Starting from ground zero here. How does Captivate compare to a dedicated screen capture tool like Camtasia? I am thinking I’ll end up exporting work from Captivate to Premiere to do the kind of editing found in Camtasia. Any thoughts on this? Totally new so any answer helps!
Captivate is a comprehensive tool that not only does screen recording but a host of other eLearning workflows. If you only need to record your screen, then Captivate may not be the best tool. I have a YouTube channel where I create tutorials and share them with the Captivate community. For years I used both Adobe Captivate to record my screen to make my tutorials. I’ve also used another product called Adobe Presenter Video Express, which Adobe hasn’t updated since 2017. PVX, as it’s sometimes known, is still available for sale through Adobe, but I suspect at one point it’s going to go away. My main issue with PVX was the inability to record higher frame rates at full HD quality.
With the release of Adobe Captivate 2019, Adobe added the ability to record your webcam while you recorded your screen simultaneously. It sounds like the ideal solution, right? Not for me. Captivate lowers the quality of the resolution and the frame rate regardless of the capabilities of your webcam.
Presently I record all my video tutorials with Camtasia 2019. It’s the ideal tool for me because while I consider myself a YouTube creator, I’m not a video editor. I want something simple to use but still provides me with the quality to record an excellent looking tutorial. I simultaneously record myself on my webcam using the Windows Camera app at HD quality with 60 fps. I import the resulting video of myself and perform all the post-editing in Camtasia. One of my five-minute videos probably takes me a couple of hours to create. My primary role is to teach people Captivate and also design and develop eLearning using Captivate, so I don’t want to spend a significant amount of time making my videos. I’m pretty happy with my current workflow. Check out my channel and look at the most recent videos if you would like to learn more about Adobe Captivate but also see the quality of output that is possible with Camtasia. https://youtube.com/paulwilsonlearning
Have a look at this tutorial, which is a converted presentation (made with Captivate) I offered recently to show what interactivity means:
http://blog.lilybiri.com/interactivity-in-captivate-back-to-basics
Captivate has two ways to record:
- You can create software simulations in different modes (Demonstration, Training, Assessment). That will result in a slide-based project which will have automatically added text containers and – in case of Training/Assessment – interactivities (clicking, Text entry) which can be scored and saved as a SCO (for reporting to a LMS). Besides the Demonstration mode, all other captures need to be published to HTML5, not to MP4, to keep the interactivity. Those projects will have a cptx extension.
- Video Demo is similar to Camtasia, will result in one video timeline. It has a dedicated video editor, but the raw file (cpvc extension) cannot be opened in Premiere Pro (which I regret a lot as well). I did use Camtasia before the appearance of Video Demo. If you publish a standalone cpvc, output will be video (MP4). But I prefer a lot to use video clips embedded in a normal cptx project, or converted to an interactive video. Have some examples of interactive video on my blog.
Hope this clarifies a little bit. Camtasia is an excellent tool for pure video, but as a teacher/trainer I know that interactivity is a lot more efficient in learning assets.
You must be logged in to post a comment.