Kinda OT-Camtasia & Xara

[Fred C]

Hi All,
I thought many here might be interested in a free copy of Camtasia Studio 3...to use recording tutorials in Xara, of course.

Here's the link:
http://www.updatexp.com/free-camtasia-studio-3.html

Cheers,
Fred

[Ron Duke]

$300.00 is too steep for me, although it looks like a great program.
ron

[DGehman]

The offer apparently applies to UK residents, but be that as it may, you can get the open source CamStudio for $0, http://camstudio.org/

Downside, common to most open source, is a touch of geekiness, but its lossless codec (which, geekily, you have download separately) is superb.

[Fred C]

Ron & DGehman,

Version 3.1.2 is free (no strings attached) and it qualifies for an upgrade offer of about 1/2 off of the newest Version 5 which sells for around $300. I did not see that it was limited to UK residents.

Fred

[handrawn]

Thanks for that Fred

upgrade discount is 50% [£88]

[Ron Duke]

Thanks, Fred, I see it now. That's great! I've never used this type of software before, so I'm looking forward to trying it out.
ron

[Odat]

The page mentioned that it was limited to UK residents, but when I told it I was from Canada it still happily provided me with a key to unlock it. I think there may have been a miscommunication there and it was just referring to how it was originally mentioned in a UK magazine or something.

[Doug]

Ron & DGehman,

Version 3.1.2 is free (no strings attached) and it qualifies for an upgrade offer of about 1/2 off of the newest Version 5 which sells for around $300. I did not see that it was limited to UK residents.

Fred

I saw this offer on another forum and wrote to Techsmith (Camtasia) to ask if this offer was legit. The original offer was for purchasers of PCPLUS magazine and in the UK only. But they forgot to make that clear and links were posted all over the internet for the download and serial number. A couple of days later they decided tha it was too late and make the most of it. Now the offer is open to anyone. There is also the same offer for their Snagit screen grabber-free.

This will turn out to be great PR for Techsmith-a great way to introduce their products to people by giving away the old version(last version). Once users see what a great program it is, they may well pay to upgrade to the latest version, although there is no obligation.

BTW-I think Xara uses Camtasia for the mini tutorials that we all know and use.

[Xhris]

I would strongly recommend people snap this up, whether or not they have immediate plans to make videos. At worst, its a free copy of the best video recording utility available (albeit a slightly older version), and at best, its a half-price ticket to the full latest version. It doesn't seem to be limited to UK people either.

[DGehman]

Yep - works fine for me in the States, so apologies for my earlier post.

Camtasia's timeline approach makes it more flexible than CamStudio, and it appears that the free version allows you to use the Camtasia codec in other applications... though I need to experiment further... Techsmith recently rendered the Camtasia codec unusable unless you had a Techsmith product... it's an excellent video output type.

If / when you move to the next step and need more elements, Multiquence from Goldwave provides a means of mixing virtually unlimited audio, video, graphic, caption, transition and other types of goodies (Camtasia 3 limits you to 2 audio tracks, for example). Not free: ~$US 40, www.goldwave.com