Using Camtasia to Create Streaming Narrated Screenmovie Tutorials

This tutorial will provide you with instruction about how to record, convert and link to streaming Windows Media Video files.


1. Download Camtasia

You can download a 30 day free trial of Camtasia at http://www.techsmith.com/products/camtasia/download.asp

 

2. Set Up Your Capture Area
Follow these instructions which come from a different tutorial which I created for Windows Media Encoder. I am reusing the screenmovie from the Windows Media Encoder tutorial because the process of setting up your capture area is the same as it would be for Camtasia.

 

3. Prepare Camtasia to Capture Narrated Screenmovie

Launch Camtasia, and set it up to capture a narrated screenmovie. Here's how.

 

4. Use Camtasia to Record a Narrated Screenmovie and Convert to WMV

Follow these instructions.

 

 

5. Upload Your Screenmovie to Your Student Account

 

For demonstration purposes, I've uploaded one sample WMV file (Windows Media Video) to my LRS account, and an identical copy to my COE account.

 

 

6. Create WVX Metafile

A metafile is just a text file that contains the URL of the video that you want to stream. Metafiles are important to streaming because if you were to link directly to the video file from your Web page, the browser would just try to download the video file in its entirety before you could start playing. A metafile is basically a redirector file. You point the browser at the metafile, and the metafile redirects to the video file. This sets up the stream.

To create a metafile, watch this quick tutorial to see how to use the code below.

For a LRS account, modify the code below as in the tutorial, copy it to the clipboard, paste it into Notepad, and save the file with a WVX extension.
For a COE account, modify the code below as in the tutorial, copy it to the clipboard, then paste it into Notepad, and save the file with a WVX extension.

Then launch a text editor such as notepad and paste the code from the clipboard.

 

7. Link Web Page to Metafile. Upload Both to Server.

Follow these instructions.