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Is it just me… or Does Camtasia Suck?
Now – excuse the bold statement… I realize I sound like a scorned lover – but that’s actually how I feel. I have been having a LOVE/HATE relationship with Camtasia ever since it was released.
Now, while I love the ability to turn on the application and start recording my screen so I can put out nifty training videos such as Top Linking Secrets – I hate the fact that Camtasia has been forcing me to do things in a complete counter intuitive way than us Adobe Premiere and Vegas Video users would try to do things.
You can’t select and deete – you need to cut out with a button… odd stuff like that. As expensive as Camtasia and it’s updates are – that is not cool.
And until the latest 6 version you couldn’t even cut audio indepenedently from video. LAME! What took so long.
Try to SAVE AS and you get a blank dialog with no file name – even though it was already saved. STUPID!
Biy I could go on and on about how lame Camtasia is.
Now – add to my frustration the ever evolving and worsening “export options” (produce video as) and you have a minor league application that simply doesn’t belong in the big leagues.
Each version the not only change things – but they remove things and things get more difficult and with less options.
The preset system they have for utputting video really blows big time. NOt only is it difficult to follow – it doesn’t offer some of the options that even a few upgrades prior offered.
I recenetly went form 6.0 to 6.03 and suddenly the video sthat were exported did NOT have “full screen resize” buttons. How lame is that! Even if you selected as an option on export.
A long trail of emails sent back an dforth was about as frustrating of a tech support experience as I have ever experienced. You can’t just read an email and answer with a 1 sentence response that doesn’t even address the detailed questions I sent them.
10 emails later and they finally point me to a difefrent export option – but now – this option does not show the same window inHTML – it’s very lame – a reduced thumbnail of thevideo you need to click an dthen it opens a full size window.
I miss the previous option that had a window that started streaming instantly after filling up 10% of the cache. Mysterioulsly gone….
It’s stuff like that which makes Camtasia and Techsmith one of teh worst and most undeserving tech companies around today.
Unless some other company buys them up – I only see it getting worse. And that is a shame because when it comes to capturing screen videos – it records pretty good.
Well – I needed to get that off my chest. Camtasia sucks and Techsmith is a weak company. I’m unhappy that I must be using the software and am hoping I find another alternative that really delivers what the other pro audio video editing programs offer.
22 Comments »
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Hi Mike!
I can completely relate to what you are saying since I have also been using camstasia. I definitely love the screen recording functionalities. But I do not like it’s video editing capabilities. There are so many video editors out there with much advanced functionalities than camtasia. Well, good luck in finding an alternative!
- Henry
Comment by new media marketing — December 29, 2009 @ 12:23 am
Dude I feel your pain. I’m a final cut user and a client recently asked me to edit on camtasia so he could play around with the edit later. I of course said yes, but man is it a hassle. Can’t add clips without screwing up the audio (had to fix it 3 times), can’t just simply move all the clips at once (one by one), and it doesn’t have nearly enough features for an editing program. Don’t get me started on exporting.
It does record the screen well.
There, I got it off my chest, too.
Cody
Comment by Cody — January 7, 2010 @ 8:04 pm
Definitely sucked… they can’t do it without humidifiers and whole house humidifier
Comment by humidifier — January 11, 2010 @ 1:35 am
Camtasia Studio is good for screen capture but the audio recording SUCKS. Im making a tutorial so im speaking while its screen capturing. I tryed both PCM and MP3. I had the PCM set to the highest settings and I also had MP3 set to the highest settings, but the audio still sounds like ****.PS: Its not my mic beacause it sounds great when recording audio in other programs.
Comment by french arabic — January 15, 2010 @ 11:04 am
Camtasia is one of the most famous program that webmasters use to their tutorials. But for me, it produces not low neither high quality video.
Comment by Harrison Stuart — January 16, 2010 @ 12:36 am
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Comment by cheap ed hardy clothing — January 16, 2010 @ 1:13 am
Mike,
I feel your pain! I love camtasia’s auto zoom feature (or whatever its called) and the way I can easily record on screen but the video editing features SUCK! Alot.
Infact, I’ve even resulted to publishing the movie uncut from camtasia and bringing it into Windows Movie Maker for editing. Funny.
Comment by Maine Internet Marketing — January 19, 2010 @ 5:25 pm
Thanks a lot for this comment..
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Comment by HP0-D03 — January 25, 2010 @ 7:50 am
hi mike,
Things about Camtasia Studio that you should be aware of:
1. The audio editor is horrible and frequently shuts down in the middle of editing causing you to lose all your edits. This was not isolated to a single computer. I had several contacts with support and they all told me that they recommend downloading another audio editor.
2. The pause feature would be cool except that you have to really plan for when you will use it. If you pause during a recording, you naturally have to return to the main application so that you can start up the audio again. However, if you are not slow enough, when you start the audio, go to the site that you are video capturing and then un-pause, Camtasia will sometimes automatically return to the Studio window and put your website into the background. There have been several times when this has happened and negated the entire video capture. I have wasted hours in re-working because of this bug.
In the course of the past year, I have had altogether too many frustrating moments because the application has bugged out and caused me to re-do work multiple times. The real kicker is that there is nothing comparable that you can opt to use instead. I have found this little fact to be disappointing because I would gladly unload this application if I could.
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Comment by dental cosmetic — February 12, 2010 @ 5:51 am
The real kicker is that there is nothing comparable that you can opt to use instead. I have found this little fact to be disappointing because I would gladly unload this application if I could.
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Comment by discount air max shoes — February 24, 2010 @ 3:38 am
It does suck – Screen Flow is better
Comment by Lee Gilbert — March 19, 2010 @ 5:55 am
I haven’t used that software but from your statement I can feel you disappointment on purchasing that software. Again because of this post you can help people to have an insight of what kind of software is that.
Comment by Study in Australia — March 26, 2010 @ 8:20 pm
I understand what you feel about it. I also have the same experience with you. It’s ok that you have made that bold statement.
Comment by Website Designing Dubai — March 29, 2010 @ 6:12 am
Hey Mike…I feel you man. I just picked it up about 3 weeks ago to do a project and I wasn’t too impressed with the functionality. I hadn’t used a screen capture software in the past, but while recording some training videos for my employees to learn how to use my online project management software it wasn’t too bad. I will probably try a few other pieces of software out before committing to it.
If you have any success with any others, please post them here for us to see and try.
thanks Mike
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Comment by Rory Ramsden — May 13, 2010 @ 6:59 am
Camtasia is rubbish. Not only does the export, editing and audio have massive flaws but if you do a google search for “Camtasia audio problems” you get 1,030,000 results.
I swear that some guy developed some sweet screen-recorder then had a large cup of “douch-bag”, found the source code for windows movie maker combined the two, and made it even crappier!
But i suppose im the “dough-bag” that purchased the software and thinks that updating a product might actually fix the problems I was having with it. Cheers Craptasia!
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Comment by cheap nike air max 90 — June 20, 2010 @ 8:06 pm
before I was referred by a friend to use Camtasia. But from what I’ve read from an actual users, I don’t think I will use this. Any good suggestion for alternative? Thanks
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