Web Video

When adding video to the content on your website or blog it can be very difficult to tell exactly what software to use for what circumstances.  All the software vendors provide feature lists that make it look like they do much the same thing.  It's much harder to find out that for the specific actions you want to take one program is more intuitive and requires half the effort of the other.  The advertizing was truthfull, both programs can do the work, but the right choice can make a huge difference.

In my case I have been trying to understand the difference between Camtasia and Sony Vegas Pro.  I have finally come to realize that Camtasia is a screen capture program that also has a significant amount of editing power.  The amount of editing power keeps increasing and Camtasa 6 has one particular feature addition which is imortant to me.

In Camtasia 6 you can separate all the audio track from the video track.  That means if you make a mistake or cough at some point while you are recording, you can go back later, delete the bad audio, and add corrected material.  Since I make mistakes I find this helpful.

Sony Vegas pro is not screen capture software.  However, screen capture video is just another kind of video so it has no problem editing Camtasia files.  (I say, "No problem" but there are some file size issues that are not as obvious as they might be.)  As an editor, Vegas is stronger.  You can do things with effects, transitions, and type which are not available in Camtasia.

The trade off, as always, is added complexity.  If you need those extra effects and they add to your video presentation then the extra money is well spent.  If you don't need them you should have saved your money.

For the projects I have in mind I plan to start with Camtasia video and see how far I can take it.  If I hit limits that seem important I will have to add Vegas to the tool box.

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