Recently upgraded to Camtasia 6 and sofar it has been well worth it. The program is a lot easier to use and gives a much better result.
This test is using the new mp4 codec that camtasia says gives a better result than FLV. The file I used for this test was recorded at…
- 1024 x 768
- 15 frames per second
- 75% video quality
The audio has proved to be a lot better than my experience with Camtasia Studio 5. When I tried to export in Camtasia 5 as SWF the resulting audio always had a very annoying pinging noise in the background… thats now stopped being a problem with version 6.
Using the large 1024×768 video size does load slowly, but this is just a test. Probably will use 800 x 600 for tutorials, once I get around to making a decision…. I like the larger size video myself because there a lot easier to view.
NOTE : Found the .mp4 file format was unreliable when used with Shadowbox-js plugin for WordPress. Could have been something I’ve done wrong… just an observation.
Now have .mp4 fil working correctly… it was a code error by me. Have also been able to force Shadowbox-js plugin to play .mp4 files using FLV player controls… nice. This is a great way of playing software demo clips at a much larger viewing size, by using the Shadowbox-js plugin setup. 
This is a test to see if video can be displayed at sizes larger than 640×40. This test used a Camtasia Studio screencapture at 1024×768… a size that I like when viewing video tutorials. Video tutorials at 640×480 always appear too small for me to view properly.
Edited the clip in Vegas Pro 8. Exported file size was 12.7 MB, and goes for around 45 seconds.
If this test works then I will start displaying video tutorials at either 1024×768 or 800×600.
Also hosted this clip on my own web server, ( not Googles ) so the quality of the clip should be a lot better.
Used WMV file format for the video clip.
Cheers Jaron
Update # 1… Blog would not display the video at 1024×768. Not too sure why, but will look into it. Next I will try the basic 640×480 size and see how that goes. The display issue might be a problem with the custom field called “videolink” inside WordPress.
Update # 2… Blog will still not display video that is a direct link to the video on my website. Displays OK when linking to video hosted on Google Video, but not on mine. problem is more than likely an error by me when typing in the code… will check that next.
Update # 3… This update is using an flv flash file. This test worked. Seems that this Blog Template works better with Flash files.
Update # 4… The SWF flash format gives the best results in this test. Only problem is there are no player controls when using SWF files. I think that could be something I’ve done wrong.. will look into it further.
Update # 5… Have now been able to get the player controls to appear underneath the SWF movie clip. Exported from Camtasia Studio as an Express Show then uploaded the “folder” containing all the newly created files.
Update # 6… Finally worked out how to get a good quality screencapture using Camtasia, as you can see from the video clip. Did have a bit of a problem with the audio getting an annoying background noise… ended up being the microphone levels turned up too high.
Joined Bill Myers Website recently… should have gone there first. Found an excellent video on how to get great results using Camtasia. After that it was easy.
How and why you would want to use the noindex meta tag to stop Search Engines from indexing and listing your webpages. For more free video tutorials by Jaron Fraser, go to http://www.problogtips.com
This video clip marks my return to posting video tutorials and articles on this Blog.
Using the “noindex, nofollow” meta tags is very important if you produce digital download products that are for sale off your websites.
These days its very easy for anyone to find your download page and steal your product without payng for it. So why not make it hard for them right from the beginning.
In conjunction with the “meta tags” you need to also pay attention to the name you give your download page. Do not call it…
- download.html
- download_page.html
- download-page.html
- product.html
- product_download_page.html
I think by looking at the names in the list, you will get the idea… dont make it easy for them.
Treat your download page name just like a password, use lots of letters and numbers, like say…
- hgyrteu7569jj65758jjdte76.html
If your still not sure about what I’m talking about… go to Google and type in download_page. You will end up with thousands of links to Products, some for free and a lot that are for sale… except now you can download them for free.
This product theft problem is one of the reasons why I was so interested in using video on my websites in the first place, because it allows me to “BRAND” my digital download products with video of myself in the tutorials. That makes the tutorials difficult for content thiefs to use.
Cheers : Jaron Fraser
