Getting Started

Camtasia Studio is a simple, easy to learn, easy to use, multimedia authoring package that allows you to produce compellingly useful content with a minimal investment of time and effort.  It is a screen recorder, meaning that it makes it possible for you to capture, in full motion and full quality, any action that appears on your computer screen.  You can also simultaneously record voice narration.  These screen movies can then be shared with your students via the web.

Tutorials to help you get started:

Captioning with Camtasia

The time consuming part of the captioning process in Camtasia Studio is creation of the text transcript of the audio. This process either requires using the speech-to-text feature in Camtasia and then editing, manually typing of the audio track,or using another speech-to-text software package and editing. These options are explored below in more detail.

  1. Creating the Transcript Using Speech-to-Text in Camtasia: It is possible to use a voice-recognition package such as the Microsoft Windows voice-recognition engine integrated into Camtasia or the commercially available Dragon Naturally Speaking to convert the audio file into a rough text transcript. This transcript must then be edited to produce a usable document. This method is generally ineffective for multi-speaker videos or those in which we cannot create a speaker voice profile. A Tutorial on Camtasia Studio's Speech-to-Text Feature

  2. Manually Typing the Transcript with Help from Express Scribe: Express Scribe from NCH Software can be used to effect captioning without prohibitive time or cost requirements.  Typically, the first task in manually transcribing a video is to extract the soundtrack into a stand-alone sound (mp3) file that can be used for transcription. One way to accomplish this is to import the video into Camtasia and export the soundtrack as an mp3 digital audio file: http://online2.sdccd.edu/tutorials/stextract/stextract.html Once the audio file is created it can be used in a manual transcription process wherein a text transcript is created by typing while listening intermittently to the audio file. This process can be greatly facilitated by use of a transcription-optimized audio player such as Express Scribe, available, gratis, from NCH software. Express Scribe allows the audio to played at slower speeds, making it easy to listen and type, listen and type. We have prepared a tutorial on the use of Express Scribe which can be accessed via the link below: http://online2.sdccd.edu/tutorials/express_scribe/express_scribe.html

  3. Creating the Transcript using Dragon Naturally Speaking: Dragon Naturally Speaking from Nuance is a speech-to-text transcription software. A tutorial on this application of Dragon Naturally Speaking is available at: http://online2.sdccd.edu/tutorials/captioning_transcription/captioning_transcription(2).html

Once the transcript is ready, syncing it to the video in Camtasia Studio is fairly straightforward. This is not only an efficient, inexpensive option, but also allows output of the captioned video in highly compatible, web-friendly Adobe Flash format. The tutorial linked below will show you how to sync the transcript that you've created to the video using Camtasia Studio: A Tutorial on how to sync transcript to video in Camtasia Studio

There are other free (Magpie, World Caption) and commercial (Mac Caption, Hi-Caption) captionator programs available. We prefer to use the built-in captionator in Camtasia Studio. Camtasia Studio is available for faculty as part of the Mobile Multimedia Studio, the Personal Video Studio, and on the computers in our SDCCD Online Learning Pathways faculty lab.

Advanced Video Production with Camtasia

Conference Presentations and Seminar Outlines