Blue Sky On Mars

Kevin (and anyone else reading this_,

I’m the product manager for Camtasia Studio… and an owner of a mac mini. And, yes, I wish Camtasia ran on OS X.

We’ve been trying to build the business case for such an effort for a while. We’re trying to answer questions like:
- Can we make the development time and money pay off?
- Would it pay off more than spending the same time and $ on a linux version or improving the windows version?
- Would mac users evangelize the software to potential customers (PC and mac)?

If anyone knows of windows software companies that built a mac version and thrived — or even better, has contacts with such companies — I’d love to know.

Any arguments, ideas or suggestions would be greatly appreciated. Probably sending them via the “feature request” link (http://www.techsmith.com/company/contact/productfeedback.asp) will get more visibility inside TechSmith. Just sending emails to me is welcome, but limited in exposure.

Troy Stein
Camtasia Studio Product Manager
t.stein at techsmith dot com

Tazzz,

I found out quickly because all of a sudden we had a spike in our request for mac versions. I asked the people who filled out the web form where they found out about Camtasia and they pointed here.

FWIW, I’ve been watching screencastsonline.com on my ipod. Very cool. Makes me wish, even more that it was all done with Camtasia.

Would most people actually need an editor? Couldn’t they get by on just a recorder with a few iMove / FCP plugins to help with the editing and production?

Troy

Hey Tazzz,

could we chat via email, sometime? TechSmith is looking for developers with skills in your area of Web 2.0 stuff. Could I pick your brain? Even see if you’re interested.

t.stein at techsmith dot com.

Please Please Please make a Mac version of Camtasia!

I really would like a Mac version of Camtasia. Snapz is nothing compared to the quality of Camtasia…… I guess i’ll have to stick wth Snapz for now!

[...] Yesterday, I had an excellent time meeting with folks at TechSmith. You may remember that a few weeks ago, I urged people to pester TechSmith about a Mac version of their wonderful Camtasia product. A few emails with Troy Stein, the Camtasia product manager, later and I was off to meet with them to discuss a wide variety of things going on at TechSmith. [...]

HI Everyone

Well, Ive herd wonders of this ‘Cantasia Studio’ software. I urgently need a software that allows me to record my screen. I understand there is not yet a version of ‘Camtasia Studio’ for OSX, but is there any other program that has the same function?

-Abner

I wonder how fast/slow could run camtasia in a windows installation inside virtual pc

Like the rest, I’m very interested in a OSX version of Camtasia,
It’s great to see folks like Troy seriously considering such things!

Thanks Troy

Camtasia does a wonderful job in the Windows environment, a version for the MAC would be a killer ap.

i just really need a screen recorder for mac that runs smoothly enough.

thanks!

If Camtasia were available for Mac OS X then we (Typefi) be definitely be a customer. As someone responsible for our training and training materials, I would love to be able to easily produce self-paced guided training videos on both Macintosh and Windows platforms. The best Mac-based ’solution’ that I’ve found for mixing screen captures from Ambrosia Software’s SnapzPro X is using Totally Hip LiveStage Professional, but it’s complex, expensive ($500), and incredibly time-intensive. So please, please, strongly consider developing Camtasia for Mac OS X. Have you ever talked with Apple’s Developer Relations? They can be an incredible resource if you get in touch with the right people.

I support academic technology in the Higher Education sector. Our user base of 75,000 faculty, students, and staff translates to the need to be cross platform in everything we consider. If we do not have a cross platform solution our support costs skyrocket or our productivity dwindles.
We have a number of Colleges using Camtasia with good results. When that happens, often, other colleges follow. However, without the cross platform solution we are finding that Camtasia is not penetrating other Colleges.
Ideally, Camtasia would be able to capture the audio and video feeds (it would be nice to support at least two feeds) from a PC or Mac and transcode them into QT, WMV, Real and others in real time and finally drop them into a remote directory to move into the enterprise digital media environment. Camtasia essentially does this on a PC now. In fact, we can go from classroom lecture to streaming media and downloadable podcast on a course website in well less than an hour. The entire process is automated except for hitting start recording and stop recording.
If you were cross-platform you may find that it actually increases your PC sales as well as the additional Mac sales. You are certainly leaving PC on the table in our sector.

If Camtasia were a Mac app, I’d definitely buy a copy. I use the PC version already, and need Snapz Pro X for my Mac. A couple of feature requests:

1) Figure out a way to make it un-processor intensive and still high quality. Not every Mac that I use for screen capture can be a dual G5 like my editing machine.

2) Podcasts are big right now – there are a bunch of podcasts that deal with computer tips (excel, photoshop, etc) – make an easy way for people to add their audio bits, a graphic or two, voiceovers, and then publish it as their podcast.

3) A simple editing interface that lets me trim the beginning/end of my clip before it gets exported – that way I don’t have to waste time exporting extra video of me screwing up.

4) I’d like the option of seeing a permanent icon (except when recording) in the toolbar at the top of the screen so that I can quickly access the application.

5) I’d like to see it cost $199 or less.

6) I wouldn’t mind seeing a Mac/PC hybrid disk, so that if I buy/update, I just have to pay once – its worth paying a little extra for.

Great feedback everyone. Thanks!

I was playing this week with iMovie just could _not_ get it to retain the quality of screen-recorded content. I think if we did a mac version, we’ have to do what Ben suggests, which is to offer some editing outside of iMovie or Final Cut Pro.

What would people think about the approach Ben suggests above:
“A simple editing interface that lets me trim the beginning/end of my clip before it gets exported”

If we offered a streamlined editor, would Mac folks be offended that it wasn’t as robust (initially) as the PC version?

Thanks everyone for the feedback!!

– Troy

Hi everyone,

We could use a bit more information to help us make a decision on the mac version. Would you be so kind as to answer 7 quick questions on this survey for us?!

http://www.zoomerang.com/survey.zgi?p=WEB225KKUB3JMP

It would be a huge, huge help!

Thanks a bunch!

-Troy

I filled that out Troy, thanks!

Hi Troy,

Thanks for your feedback on this board.

I hope a Mac version of Camtasia gets approved and that something is rolled-out
soon.

Mac isn’t what it used to be — it’s consistently eating into the pc market. Camtasia would
sell for years to come in this expanding market — and it would be promoted in newer
and creative ways because Mac users put a fresh, cutting edge twist on things.

This would be a win-win.

Thanks.

Lynell

Camtasia Studio for the Mac…

I’ve been a big fan of Camtasia Studio since I saw it demo’d at the Conference on Instructional Technology four years ago. Camtasia Studio captures screen activity to which you can then add titles, callouts, quizzes, and export the final……

I will be moving to a Mac soon and one of the big, big losses will be Camtasia!!

Lynell, Elaine and all,

thanks for pushing us in the right direction. I’ll post more updates when I have something fun to show you.

Troy Stein
Camtasia Product Manager

I enthusiastically vote for a Mac version as well!

In the meantime, has anyone tried using Camtasia on an Intel Mac running either Parallels Desktop or CrossOver? Might be a temporary solution even though it means running it under Windows…

Hi Brian,

we have Parallels installed on a MacBook Pro and Camtasia works perfectly with it. Only problem is you can only record Windows. Camtasia can’t reach outside of the Windows sandbox… yet.

Troy

I would very much like to see SnagIt for Mac OS X. I think this would be a good start
since it is a smaller market. We have more SnagIt licenses here in my department than for Camtasia. Most of us need a nice application to record video and audio from the screen or Realplayer streamed videos. Currently we use SnapZ Pro and Wiretap for our Macs and would like to see a good alternative that can do what SnapZ and Wiretap do.

Hi Troy,

I am a great fan of Snagit and Camtasia products!

I have discovered them a few years ago and every new place I go, I try to encourage people I work with to use these applications. Now I work with a group of “mac” people. I would love if they could have a mac version of Camtasia so that we could share our work more easily!

Evelyne

I am an avid mac fan and I believe that there is a tremendous opportunity for Camtasia on the OSX platform. I have been asking for it and I am still waiting. Please consider this option, it does make business sense.

We have also been researching the possibility of a Mac version of Ignite. Can those of you in the community comment on exactly what you would use a rapid-capture tool for, from a business application perspetive that is?

What we’re after, much like our friends at Techsmith, is how many organizations would adopt a tool like Ignite as a standard, resulting in volume purchases that would justify the developmental expense.

jholth at scate dot com
VP Product Management

We are currently purchasing licensing for Profcast to capture create powerpoint with audio cast for the purpose of informaiton pushing, training, and remediation. Profcast works on a mac and integrates niecely with garageband. I understand this software is being used by higher education institutions as well. Check out Stanford University and itunes universitycasts.

As Director of our Instructional Technology Center, we help college faculty and our students learn to use new technology and software, often by creating screencasts which they may access on-demand. However, we also need to create screencasts that show they how to perform certain operations on a Mac.

Profcast is not sufficient for our needs. If I only want to add audio to a PowerPoint, I can do that within PowerPoint. And, save as a PowerPoint show or a QuickTime movie.

As everyone else has said Snapz Pro is less than comparable to Camtasia. And, running Camtasia under Windows on my Intel-Mac does not solve the problem of creating tutorials for Mac processes and software.

Camtasia for Mac would be a dream come true!

Hi Everyone,

great to hear from you! Thanks for all the insights. I really appreciate them!

Out of curiosity, is there any need for SnagIt’s image capture and editing capabiliities on the Mac?

- troy

t dot stein at techsmith dot com

Hello Troy,

This is the killer app of the future for Camtasia. We are setting up a video pod cast classroom that has a smart board. OS X Leopard server is coming out with “Pod cast Producer.” This will be a QuickTime streaming server / process that enables one button pod cast publishing to the server. The server is set to specific profile to convert the video to QTS and then it handles the conversion and publishing to the web of the pod cast. This system will be awesome because it will be extremely easy to use and make it possible for a professor to be trained on how to press the record and publish buttons, independent of having a staff person there to help them all the time. Camtasia would be awesome if it was integrated into the work flow.

1. Start Camtasia on Mac
2. Press Record
3. Record Lecture
4. Press Stop
5. Press Publish

Ideally, it would be great if you could add some metadata for the server to pickup when it makes the RSS feed. But that may not be needed, if podcast producer works at the user account level and that can be setup in advance. It would also help, if Camtasia could also record the camera.

PLEASE make Camtasia for the Mac, so I don’t need to soil my lab with a PC. Oh, you better get on the Mac bandwagon now because I have been using Vista for a couple months and it is a big pile of feces that is probably going to put a big nail in the coffin of Microsoft, and heck I like Bill Gates more than Steve Jobs, i’m just a realist. Vista is 100% bad software. I have the latest version and it still can’t even find certain hard drives on computers. I’m talking about brand new hard drives that work in windows xp just fine.

Keith

Did some more research. What Camtasia will need to do is actually send a mac OSX screen into a virtual webcam. Basicly the same thing that is being done with live output support in the windows version.

Looks like you guys have a real need here. Time to look in to dedicating resources.

We already have dedicated multiple resources to it. And its coming along well… We’re just trying to round out the feature set.

– Troy

Keith,

thanks. We met with the Product Managers and VP from Apple last week re: their podcast server. There are some really good opportunities there. Drop me an email if you’d like to know more.

Best regards,

Troy
t dot stein at techsmith dot com

I love Camtasia for Windows and want to build demos for Mac. Any news on an OSX version? I’d be a great beta tester! Alice.

I just filled out the survey. I’m in as soon as it is available.

Internet marketing forums the world over have been full of threads about “Buying a new computer. PC or Mac?”

The Mac often wins, with the exception of two things being unavailable:
XSitePro, and Camtasia.

Build it and I’ll bring buyers. Make an affiliate program and you’ll get MORE buyers in this market segment.

I can hardly wait for the Mac version of Camtasia. I’ll even enjoy a “light” version of the software .. for now

I’m extremely disappointed in TechSmith still not having ANYTHING for the Mac, esp.after all the emails and surveys. They’re missing the boat, since I saw another cool looking screen cap app at the Apple Store the other day (almost bought it, since I don’t like Snapz Pro).
My company just asked me to produce training for a new client request system we developed, using my new Mac, and I really can’t since the Dell laptop I have as well has a real crummy video card (can you say screen trails all the time?), crashes and restarts constantly, and is really only good for email and web surfing. So, what’s a guy to do?

Bring in my HDV camera I guess and shoot off the screen. Being also a software defveloper, I understand the WINBLOWS market is bigger, but customers are customers, and we develop for the PC and Mac, though we sell a lot more for the PC. But we still make money selling for the Mac.

C’mon TechSmith, get with the program.

Troy – start by just giving capture ability. We can edit with iMovie

Yes, I’m sure that developing for a new platform takes time. But, since they’ve been developing for Intel all this time, it should be easier to develop for Universal (or Intel only on Mac), then in the old days of PowerPC. But I could be wrong. My point is, with another inexpensive app I use all the time, there are programmers who don’t even work for that company, and who have mostly been programming for Windows, but seem to be able to make Universal apps that add to the functionality of the software..sometimes they’re apps, and sometimes plug-ins. And these guys usually get stuff done in a matter of months, not knowing how many people will buy their program.

Gary, there is a _huge_ difference between developing apps and/or plugins, and developing fully _commercialized_ apps. The design has to be finalized to appeal to the widest possible audience. The development cycle must be scoped and funds/resources assigned. While development is occuring, support, marketing, production, pricing, packaging, distribution, etc.. also have to be developed. Finally, the application and all of its supporting cast need to be alpha tested, beta tested and finally released. Its gotta work as perfectly as possible the first time, or the press will eat you up, and support calls will scavenge what’s left.

All of the above must be weighed and prioritized against using same resources to advance the core product, which in Techsmith’s case, is the PC version, a MUCH bigger market of course.

I’ve been a part of a commercial MAC development project, and frankly, while it got us notoriety, the end result was dwarfed by the global popularity of the PC version. In fact, what it really got us was GUI development experience while we waited for MS Windows to stabilize. Cruel fact, but true.

Don’t get me wrong, the MAC is a wonderful platform, and if I had my druthers, I’d have a commercial version of Ignite 2006 on the market for MAC yesterday. But for now, we have to pick our battles, and that is clearly the business market, and that is clearly the PC for now. More resources in the future = Mac version a no-brainer.

Can’t wait until can branch our app to the MAC! But that’s a ways off I’m afraid.

Risk-takers get the rewards, and maybe we’ll just take that plunge. I just don’t know yet.

Thanks everyone for the comments and suggestions. We are working on a Mac Recorder for a special client-server version of Camtasia Studio – more on that at a later time.

As Jeff points out, developing on the mac is both rewarding and demanding. The bar is set pretty high, and we don’t want to under-deliver with a simple port of a PC application. We’re trying to be careful not to officially promise anything until we get closer to formal launch.:-)

This much I can say, we are continuing Mac development and are weighing options for what to do next on the mac platform. There’s plenty of need out there and we plan to help meet them.

Troy

PS. Jay, FWIW, I _don’t_ think you can edit a screen recording in iMovie without iMovie converting it to MPEG format and muddying the quality. This is one reason we realized that a stand-alone Recorder is insufficient b/c it requires either QuickTime Pro or Final Cut to edit it. Let me know if I’m wrong and you’ve figured out the keys to the iMovie kingdom.

I’m chair of our IT Policy committee at a major state business school. An increasing percentage of our faculty is using the Mac. We really like high-quality cross-platform software. Any guestimates on a time frame for release of Camtasia for the Mac? Thanks.

I have used Camtasi for Pc at office. I use a Mac at home and I’d love to see a Mac version of Camtasis it would help me to produce teaching materials for my part time lectures. Definitely I will buy a copy….

This is such an old thread. I am disappointed that no Mac version has appeared despite the obvious interest. Sure hope there is one soon.

TechSmith guys,
please don’t forget to look at this kind of apps for mac:
AppZapper, Disco, Delicious Library, Acquisition, xTorrent and others from these guys

This can help you succeed on mac market

Thanks,
And I’m eagerly waiting for The Mac App for screencasting

im interested, for sure! because like many others i HATE snapz pro

Any update on this?
I’m still waiting!!!

Just returned from the VSTE (Virginia Society for Technology in Education) Conference; the buzzword at the conference was Camtasia. I attended a workshop on using it to develop training videos for teachers only to find out that those of us with Macs can’t use it! Presenters at conferences such as VSTE are encouraging us to use it, so hustle up and develop a Mac version. PLEASE!

Thanks to Troy for his continued effort on this development. I think this reflects greatly on TechSmith. Now they just need to go through with it or disappointment will follow.

I believe that the PC world underestimate the Macintosh loyalty. Mac users are a violable market. Once you have them as a costumer they are yours for life. I have seen example of your product all over the net. How I long to product such video myself. God help me I have even though of buying a pc. Please! Please don’t force me into the ultimate sin. Make the produce and we will buy.

One more for this product. Design firm here and we do a lot of training videos. In fact, we’re scoping a project for right now and have a great need for decent screen recording.
thanks
-roccit

Thanks, Roccit!

Thanks everyone for the requests! We’ve seen an increase in demand for a Mac version of Camtasia Studio. We hope to meet that demand in the future.

All the best,

Troy Stein, Camtasia Product Manager

Well, unfortunately we had to move to a PC solution since I have a looming deadline for a very high profile training project. Had there been a Mac version of Camtasia, I could’ve made that a new software requirement in our company (my employer is one of the largest defense and government contractors on the face of the planet..i.e. a huge amount of licenses- good business for Camtasia), and have stayed on the Mac. But since the company I work for already has a license for Captivate, I’m required to use that. The only upside to this is I had to get Parallels and WinXP for my Mac.
Thousands of lost sales for Camtasia. That’s what happens when one drags their feet.

Just add my wishes for a Mac version too. I desperately need this software for my work – part of which is to produce webcasts with video and Powerpoint in Flash. I’m currently subbing this work out to a Windows user and I’m buying the software for him to use. There must be hundreds if not thousands of web creatives working on Macs who would buy Camtasia tomorrow. There’s nothing else on the market,

>GSchumsky
>”…That’s what happens when one drags their feet…”

You are making an assumption that they -are- dragging their feet rather than spending time making a quality product. It’s not as simple as clicking a button called “port to Mac” on their keyboards and Presto it’s done. It’s a whole different world in Mac development than PC development and Mac users are picky about different things than PC users.

If they did a half-assed port of their product just to get it out the door, people could be on this or another forum complaining that it wasn’t ‘mac enough.’

Me: I want the app–but I want a stable, fast, and elegant solution. The company that I work for could have used it on Mac-specific projects already, but we’re making do with what we have until the software is ready.

Besides, if the software requires Leopard to work properly (perhaps needing Core technologies) then everyone will just have to wait until Leopard ships anyway.

Good luck, Troy (and if u need a tester…)

If you are worried about producing a first-rate, totally Mac version of Camtasia, why not do something similar to how Adobe proceeded when they wanted to develop Lightroom? Release a public beta on a special site, invite people to download, use freely, give feedback re, talk about and generally help to improve and publicise the new app before producing the final polished version. As with Lightroom, “Camtasia Mac” could be provided free, made to expire by a given date and, as a beta, would be forgiven it’s limitations and quirks.

I participated in the Lightroom experience and thoroughly enjoyed it. I hope to be able to afford the 1.0 version soon (I’m an amateur photographer, so persuading spouse that I really need such a professionally-orientated app is going to be difficult!)

Good luck and get something developed soon – I’m a dedicated Camtasia user who recently switched to Mac. Screen capture and reasonable genealogy software are two huge gaps in the Mac arsenal.

It’s been over a year and still no mac version? Boooo.

Over a year? Yes, this conversation began in January 2006. However, it appears that in August TechSmith was still deciding whether to develop Camtasia for Mac. And, this is a sophisticated software program, with a lot of decisions and issues to address. I agree with Andrew. Let’s be a little patient so we can have a GOOD first version, not just a rushed-to-market product.

Great comments. I’m glad there’s demand for it. We hope to be able to meet those demands in the future.

FWIW, CS for the PC has ~40 developer years under its belt (7 years of development by 5-6 developers). A CS for the Mac would take a bit of time.

Troy

I’ve never used Virtual PC. Would VPC allow me to use Camtasia?

Carlesa;

Only within the Windows environment – yoiu couldn’t capture your Mac desktop or Mac apps with it. And, with the emulation going on, you may not get the best performance out of it.

Well, due to not having a Mac version of Camtasia, we had to have an outside source provide us with some screen captures of a app we have. They provided us with avi’s captured at 30fps (we’ll be editing these into some green screen footage, so 30 helps keep stuff in sync with the talent), but everything is using the Techsmith codec, so I can’t even open them to convert them to Quicktime. We did try to have Camtasia output the captures to QT, with a setting of 30fps a number of times, but it kept converting them to 7fps…what the heck is going on? Why is Camtasia doing this? That causes the video to be way out of sync with the talent. We then tried saving as an avi, uncompressed for a 4 minute video so we could at least convert it, and the file was 18 gigabytes. Not even a QT uncompressed, 4 minutes is that huge. Is the captured avi usable, and how can we get it into FCP or motion? We really don’t have the budget to pay to recapture the footage.

Thanks!

Greg

Greg, here is one possible solution.

http://www.scateignite.com

Thanks, looks interesting!

Hi Greg,

you _should_ be able to export high quality AVIs and MOVs out of Camtasia Studio. I made a little video explaining how. http://tinyurl.com/2×6fvm

If that doesn’t work, then a little troubleshooting might be in order. You can call our support group for free from 8am to 6pm EST at 1-517-333-2100.

Regards,

Troy

Ooops. Looks like my TinyURL didn’t work so great.

Take 2: http://tinyurl.com/2×6fvm

or if you want the really long URL:
http://www.screencast.com/users/troystein/collections/Default/media/922f2c64-65a1-43df-98fe-51d904a216c3

Troy

Troy, Can we get an update with a guesstimate on a Mac version? We are waiting and hoping…

I wish I could give a date. I’m really sorry that i can’t say more at this point. But, I think you’ll like what you see.

I’ll post here first when we have more detailed news.

Troy

You da man, Troy.

Troy,

Any news, I know you posted last week but. I switched to a mac at xmas and the only apps I use on windows are IE and Camtasia.

Does anyone know of any other capture software that I could feed into Camtasia so I can record on the mac. Recording in a windows Parallels environment on a Mac from a Parallels Centos apache server is just to painful for words.

tia

tony

Troy,

I was interested in your post about exporting high quality AVI or MOV files out of Camtasia to work with them on Mac. The URL you give is not functional (neither the tinyurl nor the full length link). Have you taken this video? If so, could you reinstate it?

Troy,

I was interested in your post about exporting high quality AVI or MOV files out of Camtasia to work with them on Mac. The URL you give is not functional (neither the tinyurl nor the full length link). Have you taken down this video? If so, could you reinstate it?

Hi Folks,

Its not Camtasia Studio for the Mac. We’ll announce that at a later time.

But we do have a cool project, its called http://www.jingproject.com. Its an experiment in rapid visual sharing. It makes screen captures and recordings. Its limited to 5 minutes for the videos (flash) and they can’t be edited. But its super easy and quick. Cool UI, imho. It runs on a Mac and a PC and its free.

Here’s a (pretty generous) review of it (http://www.lockergnome.com/nexus/callkathy/2007/07/17/jing-timing-is-everything).

Best regards,

Troy Stein
Camtasia Studio Product Manager

[...] of my most enduringly popular blog entries is the one in which I call out for a Mac version of Camtasia, TechSmith’s exceedingly cool screencasting tool. If you search Google for “camtasia [...]

How I screencast from the Mac: I am using Screenography on the Mac to do screen capture. It produces .mov, flv, swf and others. Good product but it is damn buggy. I record a mov of my screen with voiceover. Then exporting flv from Quicktime (because it is faster than doing it again from Screenography) and a wav file – so I can do closed captioning. Repeat ad nauseum for all movie captures. I then open Parallels and put the flv and wav files into Adobe Captivate – the other screencasting product. I then create menus, buttons and captions etc to build the interface. Ridiculous? You bet! The market is wide open for a Mac-based screencasting/interface development tool. Camtasia, Captivate or whatever. I can’t believe there isn’t an option out there. Somebody needs to get on this, and quick!

I hope that you can make recordings in both OSs compatible so that people involved in a project do not need to be tied to a group OS

We’re having this debate internally and I’d love to get your feedback:

“Should we make the UI different for Mac and PC, like Microsoft does with Office, or should we follow Adobe’s approach and make a one UI for bother platforms?”

BTW, if the latter, then we assume that it would be a new UI. We wouldn’t port over the windows UI.

I’d love to hear your thoughts on this.

Since I often go back and forth between Mac and Windows platforms throughout the day, I always appreciate continuity. I find the difference between MS Office for Windows and Mac disorienting. On the other hand, using Adobe Photoshop on the two platforms is easy because my mind does not have to switch gears as I switch between computers. Since I now use Camtasia for Windows and am comfortable with that UI, having the same UI when I purchase Camtasia for Mac would be great.

If you develop a new UI for both platforms, I would still prefer that they be the same.

But, this is the perspective of someone who uses both platforms every day. It may not matter to those who only use the Mac.

Hello Troy,

I would vote for allowing some differences if you believe they improve the UI. I would not want the differences to be due to fewer features on the Mac version. (More features is of course okay.) I would not want UI differences to delay the first Mac version.

Most of your users will be on one platform and won’t notice differences. However, those folks in IT that support both versions will appreciate it if the differences are small. In my view, the end-users’ preference should dominate.

Any timetable for a beta version?

No timetables yet.

What if we made a mac UI and then ported that over to the PC with minor modifications to the Windows UI. How do you think that would be received?

I would like things to be as similar as possible to make it os independant

Troy, what you propose would be totally okay with me.

One of the best UIs I’ve had the pleasure to use has been with Luxology’s 3D application modo. It doesn’t use any of the OS widgets (well, except for the Open and Save dialogs) and is unified across both the PC and Mac platforms. Using the app on either machine gives you the same experience. On the other hand, using Maya (now by Autodesk) is a cobbled-together experience with weird mixes of their old, and very Windows 98 UI and Mac OS X widgets (buttons, tabs, scrolls) and it doesn’t flow well.

modo UI: http://www.luxology.com/press/media/
maya UI: http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/item?siteID=123112&id=6934253

as a counter argument:
Yahoo! Messenger adopts the UI of the platform. The Mac version is nice and Mac-like, but the Vista one looks nice and shiny–making the Mac one look a little lackluster. The UNIX version is just fugly.

Mac: http://messenger.yahoo.com/webmessengerpromo.php
Vista: http://messenger.yahoo.com/windowsvista.php
UNIX: http://messenger.yahoo.com/unix.php

I guess I’m saying is that a well-designed UI is almost always better. If the current Camtasia UI is clunky–improve it.

Just VNC into your MAC and record from XP or Vista. It works beautifully!!!!

Nice idea

I am a camtasia fan, but I like the functionality and UI of Captivate for simulations, branching, adding interactive components o the fly or recording screen movements, etc, and so forth.

I finally made the leap and purchased a MacBook Pro and parallels to run all these programs (like SnagIt, Camtasia, and Adobe’s Captivate) on the Mac. Excited to make demos in the Mac I can’t get it to escape windows. Anyone have ideas? I.e., as noted by another poster here, I can only record the Windows desktop / applications, even in coherence mode.

Bummed. Hope you can help. Thanks! LM

I’ve never used Camtasia — not that that I’m averse to it, it’s just the way it turned out — so I can’t draw parallels to it.

Right now I record short how-to videos using Snapz Pro, voice recording, OmniDazzle from The Omni Group, then (occasionally) drop in captions. I’d like to do things like bubble callouts, but I have never found a solution that did not fuzz up the video on transfer.

I can see myself needing Captivate-like tools in the future, with timeline control, custom fields, etc. I say “in the future” because I do that kind of thing now, but it’s always on Windows.

Regarding user interface: In most cases I say do NOT port. The reason is that many times a port LOOKS like a port, which therefore looks like Windows, which is one of the reasons why I switched from Windows in the first place!

+1 Please release Camtasia for Mac

Hi Troy.

Thanks in advance for maintaining a listening ear. I too use a Intel-based Mac and run Parallels with Camtasia as my
main screen recording program. I also use LiveType/imovie/Final Cut for movies, convert them, and import into my presentations.

I am currently working on a Training video series of a custom developed software for the mining industry.

All the developers I work with are Mac-based and program with Java in the mac environment. One feature that I would almost die for is the ability to access media, like imovie, where I can select from an itune songlist, import to Audio track #2, and actually use bezier curves (see imovie-importing soundtracks) to adjustment the volume of the soundtrack. Music is a powerful medium for introducing training, and fading in/out during transitions between screen recordings.

Keep up the good work, and will wait patiently for an OSX version to hit the marketplace.

Cheers,
Rob Johnson

Just to second Robs comment. I use Parallels on an Intel Mac to run Camtasia and in a Mac version would love to see movie and audio import integration with itunes and imovie or FInal Cut. Also PLEASE allow .DV and .MOV import. Can you add this to Camtasia for Windows anyway ? It’s a pain having to convert to WMV and AVI for the version Windows (and AVI files over 2gb are a no no going between the two systems currently). Also FLV import too.

Rob, Marcus,

If all goes well, we should have DV and MOV import… The iTunes integration makes good sense.

From my experience w/ previous version of iMovie, I’m less inclined to make that connection with Camtasia b/c iMovie converted our nice lossless videos into compressed 720×480 videos, which ended up being not so nice and clean.

Working with Final Cut makes more sense b/c it can handle our files without encoding them and it retains the quality.

FWIW, we will have MOV import capabilities in CS 5.1 for windows coming in the first half of 2008.

FLV import… Marcus, can you tell me more why you’d want this or what problem this would solve?

Cheers,

Troy

FLV import would help because I like to batch convert my flvs using different software – Squeeze or Episode (or export directly from Final Cut using the On2 VP6 export plug in). Apart from encode speeds and Camtasia being locked up while the encoding is taking place, my biggest problem is the ballooning file size nightmare that is caused in my temporary folder (sorry I’m a bit Windows dumb – so don’t know all the terminology), when encoding to flv. After batch encodes I wind up with my hard drive almost or completely full because the temp folder has automatically cleared and it takes time to delete the files and get it all back to normal.

SOrry that should have read…..”because the temp folder HASN’T automatically cleared and it takes time to delete the files and get it all back to normal.”

Anyone going to MacWorld in January? I’d love to sit down and explore a bunch of the UI / interaction assumptions that we are making for Camtasia for the Mac. Its January 14, in SFO. If you are just post here and let me know if there’s interest. If there is, I’ll set up a place for us to meet.
- Troy Stein. Camtasia Product Manager

Hey folks, here is a new option. No Mac client software yet, but you can use the Mac’s built in screen capture tool, and import the images after you get them over to a PC.

The site and software are all free!!!

After you import the images, you can add moving arrow, some text and audio, and it looks like it was all done on a Mac. Then you upload the final product to the site and either keep it to private email invitees, or share it out.

http://www.ignitecast.com

Hey Troy, we have been following this thread for 2 years (atleast i’ve been) . checking it frequently to see if there is any good news, i understand your policy of secrecy.. but would it take another two years ? or can we expect it before (if everything goes well, ofcourse)

Keep up the good work guys

Hi Ashkar,

we have a bit more details:
1. We are fully underway with Camtasia for the Mac. We went to MacWorld to demo Jing (www.jingproject.com) and find out what people would need from a professional screen recording / editing / production suite. We ran some focus groups too. All in all, got great feedback.
2. We expect to have Camtasia for the Mac out by the end of this year.
3. We are writing Camtasia for the Mac from the ground up. New code, new UI, new workflow. The editing metaphors will be more consistent with traditional non linear editors, like Final Cut… though not as complicated.

If anyone is interested in beta testing it later this summer, drop me a line at t dot stein at techsmith dot com. (email obfuscated to eliminate spam).
- Troy Stein, Camtasia Product Manager

Thats great news Troy !!

Really.. Cant wait till this year end.. i’ll be among the first to buy the Mac version.
Count me in for the Beta testing, would Just Love to help you guys

Hi, great to hear a Mac version is in development. My company needs some training videos produced sooner rather than later. While I can use Parallels for our immediate purposes, we would need the Mac version in the future. Would a Mac version be a free or low cost upgrade later if we purchased the current Windows version now?

Hi Adam,
I don’t know for certain yet. Right now, if you buy Camtasia for Windows, you can install that license on both your desktop and laptop, as long as you are using them by one person (you). It seems conceivable that the same might apply to a mac and a windows machine. We’ll let you know more the closer we get.

Hello everyone,

I just created a screencast tutorial video for work using iShowU and Flash 8. I wanted to add in pop-up text which explains how things work (kinda like pop-up hints when you first open a program, only I put them in a video) so I imported my screen cast to Flash (as embeded video) and just put a few layers on top of it for text and transitions. The end result wasn’t perfect, but I only had a day to put it together so I’m happy with the result. I did go through several editing methods and ideas (playing with iMovie, looking into iMovie plug-ins, researching how other people have done screencasting edits…) before I finally realised I had the program I needed to do what had to be done!

Strangely enough, I don’t recall reading about anyone using Flash with embeded video and other layers on top when working with screencasts. The disadvantage would be that you can’t actually cut up the video, so make sure you have a program you can do that with (quicktime pro would be a good and inexpensive choice).

Lance

Lance, it is not strange at all. Many of us are looking for something faster than the process you had to employ. And, in my case, easy enough for non-techies to use. I work with instructors at a community college, most with average or below-average computer skills. Your process would send them screaming to the nearest bar.

But, the basics of Camtasia will produce an very nice product with a short learning curve. And, yet it has more advanced capabilities for those who need or want more. That’s why so many are touting it here.

RE the Mac/Win license

That sounds very reasonable. We have gone ahead and purchased Camtasia studio and I’m using it Parallels, works great. We do have a need to make a Mac-browser specific tutorial soon (setting print dialog prefs, which differs mac vs win). On a whim, I tried using VNC/Remote Desktop to capture a screen of my Mac environment from within Parallels/Win, but the refresh was way to slow, like less than 1fps. Any other ideas for a temporary solution for this?

[...] The good news is I read that the people who developed Camtasia is finally going ahead to develop a version for Mac. Could this be a rumour? There is no official statement from Camtasia when the Mac version will be available. There has been talks about a Mac version since 2006. The Camtasia product manager posted a comment on this website. Take a look. [...]

I’ve been computing with Microsoft OS since the very early days of computing (my first pc was the DEC Rainbow with 10MB hard drive). I started to flame Micorsoft after serious problems with early XP, an OS not ready for prime time. I refused to buy Vista, and stories from all my friends and associates have made me happy I’ve moved to a Mac. Haven’t moved to Leopard yet but will shortly. I am very happy to hear that there will be Mac Version of Camtasia, and look forward to getting it.

Hey, I am writing on behalf of a group of graduate students from Michigan State University to request your help with an important project. As part of a larger program to evaluate the screen-recording software using experiences, we are conducting a survey of current and potential users to ask about their experiences and attitudes towards this kind of software.

Here is a link to the survey:
http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=HDFiprXUnPdCZxiWGgXuCQ_3d_3d

The survey should take less than 15 minutes to complete. Your participation is voluntary and your answers will be completely confidential. No one will use the information in any way that could identify you.

Thank you in advance for your participation

Interested in testing beta version of MAC compatible Camtasia. As long as it doesn’t wipe my hard drive

Hello Troy,

How will Camtasia for the Mac compare to ScreenFlow? Any estimate of beta or shipping dates? Thanks.

hi troy,
i am a huge fan of camtasia, we did our school math website animation thanks to your hard work!!!
to get funding for MAC version of camtasia i would suggest to contact steve jobs directly, camtasia should be a permanent feautre of all the new macs that come out, i would try to negotiate camtasia to be native software for the macs. i remember a while ago when the power macs came out and they had this amazing native software a 3D graphing environment called the “graphing calculator” displaying 3D mathematical curves in motion this is how we all fell in love with power macs in the first place at my school
i can see camtasia as a huge selling point for the MACS

“How will Camtasia for the Mac compare to ScreenFlow?”

Since the Mac version of camtasia isn’t out yet, I imagine Tony can’t say.

However, ScreenFlow took the award for “best Mac OS X Leopard Application” at Apple’s Developer Conference. I don’t know how Camtasia will stack up, but the bar has been set very high (you guys can pull it off, right?). One thing about ScreenFlow though: it doesn’t export to Flash so you’d have to use a third-party tool after you’re done working with your project.

http://developer.apple.com/wwdc/ada/#application

http://varasoftware.com/products/screenflow/

Wow … after finding this blog on google and reading through it. I have realized that Business 101 classes in college would find this as a great case study as WHAT NOT TO DO!” Thank God someone took the time to put the link for SCREENFLOW in here. And the fact it’s only 99$ and does everything you would ever want for a MAC. Thanks for the 2 years of posting someone got on board with the consumer camtasia will soon find out they will be out of business along with the rest of the world that don’t adapt to change!

I just want to give everyone a heads up on where we are at with Camtasia Studio for the Mac. We’re got back from WWDC where we did usability tests on our mac based recorder, editor and producer. We learned lots. Confirmed that we’re heading in the right direction and learned that we need to fine-tune a couple of things, too. We need to tweak a few things before we are able to do an alpha and beta of the product. But, we hope our 10 years of developing Camtasia Studio will pay off and will yield a pro-sumer product we all will love.

If I forget to post something here, and you want an update, just post here. I get the emails and will return w/ whatever update I can.

Troy Stein
Camtasia Product Manager

Thanks for the update Troy

I have been a long time user of Camtasia and although ScreenFlow does not have all the tools that Camtasia does it is brilliant. It works on the Mac and is very fast.
The only problem is that it does not create FLV output, but I can convert it myself if need be.

Camtasia really needs to get a move on or they will have missed the boat on this one. Sorry Camtasia, I waited 1.5 yrs… but could not wait longer.

Tony

Completely understand, Tony. I’m sorry we’re not ready sooner. I hope you’ll give us a look when we announce at MacWorld.
- Troy Stein, Camtasia Product Manager

I just want to say, I@ve been a Camtasia Studio owner and user for like 2-3 years now, and recently moved to iMac computer due to that i just got fed up with the insane low performance of Microsoft windows computers and hardware. My last attempt was buying a brand new HP computer with Windows Vista. It worked “great” for a few months, with satisfying performance, but then it suddenly lost it´s mind and started going slower and slower even tho i just had like 10-15 installed applications on it max. (and yes, im a super-geek, running all kinds of system performance checkers and antivirus like nod32, Acronis True Image, PerfectDisk defragger, anti-spyware, anti-addware, bloatware etc etc) – but somehow Vista suddenly decided to act just like Windows XP – turning on all the breaks and go into “driving like grandmother speed” again. So I just sayd “F**K this sh*t! Im going for something different! Im going to get a mac and see how that works out” – And so i did. Bought me a mac and OMG what speed improvement compared to Vista (running on basically equal good hardware as my PC computer, and its like 3 times faster – Crossing fingers Mac OS X don´t got a dang grandmother driver hiding in it – only time will tell, but so far, so good – my mac runs like a smooth clockwork for days/weeks at a time still)

But! I took it for granted that something similar like Camtasia already existed on Mac, but to my great frustation – there is no such thing as a Camtasia “clone” on Mac – yet. I´ve been searching all over the internet the last few weeks downloading just about any kind of screen-recorder/editor software for mac i could possibly find (I´ve been reading hundreds of websites, tracking down just about anything imaginable in the area of screen recording and on-screen annotation/editors), and currently i´ve settled with “ScreenFlow”. But ScreenFlow sure is not a good replacement for Windows Camtasia, that´s for sure. I still miss the Camtasia Studio´s absolutely great recorder/editor combination. Sure, ScreenFlow does it´s work with realtime fullscreen recording in a very fast and high FPS manner, even recording in fullscreen 3D virtual world´s like Secondlife.com works great with it. But for what. The editor in ScreenFlow is a very limited one compared to Camtasia studio, so it´s still forcing me to use iMovie to edit it properly and i´m not pleased with iMovie at all since it messes up the original screen resolution forcing it into a stupid DV resolution. I also even tried Final Cut Express, but that was just “overkill” application that made my head spin like crazy trying to learn it. Sure, Final Cut Express probably a killer app, no doubt, but for screen-tutorial video-work it´s not very optimized at all for it. I can do it 20 times quicker in Camtasia for windows!

So, I will wait patiently for the Mac version of Camtasia Studio. The day it´s in store – even at a price tag of 250USD+++ even if i owned a windows copy of Camtasia already i would buy it without hesitation. (sure, a discount for buying a mac version when you already own Camtasia for windows would ofcourse be nice, but to be really honest, i don´t really care if you give it or not – if you manage to make a mac clone with the same quality as Camtasia for windows, you deserve every penny you ask for it – with or without discount. Doesn´t matter to me, I would still buy it and still smile a big smile)

Keep up the work Troy, i´ll be watching Camtasia for future Mac software for years to come. I´m not in a hurry to settle down for good with ScreenFlow or others. And i think that´s one of Mac users strengths in the software market – most mac owners got the money to buy quality software when they find it. If you got the money to invest in a good mac computer, you sure would have the money to invest in proper software too IMHO. To my knowledge, Mac users seems to be generally quality-oriented, not quantity-oriented. I don´t care what it costs, I just want it to work smooth, fast and stable!

So, shortly put, I really hope a camtasia follow-up for mac emerges some time in future – then i can once and for all put my horrible microsoft windows nightmare into where it belongs – in the closet.

Camatasia is great would be better if OS version available. I read about but still don’t know the solution to the audio problems (loud static) when viewing Camtasia Flash videos on a Mac:
http://www.objectivepathology.ca/Doug/CPD%201100/final%20annotated%20PIPed%20aspirate%20intro/final%20annotated%20PIPed%20aspirate%20intro.html

Please help!

Doug

I skimmed through your flash movie on my Mac and I didn’t hear any issues with the audio. Is there a specific time in the clip that has the audio problems? Also, you might want to check the version of Flash that you have on your Mac. Beyond that I don’t know what could be causing your audio problems. What version of the Mac OS are you running?

These are my specs:
Mac Pro (2007)
Mac OS X 10.5.4
Flash version: MAC 9,0,124,0

Doug,
I am running the same set up as Andrew and cannot hear any audio abnormalities. There was an issue with one version of the flash player exhibiting audio issues. The description and the fix for it are described here: http://tinyurl.com/5pvwbz

I debated wether to post this, because its tangentially related to the topic, but if someone is looking for Camtasia on the Mac to record presentations, read on:

We are also doing a beta testing of a new Camtasia product, with a Mac recorder. The product is called Camtasia Relay. Relay has Mac and Windows Recorders. They are stripped down to make it simple to record presentations — PowerPoint and Keynote. The recordings get sent to a Relay server which automatically encodes the video (in whatever formats you choose) and publishes them to whatever destination/server you choose. The encoding and distribution of the files is managed by the administrator, so the person doing the presentation, doesn’t have to think about it. The recordings from either the mac or windows Recorders can be edited in Camtasia Studio 6 (Windows) coming in October… Yes CS 6 Windows will be able to edit MOV files.

http://visuallounge.techsmith.com/2008/07/new_product_beta_announcement.html

we made a video explaining what will be the same and what will be different in CS for Mac and Windows and our path to parity.

I hope it helps. http://www.screencast.com/t/kbBuMmJ0

Betsy is our TechSmith evangelist.

Hi Troy!

It’s a great news about Camtasia on Mac.
We are currently working on CS Windows, but all our windows usage is through parallels.

We run opentuition.com site, and Camtasia is extremely useful in providing free screencast lectures to accountancy students that we produce!
I watched the video and I know there will be a beta testing in autumn, so my question is,
How to sign up for this beta testing for CS Mac version, this autumn?
I know it is not public beta yet, but we are all great fans of CS and I would love to be one of the first people to lay my hands on it, please!;)

my email contact at opentuition.com
Thanks, Kris

I am hoping that someone can help me. I love Camtasia and I love running Parallels on my Mac (Leopard, Intel MacBook, 2G Memory). Unfortunately, I seem to be encountering a strange error condition which I hope someone can help me with. When I try to import media of just about any type I receive the following error message, “No Codec available to render this file”.

I have re-executed TSSC and that did not help.
I then setup a new VM partition and re-installed Windows XP and Camtasia Studio 5.0 and that did not help.

However, when I download and tried VM Fusion, the problem disappeared. I like Parallels and have purchased it already.

Has anyone else experienced this problem and if so, how have you resolved this?

Thanks. Ron

Re “No Codec available to render this file”

I have been bugged by this as well. If I copy the file into the parallels Windows environment (“C” drive) it seems to import into Camtasia jsut fine. Very problematic, as I tend to refresh my Windows snapshots to default states, but I have to be careful not to delete any camtasia media from the windows environment.

Any solution greatly appreciated.

Adam, I just tried copying the file into the Windows environment and the Camtasia error message disappeared! I am not sure why this worked, but it did work. Thank you.

Just a few sneak-peak images on Camtasia for the Mac:
http://visuallounge.techsmith.com/2009/01/camtasia_for_the_mac_update.html

Also, we currently have a full compliment of beta testers… but thanks to all those who’ve offered to help!

- Troy Stein, Camtasia Product Manager

This is awesome.. All we do around here is screen grabs.. so to have someting that has Camtasa power on the mac… thats just too cool.. Im soo blogging this..

RC

http://www.layersmagazine.com

Almost could not believe it when I read this. It is a true “Big Foot” sighting, A beta of Camtasia on the Mac is loose in the mountains!

http://visuallounge.techsmith.com/2009/03/we_need_you_to_beta_test_camta.html

@Troy Stein
Troy,

Did you consider offering your management team the extra income than Microsoft generated by making Office for Mac?

Count me in as a beta tester for the OS X version of Camtasia

Hi folks,

fyi, I posted a bit of a status update on the techsmith blog:
http://visuallounge.techsmith.com/2009/01/camtasia_for_the_mac_update.html

[...] for Camtasia on the Mac for a long time. My most popular blog post since the beginning of 2006 is “Camtasia for the Mac”. In addition to a continuous stream of page views, that page also has 140 comments. It was the top [...]