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The Camtasia interface (shown in Figure 1) has remained largely unchanged. For the most part, that's a good thing. I'd like to see more polish to the timeline and better control as well. If you're used to a video editing application like Sony Vegas, you'll find the timeline in Camtasia to be a bit awkward, but it gets the job done.
Figure 1 - The Camtasia Interface
One area that has improved is the screen recorder. While you are recording, you have access to VCR-like controls (see Figure 2) that make it easier to pause, stop, or delete the current session. You can also control input levels from the microphone. You can also drag and drop the recording region to a new position on the screen. With this level of control, it's very easy to pause recording, reposition the recording area, and then pick up recording again without having to open another interface, etc.
Figure 2 - The recording screen now contains VCR-like controls.
Once you've finished your recording, Camtasia adds it to the clip bin if you choose. (You'll actually be prompted after recording and you can choose any one of several tasks.) You can then drag and drop your various clips on the timeline and begin building your presentation. This is one of the areas where Camtasia 4 makes substantial improvements over previous versions.
All of the weird timeline anomolies from previous versions are gone. For example, in Camtasia 3 I would often see the waveform for the audio track simply disappear when splitting tracks. I've worked in Camtasia 4 for a significant amount of time now, and I've never seen that happen. In fact, the timeline has been rock solid stable, and I'm very thankful for that. It gives the entire tool a better feel.
Another area where huge improvements have been made are in audio. TechSmith obviously realizes that there will be a broad spectrum of audio sources in recordings. For example, it's not uncommon to split a production into several recording sessions. That doesn't present a problem as long as the audio is recorded at exactly the same level in each session, but because you're not likely to be recording your presentation in a professional studio, that's often not the end result. More often than not, you will end up with levels higher in some sessions than others, and when you stitch those sessions together, you end up with a less than optimal viewing experience. Another problem is having two audio sources (such as when recording more than one voice) and having one voice louder than others.
New in Camtasia 4 is the ability to even out volume levels on the timeline. You can easily level out all audio levels by simply checking a box as shown in Figure 3. If you are interested in tweaking the results, you can click the Show Advanced Options link and adjust the ratio, threshold, and gain of the audio sources.
Figure 3 - Audio enhancements in Camtasia 4 are vastly improved.
Another common problem with computer screen recording is background noise. In my case, I have a rather loud box because of all of the fans running. That results in a rushing air sound in my recordings. Camtasia 4 can remove all of that background noise (and other constant background noise as well) with the click of a button! Simply click on the Remove Noise button and Camtasia will analyze the audio track and remove the noise. This is a non-destructive action, so you can undo the result if you don't like it.
In my experience, this feature works wonderfully. In fact, I've used some extremely expensive noise removal filters in my life that don't work any better than Camtasia's noise removal feature. I was pleasantly surprised at how great the results were, and the impact it makes on your presentations will be remarkable.
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