Windows Movie Maker V Camtasia Studio
Entry posted by Merch Gwyar
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As I was editting Wolfhe's video, I kept finding things that I couldn't do. For example, when everyone switched on their wolf prayers, I wanted to play the clip of the wolf howling. I put it in and it sounded amazing, but then I added in the music and suddenly I couldn't have the wolf howl. I had to compromise with sticking it at the end, so you hear it as we travel to Catherby instead.
Yesterday, I downloaded Camtasia and I've been playing with that. Fortunately, we had another skillcape achieved yesterday in our gang, so I got to film Audioworm's triumph using this new software. I naturally checked that someone else was filming too, because I wasn't confident of the results without having tried them. Fortunately, Em was filming too, otherwise I would have switched back to Hypercam/Windows Movie Maker and saved my experimentation for another, less auspicious occasion.
Camtasia is a lot more complicated than Windows Movie Maker. I learned how to use the latter by trial and error, pressing buttons just to see what they do. I started to do that with Camtasia and either nothing happened or else Windows closed the programme. O... k... I ended up watching the Tutorial videos, which were both helpful and very distracting. It was the narrator's accent. Yes, it was American, but that's usually neither here nor there. There are some American accents, like my friend from Georgia, which I could hear all day. There are others which are just American accents, they make words, I divine interpretation and woot! Communication has occurred. But this accent... I think it's the first time in my life that an actual accent has grated on my nerves.
Anyway, that's by the by. I learned that had I been editting Wolfhe's video in Camtasia, I would have been able to add in that howl where I wanted it. However, having now played with a video, editting and adding music, I've also discovered a limitation. In Windows Movie Maker, I can fade music in and out, but Camtasia doesn't have that option. As a result, the last piece of music on Audioworm's video ends very abruptly. I'm wondering if I can edit the film in Camtasia, then re-record it all using Hypercam, before adding the music in WMM. Mmmm... Hopefully I wouldn't lose the extra tricks, like that wolf howl, in doing so.
One thing that I am very impressed with is the zoom and pan feature of Camtasia (once I'd got the hang of it). I ended up so absorbed that I spent an hour playing with that on the unedited version of the video, though you'll be pleased to know that most of that ended up being cut out. I still think that I've overused it at the moment, which can be a little dizzying to watch, especially when coupled with the general Runescape playing movement of the view. It's something I'm enjoying learning about though. I've also worked out how some of the videos of, say, Doomcreator0, Sir Ajacobs and Tehnoobshow were done, because I never had the technology to do some of their shots before.
I think there are pros and cons with both and hopefully I'll end up with a mental checklist of when to use which piece of software to do what in the future. I've also heard that a Sony video editor is pwnage, so I might investigate that one too.
I'm uploading the video into You Tube as we speak. I'll add a link here when it's in and congratulations on 99 Firemaking, Audioworm!
Edit: It's on YouTube now:
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