Project Properties for YouTube recorded with Camtasia 6

[D. Eric franks]

First, depending on how much content you already have recorded, this might be a situation where a “reshoot” is a good idea, esp. for the audio. I would only ever use any sort of noise reduction, gate, EQ to fix absolutely unavoidable accidents in existing footage and it’ll never be as good as just recording it the right way. In fact, for VO/narration work, it’s entirely possible that it’ll be EASIER to re-record than it’ll be to try to fix the bad audio.

Second, 800×600@15fps square PAR source to 720×480@29.97 with 0.919 PAR project to 640×480@29.97 square PAR on YouTube sounds like it might work (which is always the end-all-be-all ultimate test), but it also sounds like a nightmare of formats to be converting through that could lead to all sorts of problems. At a minimum, I’d render out to YouTube native 640×480@29.97 square PAR, but I honestly don’t know if that is going to work, and besides…

This also might be a case where you want to “reshoot.” If it’s all screen grabs, you might as well go HD. 720p@24 (1280×720 at 24fps) will yield outstanding quality. I know 800×600 is a computer screen resolution, but it doesn’t make sense for YouTube distribution. So if “reshooting” is not an option, I’d at least consider converting to an HD video standard for the future and adapt your recording to fit (i.e., you only record part of the window or set your app window to 1280×720). If you are distributing yourself, then it doesn’t matter, and you can do any old odd resolution you want. But if you have any plans to distribute more widely (e.g., YouTube, television, DVD, Blu-ray), it makes sense to “shoot” in a standardized format and distribute in a standardized format.

__________
“You know, it is a terrible thing to appear on television, because people think that you actually know what you’re talking about.”
— David Attenborough
https://videopia.org

[John Rofrano]

I agree with Eric. 640×480 PAR 1.0 progressive is your best option. When working with Camtasia you really need to think about your delivery format before you begin to capture. Then capture in a resolution that fits well with your delivery format. You captured 800×600 PAR 1.0 which is 4:3 aspect so you should use 640×480 PAR 1.0 to deliver which is also 4:3 aspect. This will give you the cleanest rescaling.

~jr

http://www.johnrofrano.com
http://www.vasst.com

[Norman Willis]

OK, thanks. The reason I did not go with HD is kind of convoluted….

On the workstation I use a PreSonus Firepod (external firewire audio card). The sound is great, but for some reason it cuts out from time to time, and then I have to open the Firepod Control Panel, and switch the frequency from 44.1 to 48.0 KHz, or vice versa (and then it works). But I cannot seem to get it to work with Camtasia. (TechSmith is aware of the problem, and has promised a bug fix, but so far I do not have it).

So I was recording on my laptop. Basically I made a PowerPoint presentation, which I then put into .pdf, and flipped my way through the slides while I gave the audio narration by USB microphone. I chose 800 x 600 because it was 4×3, and would fit on my screen. Probably not very sophisticated, but it worked (at least this time)….

Thanks.

Norman Willis
http://www.nazareneisrael.org

[Norman Willis]

Hi John.

I get your point about using a square PAR. It would seem kind of silly to go from squares, to rectangles, back to squares. I just was not thinking about that at the time.

Would you have any idea how to get a PreSonus Firepod to work with Camtasia? Are there any tricks?

Thanks.

Norman Willis
http://www.nazareneisrael.org

[John Rofrano]

> Would you have any idea how to get a PreSonus Firepod to work with Camtasia? Are there any tricks?

Are you using the PreSonus Firepod as your main Windows audio? If so… that could be your problem. All of the silly sounds in Windows are 44.1K. If you are recording at 48K, then every time Windows wants to beep at you for some stupid reason the audio interface has to switch to 44.1K to play the beep and audio applications don’t always switch it back (probably because they aren’t expecting it to switch).

The general rule of thumb is so always use the audio on the motherboard (with a $5 pair of speakers) for all of your Windows sounds. Only use your audio interface for audio and video applications (like Camtasia, Vegas. Sound Forge, etc.). This should make things work much smoother. It’s how I run my M-Audio Firewire 410 with Camtasia without problems.

~jr

http://www.johnrofrano.com
http://www.vasst.com

[Norman Willis]

Hi John.

Sorry for the long delay. I have been trying to wrap my mind around DotNetNuke.

>>The general rule of thumb is so always use the audio on the motherboard (with a $5 pair of speakers) for all of your Windows sounds. Only use your audio interface for audio and video applications (like Camtasia, Vegas. Sound Forge, etc.). This should make things work much smoother. It’s how I run my M-Audio Firewire 410 with Camtasia without problems.

OK, I’ll get some cheap speakers and try to hook those up. Thanks.

Norman Willis
http://www.nazareneisrael.org

[Norman Willis]

Hi Eric.

Thank you for your help with this earlier. It is time for my next Camtasia project.

>>If it’s all screen grabs, you might as well go HD. 720p@24 (1280×720 at 24fps) will yield outstanding quality.

I cannot find a setting for the PAR in Camtasia, so I assume it is preset at 1.0, because the pixels on computer monitors are all PAR 1.0?

Would I then just type in 1280 x 720, and record?

Thanks.

Norman Willis
http://www.nazareneisrael.org

[Norman Willis]

Hi John.

>>The general rule of thumb is so always use the audio on the motherboard (with a $5 pair of speakers) for all of your Windows sounds. Only use your audio interface for audio and video applications (like Camtasia, Vegas. Sound Forge, etc.). This should make things work much smoother. It’s how I run my M-Audio Firewire 410 with Camtasia without problems.

OK, I got some Logitech speakers. How do I configure this?

I turned the integrated audio back on in the BIOS. I right clicked on the speaker icon in the task tray. I selected the ‘Playback’ tab, and then selected the SoundMAX (Logitech) speakers. (yYecch!) It sounds awful, compared to the studio monitors, but it plays.

Then for the Recording, I leave that on the PreSonus FirePod?

OK, so I don’t get it. What happens when I want to play back on my studio monitors? Do I turn the integrated audio off in the BIOS again? But then I will be right back in the same boat, with Windows shutting off sound to the FirePod, like before?

And why would this have shut off the recording, in the first place? I had recording defaulted to the FirePod, just like now.

What am I not getting? Thanks.

Norman Willis
http://www.nazareneisrael.org

[John Rofrano]

You have it correct. In applications like Vegas, you select the PreSonus FirePod as your audio device and all recording and playback will happen through those. For everything else, just leave the motherboard audio on (do not turn it off in the BIOS) and everything else will come through the Logitech speakers.

~jr

http://www.johnrofrano.com
http://www.vasst.com

[John Rofrano]

> Would I then just type in 1280 x 720, and record?

Yup. Follow my tutorial on:

Editing Camtasia Footage in Sony Vegas Pro

This is what I do for the VASST training videos that I make.

~jr

http://www.johnrofrano.com
http://www.vasst.com