Welcome Camtasia Studio 8!

Posted on June 19, 2012 by Betsy Weber

I’ve always had a hard time keeping secrets. I was the kid who in my excitement, would almost always break down and tell someone what I got them before they could open the gift. I just couldn’t wait to share the good news! I still have a hard time keeping a secret to this day. That’s why I’m so happy to share with you the big news… Camtasia Studio 8 (PC) is available today! The Camtasia Studio team has been working hard on lots of new features and functionality so you can create and edit videos faster than before. Oh, and we completely rebuilt Camtasia Studio 8 so you have the best experience possible!

Want to see Camtasia Studio in action? Check out the video and a list of what’s new below.

Can’t see the embedded video? Watch on YouTube.What’s new?

TechSmith Smart Player: Produce easy-to-share videos.
Share high-quality, HD videos that your viewers can watch anytime, on nearly any device. The TechSmith Smart Player is intuitive and detects if your viewer’s device or browser supports Flash. If their device or browser doesn’t support Flash, the TechSmith Smart Player will playback the content using HTML5 – helping ensure that your videos will play. Upload the videos you make in Camtasia Studio to our free hosting site, Screencast.com, and easily share the link or embed it in your blog. The TechSmith Smart Player also helps you engage with your viewers by supporting interactive elements of your videos like hotspots or quizzes. See the Smart Player demo…

Quizzing: Assess understanding.
Discover if your viewers are watching and learning from your content by adding quizzes to your videos. With help from the TechSmith Smart Player, quizzing supports both Flash and HTML5, which allows quizzes to now be taken on iPads, Android tablets, and most Android smart phones. Quiz results are sent automatically to your email and let you know how much of your video was watched by the viewer. Plus, it does the grading for you. Find out more about Camtasia Studio’s quizzing feature in this demo.

Multi-track Timeline: Unleash your creativity.
Construct more interactive and engaging videos faster with multiple video and audio tracks. The ability to easily manipulate items on the canvas helps you create professional quality videos, while encouraging you to use your creativity. Stack different media elements on top of each other, and group content together for cool effects that you can save and reuse. See the new timeline in action…

Asset Library: Create sharp, design savvy videos.
Intrigue your audience by adding a variety of new music tracks, callouts, buttons, banners, and motion backgrounds to your videos with drag-and-drop ease. Designed with assets that work together, the wide selection of themes help your videos look more professional – while you look like a design genius. Check out the new media library…

Animation: Captivate your audience.
Grab your audience’s attention and keep it with animated content that helps guide them through your video. Easily add an animation to callouts, images, videos, and more. By animating content, you can highlight important parts of your videos and make your production more appealing. See how easy it is to animate elements…

World-class Screen Recording Technology: Capture smooth, high-quality video.
Record high-quality videos faster with Camtasia Studio’s advanced screen recorder. Whether you’re recording HD video, a game, or animated content, you’ll get smooth playback – that’s blazing fast, too. Watch a quick video to see it in action…

So, what’s next? Try it! Download the fully functional evaluation version of Camtasia Studio. Watch tutorials on how to use Camtasia Studio 8. After you’ve used it, tell us what you think! We’re always looking to improve our software. Share your opinions. Show us what you’ve created! Add a comment in this blog post or email me.

http://www.facebook.com/lourdeswelhaven Lourdes Welhaven

Can we rotate video files that come in sideways on a PC in Camtasia 8?
- http://johnsrichards.com/ John S Richards
  
  Yes you can!
- r_badra
  
  Camtasia Studio 8 has been released, and it more than addresses this issue. You can now transform and rotate any visual media and animate those changes as well. This functionality has been requested for some time, and we are happy to finally deliver it to you. Thank you so much for your patience while we revamped the Editor.
http://twitter.com/PTSBregenz PTS Bregenz

The best Camtasia ever. All my whishes (and more) come true
Great job, awesome!
- Shane Lovellette
  
  Thank you! The team put a lot of sweat and tears into it!
  
  Best Regards,
  Shane Lovellette
  Product Manager, Camtasia Studio & Camtasia for Mac
Twesely

Will Camtasia ever have green screen tools built into it? if not, what program do you suggest for that?
- Shane Lovellette
  
  We are looking into green screen. It is helpful for us to better understand how you would use it. Would you mind sharing more details?
  
  Thanks,
  
  Shane Lovellette
  Product Manager, Camtasia Studio & Camtasia for Mac
  - http://www.facebook.com/tim.wesely Tim Wesely
    
    I make short videos for my agents at our real estate office, it would be nice to have pictures of the homes behind them as they are standing in the video.
    - Kelly Rush
      
      Cool idea Tim, thanks for sharing! I’ll make sure to pass this along to Shane and the rest of the Camtasia Studio team!
    - http://www.techsmith.com/ Daniel Foster
      
      Hi Tim – Just want to make sure you see the comment I added about green screen coming soon to Camtasia Studio. We’re listening!
      
      If you do end up using green screen for your realtor videos, can you send me a link? I’d love to see your work! d.foster@techsmith.com
Terry Cabak

We require the following specs for our tutorials and Camtasia is unable to provide results: wmv file at 1280 x 720 with data rate of 1500 bps at 20 fps and 22kz mono.. does the version 8 have a setting that will allow us to modify it to get these values? As of now, no setting is available.
- Cameron Flint
  
  Hi Terry,
  
  Unfortunately Camtasia Studio 8 does not support customizing WMV profiles. Our default settings will work with any resolution (1280×720 included), and are chosen for the best combination of quality and file size.
  
  Using the default profile to produce a WMV in CS8, I get a resulting 30FPS Variable Bit Rate (VBR) video stream, and a 44.1KHz 16-bit stereo audio stream. If you need non-default WMV encoding settings, we recommend producing to AVI from Camtasia Studio, then using a third-party conversion tool (FormatFactory, MediaCoder, ffmpeg, etc.) to re-encode the AVI into your desired format.
  
  Thanks for your question!
  
  Cameron Flint
  Software Engineer, Camtasia Studio
http://www.yourchurchloan.com/ Fritz Barnes

There is exactly one new feature that I am looking for. I don’t want to have to watch all the videos to see if it is in there. I know this has been requested repeatedly on your message boards. Green screen. Is it in Camtasia 8 for PC?
- Christian
  
  Right now, no!
- Shane Lovellette
  
  Hi Fritz,
  
  Thanks for your question. No, it is not in Camtasia Studio 8, but it is on our list. How do you plan to use it?
  
  Best Regards,
  Shane Lovellette
  Product Manager, Camtasia Studio & Camtasia for Mac
  - Mark Ireland
    
    I want to be able to superimpose myself onto a screen capture, pointing at various items.
Terry Cabak

If you are looking for green screen go with pinnacle studio now owned by avid
- http://www.facebook.com/Leonardtatum Leonard Tatum
  
  Pinnacle is still working bugs out. It sucks resources like you would’nt believe and there is audio sync problems, they just issued a update for studio 16, hope it works better. I like Camtasia’s ability to make video interactive.
http://www.facebook.com/warwickmerry Warwick Merry

Just trying to find out whether Powerpoint 2010 64Bit is catered for in Camtasia 8 (I have bought it anyway but want to know the short cuts!)
- Shane Lovellette
  
  Hi Warwick,
  
  There is not a 64bit version of the Camtasia PowerPoint plug-in available yet. You can use the 32Bit version of the plug-in if you run PowerPoint as a 32Bit application. We have it on our list to consider a 64Bit version.
  
  Thanks,
  
  Shane Lovellette
  Product Manager, Camtasia Studio & Camtasia for Mac
Al Darby

Just purchased the discounted upgrade to CS 8 and noticed an additional offer for upgrades, maintenance, etc. My question is this, what happens when you fix the bugs you haven’t found? Assuming that happens in the next few months, do I get the update for free, or is there a charge, or am I covered for the first 12 months?
- http://www.techsmith.com/ Kelly Rush
  
  @f8a058c7c1808415b7fd704720751d7a:disqus You’re going to want to contact our sales team to be sure (
  Toll Free: 888.750.0685 ) but in general, if you purchase the 8.0 version of Camtasia Studio, all 8.x upgrade versions (i.e. 8.0.1, 8.2, etc.) will be a free upgrade. Give our sales staff a call though, they’ll be happy to give you the finer details!
  - Al Darby
    
    Thanks Kelly, but I’m in Australia. Any chance they could post “the finer details”?
    - http://www.techsmith.com/ Kelly Rush
      
      Hey @f8a058c7c1808415b7fd704720751d7a:disqus , we don’t have any definitive schedule for the next 8.x release, but I talked to sales, and they confirmed that any 8.x release will be a free upgrade for you, so long as you have purchased 8.0.
      - Al Darby
        
        Tks Kelly. That’s what I expected.
      - Kelly Rush
        
        No problem!
Ben Riseman

I’m confused about the Smart Player – is the player downloaded by the end user? Or do they simply need to meet the technical specifications to play interactive MP4s?
- http://www.techsmith.com/ Kelly Rush
  
  Hey Ben,
  
  Hopefully someone from the Camtasia Studio team will show up and give you a better answer than I can; however, in general, you achieve Smart Player playback through one of two methods:
  
  1. Upload your video to Screencast.com via Camtasia Studio 8 in the production wizard.
  
  2. Produce your video to MP4 with a controller, and put those files on your website.
  
  That’s all that is involved on your end. For the viewer, they would simply need Flash Player installed, or use a device/browser that supports HTML5 playback for video content.
- Shane Lovellette
  
  Hi Ben,
  
  The player is not downloaded by the viewer, except in the case where they are accessing the video using an iPhone. In that scenario, they are directed to get the TechSmith Smart Player from the App Store, and then the video will play. They can play the video on an iPhone without the TechSmith Smart Player, but if there are any interactive features such as table of contents, hotspots, quizzing, or captioning, those features won’t work without the TechSmith Smart Player.
  
  As Kelly mentioned, if you share your videos on Screencast.com, or produce them with the player and host them yourself, then the TechSmith Smart Player will detect how your viewer is trying to watch the content and will deliver it using Flash or HTML 5.
  
  I hope this helps!
  
  Thanks,
  Shane Lovellette
  Product Manager, Camtasia Studio & Camtasia for Mac
Samarn Sumrith

I’m still like Voice narration in CS7 that has Extend current frame button. But in CS 8 not has that button. Can you bring it back?
- Shane Lovellette
  
  Thanks for the feedback! We will take a look at it. There are some improvements that can be made to voice narration. What is your process for creating videos? Why do you need extend frame with voice narration?
  - Ryota
    
    I had the same problem with studio8, no Extend frame button. I am translating videos from English to Japanese (mainly coaching videos using slides) so the Extend button helps me to gain some more time when I can’t explain things fast enough.
David Bynon

Seriously, Techsmith, how can you possibly expect to be taken seriously when you refuse to add green screen/chroma key capabilities to your “video editing studio” software? Your customers, including me, have been begging for this capability for years. Years! So, while all of these other features are nice, and unexpected, you’ve totally missed the mark. Again! I should not have to work in two different software packages to produce a video from multiple sources, but that’s what we have to do with Camtasia. As a result of this lack-luster release, I’m forced to relegate Camtasia as the back-seat player that can record my screen, but do little else. As a result, my upgrade money will continue to go to Pinnacle Studios because it does everything I need it to do except screen capture. Wake up, Techsmith. When you ignore your customers they go away. Green screen is not a “nice to have” feature, it’s imperative.
- http://www.techsmith.com/ Daniel Foster
  
  Hi David – Just want to make sure you see the comment I added about green screen coming soon to Camtasia Studio. We’re listening!
  - http://www.facebook.com/livia.arellano Livia Arellano
    
    I agree with David. I need green screen/chroma key capabilities for PC. Thanks for work in that. I hope this soon…
http://www.facebook.com/tim.wesely Tim Wesely

I agree with everything you said David, What program do you suggest for my green screen needs?
lawrephord120@hotmail.com

if blind hear the sight if deaf see the sound
http://www.facebook.com/BretFerguson7 Bret Ferguson

I have 7 and didn’t mind it with the exception of a couple of minor things, I have no previous versions to compare it to. I bought 8 (before trying it…..BIG MISTAKE) there is no wav file for the audio! All there is when you look at the audio track is something that looks like a shadowed scattered tree line landscape from a great distance. Try editing audio with that! It doesn’t work very well. In my opinion a huge mistake. Also no “undo” button next to the “cut” button! What!? The audio file or lack of a wav file is the big one. Unless they change that I wouldn’t buy, I regret I did unless I’m totally missing something.

The other confusing thing is that the track that says “system audio” doesn’t appear to even have the audio on it! What gives Tech Smith?????
JDF

I have to say that I’ve forever have had trouble with avi’s produced through Camtasia, even with the codec download. I wish I could DL the viewer w/o having to download the entire software. I’ll see if I can view your vids through your own viewer. The trouble I’m having is probably a familiar one to you: No red in the picture, picture doesn’t change(shows one screen throughout), and generally poor playback issues. What can one do to see your output?
JDF

Just for your info, I’ve tried using vlc, windows media player, and windows media center. If a video can’t play in one of these three players, it might not be a video set to ‘ordinary’ standards.
http://www.techsmith.com/ Daniel Foster

Hi all – a number of you asked us to add chroma key / green screen features to the Windows version of Camtasia. We just announced that it is planned for the next minor release of Camtasia Studio 8. You can get details on the TechSmith feedback site.

Also, if you haven’t seen the announcements, we’ve cranked out 4 maintenance releases since Camtasia Studio 8 launched in June, all of them aimed squarely at addressing user feedback and making refinements. Wanna know what’s in them? Check out the version history and a detailed post about Camtasia Studio 8.0.3

Please know that we are listening and working hard to make TechSmith tools exactly what you need!
http://twitter.com/tmiket Mike Taylor

Is it possible to insert a quiz question and prevent viewers from continuing until they answer it correctly?
- http://www.techsmith.com/ Daniel Foster
  
  Hi Mike, great question…this is not currently possible but has been suggested in our feedback forum if you want to +1 the idea and add your own thoughts: http://gsfn.us/t/315mf
Ron Crowley

Camtasia does not have green screen (chroma key) capability? I am looking for video editing software. Camtasia seems to have everything I need, but green screen is a must. I will not purchase something without it. Can someone advise, please. Do they have this capability yet?
- Quiverdaddy
  
  If you can upgrade to a Mac or use a Virtual Box Mac guest, the Mac version has green screen capabilities.
  
  Apparently, TechSmith is a MacCentric company that ported some of its product features to Windows. Don’t know if they plan to fully support Windows in the future, but given the failure of Windows 8 in the video realm, I doubt it would be a good move for them.
  
  I’m considering Pinnacle or maybe a Mac guest on my Virtual Machine. Bummer.
  - http://www.techsmith.com/ Daniel Foster
    
    Hi Ron and Quiverdaddy – TechSmith was actually a Windows-only developer when we launched Camtasia around 2000 but we have added Mac versions of the products over the past several years. There’s not perfect feature parity between the products on each platform but we’ve been bringing them closer together over time. A month ago, we announced that we’ll be updating Camtasia Studio 8 to add green screen / chroma key functionality. See my comment below for more detail: http://blogs.techsmith.com/news-events/camtasia-studio-8-new-features/#comment-762636818
Kevin

So….. I am working on a Windows System and Camtasia 8. I imported a .mov file and an .mp3 file……
First …. when I split the .MOV file the “in” points keep changing. It does not remember at the place of edit.
Second … when I edit and place various parts of the audio (mp3) file along the .MOV video it never remains “synced” When I play back my audio and video never continue to be aligned.
Please …. can anyone suggest some advice. Thanks -Kevin
http://www.facebook.com/peter.greenwood.35380 Peter Greenwood

Whilst trying to record for camera the largest output is 640×480 where has 1280×720 gone?
LondonJohn

Green screen was mentioned ions ago and still no comment or update?
- http://www.techsmith.com/ Daniel Foster
  
  Hi LondonJohn, I posted an update here in January…we’re working on green screen for the next minor release.
fatih

green ccreen yönt4emine nasıl ulaşabilirim
Upset

Please, please please add chroma key to windows!!!!! I bought version 8 for windows believing it was there, but was sorely disappointed to find that it was only in the Mac version… AAARRRGGGHHHH!!!!!
Danilo

Does the other party know you are recording him with Camtasia (we are using webex to communicate)?
- http://www.techsmith.com/ TechSmith
  
  Hi Danilo – if you’re capturing a webinar from your screen the other party will not know you’re recording unless you tell them.