Screen Capture Software - Captivate and Camtasia

Screen Capture...some thoughts on the two leading products

Captivate Pros

Captivate has definitely improved its screen quality since I last looked at it! It is now a serious competitor to Camatasia. I have a 30-day trial, so this list need not be exhaustive, but here is my first impression.

• Captivate can export directly to Flash
• Captivate automates the process of help bubble creation (it makes a first attempt automatically unless disabled). This is neat, and I think it would be more effort to do in Camtasia.
• Captivate can publish to Breeze format
  Captivate now provides a similar interface to that of Camtasia – selecting screen recording area, and such.

Captivate Cons

• Captivate doesn’t export .fla files to Flash 8 - it was only designed to export to Flash MX 2004 (there is a workaround, but motion tweens are lost). I’m sure they’ll fix this in the future, and I feel like it could be one of their greatest strengths.
• Sometimes the timing in Captivate is off. For example, you’ll see the arrow click a menu choice, but will not see the next screen for a few moments (this can be taken care of in the editor, but requires that extra step).
• Captivate cannot export to many of the formats that Camtasia can (such as AVI)

Miscelleana

• A nice comparison table I found (and generally agree with)
• A random review of both products I stumbled upon.
• Captivate Feature Overview (Breeze Presentation)
• Captivate Product Page
• Camtasia Product Page