Post 425: Is Camtasia Video Editing System worth the money?

 Is Camtasia worth the money?

As I have been looking for jobs, I noticed on one job description that they wanted the applicant to know how to use Camtasia, a video editing tool to make recorded lectures and Power Points.

I first heard about Camtasia when Andrew Feldman and I were working on creating Online French classes with Rosetta Stone for American Military University. Andrew used Camtasia for all his recorded lectures and his welcome video. At the time, I was too busy learning Screen Cast o matic for my screen casting needs.

Now fast forward ten years later, now I want to learn how to do more video editing beyond Screen Cast o Matic which only allows a short 15 minute lecture.  Now, that I have gotten used to doing one hour Zoom recorded lectures, I wanted to learn more in depth about how to make videos to make my recorded lectures more interactive, and less boring for the students.

At first, I looked for free software, but that just got me back to good ole Screencastomatic. I tried looking at the Adobe products, but they all required a monthly paid subscription with money I do not have.

Enter Camtasia. It cost a one time $269. Then, you get a stand-alone program that you can learn with easy short free tutorials on the Tech Smith website. So far, I am pleased with my purchase and am learning a lot about the basics of video editing.  I am learning video editing beyond Screen cast o matic which was cutting edge ten years ago but not so much anymore.

I am currently working on my first Power Point recorded lecture on Camtasia for my students' 1st week English Grammar Quiz next week. I am enjoying the experience of learning how to add animations, cutouts etc..into the lecture, and the sound quality on Camtasia is much better than the sound quality on my Zoom lecture recordings so far.  I will write another blog article detailing my progress as I learn how to make Camtasia recorded lectures to go with my Zoom recorded lectures in a future blog post.

But in conclusion, Camtasia is worth the money to buy and learn :)