Want to see it in action via a Webinar? If you are reading this in time, there is a webinar today at 1PM EDT (and another on March 22 at the same time). Register at Techsmith for these webinars that are supposed to include “real-life examples of how you can use the new Snagit.”

Note that with the launch of the new versions of Snagit, Techsmith is retiring Jing Pro. The free Jing is still available, but Techsmith decided that the Pro features are not better served with Snagit.

The screencast recording functions of Snagit do not include editing but do include easy uploading to YouTube, Screencast.com, and more publication sources. Here’s a quick demo about a Google Patent Fail uploaded to Screencast.com.

• Redesigned editor interface
• Ability to Extend Frames
• Callouts can be animated and customized
• Tilt and restore animations
• Mobile device frames graphics
• Cursor effects (highlighting, magnifying or spotlighting)
• Blur Effect
• Faster production with higher quality output including Flash with HTML 5 fallback

Many of these have been available in the Windows version, but they work differently on the Mac. Since I don’t have a Mac, I can’t test it myself, but see Techsmith’s screencasts below for a quick look at some of the new features.

• Gradients, shadows, and rotation
• Updated quiz templates
• Publishing to MP4
• Ability to publish to tablets, smartphones, and iOS devices
• Single click publish to YouTube option

Also new is a subscription pricing model. Pay $59/month on a month-to-month basis or $39/month with a year commitment.  Captivate is also sold as part of the Adobe eLearning Suite which is now at version 2.5. The suite includes Flash Professional, Dreamweaver, Photoshop, Acrobat Pro, Presenter, and Audition. The Suite retails  for $1,799 ($599 for education version). The Suite is also available on a new subscription pricing plan: month-to-month ($135/month) or per year ($89/month). The new subscription pricing does not appear to be available for education purchasers.

]]> http://www.notess.com/screencasting/2011/06/04/updated-captivate-5-5/feed/ 0 http://www.notess.com/screencasting/2011/06/03/camtasia-studio-minor-update-7-1-1/ http://www.notess.com/screencasting/2011/06/03/camtasia-studio-minor-update-7-1-1/#comments Fri, 03 Jun 2011 20:40:31 +0000 Greg R Notess http://www.notess.com/screencasting/?p=183 Techsmith updated Camtasia Studio to version 7.1.1 last week. The maintenance release mostly includes various bug fixes,but the announcement also highlights:

• Updating the My Screencast.com plug-in
• Fixing the a problem where a lack rectangle or table of contents covers the video
• and incorporated a requested option to show a rectangle around the area being recorded (as opposed to just flashing green indicators in the four corners)

Strangely enough, after installing the update and checking the version number under Help > About, the new version number is 7.1.1 (Build 1785, but it is dated way back to Jan. 13.

If you have Camtasia Studio and have not yet updated, just go under Help > Check for Update to get the maintenance update and then install.

All the more reason to continue supporting, using, and Screenr and Screencast-o-Matic for free, online screencasting and hosting. Here are a few recent examples that I have tried on each:

• Screenr: Google Scholar Settings
• Screencast-O-Matic: Embedded small version below. This is an example for a forthcoming book (more on that later) and includes notes (comments) at two points in the timeline. I had not realized I could add those at Screencast-O-Matic in the past.

Here’s the screencast, embedded. I’ll have to create another one to show how to do this. If you don’t want to listen to the whole thing, the call out annotation is at 1:58.

Or go direct to it on YouTube.

Since the summer, ScreenToaster has been up and down. The site itself has been down at times.  As of Jan. 2011, the site remains, but every time I try to record I just get the recorder down message whether I’m logged in or not.

Strangely enough, other users seem to find ways to make it still work. The “Just Toasted” gallery on the site has several screencasts from Feb., although none seem to have sound.

Meanwhile, I have to wonder about Screenjelly and Veodia itself as well. Screenjelly still works, but check the footers at ScreenToaster, Screenjelly, and Veodia. All have a 2009 copyright date, when they were all most active. Check the ScreenJelly Twitter feed (last post April 2010), Veodia’s blog is empty and the news page has no content since 2008. ScreenToaster’s Twitter account is similarly dated.

As an intermittent blogger myself with long gaps in my activity, I know that sites can return, but when these three have been so long incommunicado, I suspect that it is time to move on. Fortunately, Screencast-O-Matic remains active and has made some improvements (which I’ll cover later). As to ScreenToaster, I am reluctantly saying it is now time to declare it “toast.”

While I cannot test this, lacking ready access to a Mac (and note that ScreenFlow requires one Leopard), based on its own screencasts, it has some interesting editing features and seems to take good screen video and audio. For general library screencasts, the lack of Flash output and the inability to easily add text call outs (as noted by Paul) are concerns.

uTIPu demo: Recorded with their TipCam and using their free hosting. No editing is available. I’ve set the demo to “invite only” which means I just have a URL to share. Since uTIPu does give any embedding code, I’ll not try to embed it in this post.

Webinaria demo: I recorded with Webinaria, added one text call out, and uploaded at the medium quality setting (which seemed disappointingly low to me). I have it set to private, but that just means you need the URL to see it. Since Webinaria does not give any embedding code, I’ll not try to embed it in this post.

FreeScreencast demo: I had to install the Windows Media Encoder to get the Screencast Recorder to work. But once I got that installed, I was able to make this demo. FreeScreencast gives two embed options as well as the link option above: 640×480 and full size. I’m trying the 640×480 embed code below which is still too large to fit well into this blog layout.

Jing Project demo: I’ve created some examples with Jing previously, but to be fair, I wanted to try the same content with Jing hosted at Screencast.com. And here’s the embedded example which I just recorded smaller than the previous one to try to have it fit better here:

Screencast-o-matic demo: And finally, the Java-based Screencast-o-matic can be linked or embedded as well, but I’ll skip the embedding due to the use of Java and the iframe.