Camtasia 9

Camtasia is a great application for what it’s worth. It’s really easy to use if you’re just getting into video production, and if you want to make screen recordings or tutorial videos.

If you currently own Camtasia Studio 8, does it make sense to upgrade? For a price tag of $99, I would say yes, basically because the interface and assets got a face lift, and there are a few additional features at your disposal. If you are Mac user however, this upgrade is more of a “must”, especially if you’re looking to publish to SCORM, or want some of the features that were previously only available in the PC edition.

Improvements:

New 64-bit interface has a refreshed more modern look.
Properties panel now available on PC for more fine-tuning of elements.
Built-in callouts and elements definitely much sharper looking.
New “behaviors” that can be applied to a variety of elements.
Some ability to adjust the coloration of your videos.
Project files for PC and 3 for Mac are now compatible with each other.
Mac users can now publish to SCORM, and have all the capabilities that were previously limited to the PC edition.

Content library

In the marketing effort prior to the release, they touted this HUGE content library that was going to be included, which they claimed was worth something like $1000. This was a big fail in my opinion, and when I downloaded the trial I was hugely disappointed at what is actually included after hearing this claim. To further my disappointment, the content library feature is still only available on the PC version. You can download the assets from TechSmith’s website if you are a Mac user, but as far as I can tell, there’s no way to actually import the assets into the application. But again not a big issue for me because there’s not a whole lot in there that I would use. The quality of the content is much better than what was available in Camtasia 8, however.

Summary:

Camtasia 9 is definitely an improvement. The program seems to be more stable, it hasn’t crashed on me once yet. If you are a power user this would be a great reason to upgrade. Camtasia is certainly a good application for it’s intended uses; heck, I own it, and it does come in handy from time to time. However, if you’re looking to shell out almost $300 for a video editing application, and actual video production is going to be your primary objective, IMHO you are much better off going with a program like Final Cut or Adobe Premiere. For those Mac enthusiasts out there, Apple just gave Final Cut Pro X a major facelift around the same time this update came out, and for a price tag of $299, it’s a great bargain, and you will find yourself right at home if your familiar with the MacOS interface and are just getting into video editing.

On the Adobe side of things, Premiere was also just updated with a new “major” release, so if you’re on a PC or Mac, this is also a solid way to go. With the cloud-based subscription model you can start with either a 30-day free trial, or pay $30/month for access to the app.

I’d be a hypocrite if I were to say that this wasn’t a good and useful application. I own and use it, but would never use it for my primary editing workflow. I tried this once and had so many issues I had to re-do my entire project in Final Cut. I would recommend it for screen recordings and tutorials, putting a video in a SCORM wrapper, if you are brand new to video editing and are intimated by a more “professional” NLE, and a few other tasks here and there. It’s easy to learn and intuitive, and certainly useful in the eLearning world. That said, there are much cheaper screen capture tools out there. If that’s all you’re looking to accomplish, and if you already have a more professional editing tool like FCPX or Premiere, I’d probably go that route if I were on a budget.