos, and so initially I both trialled and then purchased ScreenFlow V2 (SF), having being very happy with the performance and functions available in SF during the trial.
On the day I purchased SF, on their website they had a banner running which said that when you bought SF, you got a studio version of Flip4Mac as well for free, so price for price this swayed me that SF was a better deal than Camtasia.
Upon downloading the software I noticed that there wasn’t a link to download Flip4Mac which should have been a free download. I queried this with the publishers and was then told that the free deal finished in December 2009, even though I had seen the banner that morning (Feb 2010) and asked them to honour the deal as this had influenced my purchase.
Firstly I was made to feel like I was lying about seeing the banner, being asked to provide a screen shot, which I did, then after several e-mails backwards and forwards it became obvious that ‘Telestream’ the suppliers of screenflow were not going to honour their offer, even though it was their mistake by leaving an old banner on the website.
Anyway to cut a long story short Telestream, promptly refunded the money rather than admit an error and just supply the free software which would have cost them a few cents.
Instead they decided to lose a previously happy customer who had not only already bought non-studio versions of Flip4Mac at home, but who was also looking to recommend and purchase more of their software for his company.
We all know the customer isn’t always right, despite the old saying, but in this case I feel justified in saying that the advertising error was on their part and with a smallgesture of good will they could have kept me as a happy customer.
For really poor after sales service alone, I wouldn’t purchase from Telestream ever again. Perhaps Telestream will learn a lesson from this, notably that you need much more than a good product, you need great customer service, and “Usually the customer is right!”.
I don’t know what laws apply in this instance, but certainly in the UK where I’m from, if you advertise something incorrectly then you normally have to sell at that wrongly marked price, or incorrectly worded offer.
The plus side ….
I did lots of homework and after trialling it decided to specify Camtasia for our large company, and whilst I know it doesn’t do everything ScreenFlow does at this moment in time, it does do things that ScreenFlow can’t, as the old english saying goes “It’s swings and roundabouts”.
One thing I would say is that I find the workflow using Camtasia for Mac brilliant, our company is loving the stuff being created, and with truly professional looking results.
The facility to publish your edits as Flash Video, where the software creates all of the html and supporting files for you automatically is also genius, it takes me seconds to export the data and upload it on to our web servers, what a great and useful option!
As a company I can say without reservation that we are looking forward to future releases of Camtasia for Mac, and our training productivity is at an all time high!
February 9th, 2010 at 8:59 am
Hi Craig, thanks for your feedback on your ScreenFlow experience – it’s unfortunate that Telestream chose to resolve the issue that way. You had a legitimate argument, and you’re right – it’s never a good idea to snub a customer who has a legitimate argument. Frankly I worried about the future of ScreenFlow when Vara Software was purchased by Telestream. Fortunately they have continued with development of the application (and have done a fine job of it), but I suspect Vara would have handled your issue better than Telestream did. It seems customers tend to suffer in corporate acquisitions.
Regarding Camtasia for Mac, I’m glad you’re having success with the tool. It is a fine product, especially for TechSmith’s first real foray into the Mac software world, but I must admit I’m disappointed with their continued development. It’s been 5 months since the release of the product and we’re still sitting at version 1.0.1. I had hoped to see a more aggressive approach to updates from Camtasia (again, since this is their first major Mac release). They still haven’t fixed the text aliasing problem I mentioned in my review, which in my opinion is something that should have been fixed immediately after release. The lack of any major updates for a v.1 product in such a long period of time is disconcerting.
February 10th, 2010 at 4:10 am
Hi all,
Just a follow up to my previous posting, as I’m a firm believer in fairness and giving credit where it is due.
My previous posting was forwarded on to Telestream the producers of ScreenFlow, and as a result I got a very nice and highly apologetic email reply from them admitting that they handled my issue poorly and that they would be addressing this with the departments concerned.
Whilst it should not have come to this, I do want to acknowledge that they have made a concerted effort to make amends for their error and held their hands up to it, and good on them.
They also made a kind gesture of good will, which I have also accepted, and I now consider the matter as having reached an amicable conclusion.
I thought it only fair to let everyone know that my previous experience may have simply been a rare lapse on their part, caused by new members of staff within their organisation not knowing what the correct procedures were, and they have assured me this will be corrected.
As a result my faith in good customer service from Telestream with regard to the ScreenFlow product has been restored, although I will be continuing to use Camtasia for the time being, as I’m very happy with that particular product.
All the best
Craig
February 10th, 2010 at 6:51 am
Way to go Craig. It’s good to see that companies actually DO still respond to customer satisfaction needs.