It’s gratifying to see that this series about integrating sound and narration into rapid e-learning authoring environments is being so positively viewed, and hopefully my suggestions are being folded in to your workflows as you create e-learning content for your audience. But firstly, why use audio at all?

The Science Bit

According to Colvin Clark & Mayer (2002) there are six different "broadly applicable" media element guidelines to follow when undertaking e-learning instruction. These guidelines are:

1. The Multimedia Principle: Use words and graphics rather than words alone.
2. The Contiguity Principle: Place corresponding words and graphics near each other
3. The Modality Principle: Present words as audio narration rather than onscreen text.
4. The Redundancy Principle: Presenting words in both text and audio narration can hurt learning.
5. The Coherence Principle: Adding interesting material can hurt learning
6. The Personalization Principle: Use conversational style and virtual coaches.

The Modality principle

When learning with multimedia the brain must simultaneously encode two different types of information, an auditory stimulus and a visual stimulus. These two sources of information do not overwhelm or cognitively overload the learner’s capacity to acquire information. Rather, psychological research has shown that verbal information is in fact better remembered when accompanied by a visual image.

Baddeley and Hitch (1974) proposed a theory of working memory which hypothesized two largely independent subcomponents that tend to work in parallel – one visual and one verbal/acoustic. As we know from everyday life, we can simultaneously process information from our eyes and ears; replicating this phenomenon in an educational context can be beneficial for learners.

This dual-coding theory, first proposed by Paivio (1971) was applied to multimedia and e-learning by Richard E. Mayer and his associates. Mayer has demonstrated (2002, 2004) that learners are better able to integrate information via multimodal instruction. In a number of studies, Mayer and his colleagues tested Paivio’s dual-coding theory using multiple media channels. They found that students learning via multimedia (animation and narration) consistently did better on transfer questions than those who learned from animation and text-based materials. That is, they (the learners) were significantly better when it came to applying what they had learned via multiple media channels, rather than unimedia (visual only) instruction.

While instructional content using multimedia learning was initially limited to logical and scientific processes that centered on cause-and-effect systems, over time it was found that the modality effect could be extended to other educational domains.

Information can and (should even) be encoded and transmitted using both visual and auditory (narration) channels. If verbal information is encoded auditorily it reduces the cognitive load of the learner. Consequently their working memory can process information more effectively. Mayer has calls this the the Modality Principle.

Adding audio to Adobe Captivate projects
Adobe Captivate, like a range of e-learning authoring environments enables you to leverage the Modality Principle by adding narration, music, wildtrack sound, and almost any other sound to learning content to enhance learning. For example, you can:

• Add a background track that plays for the duration of the project.
• Add sound to an individual slide.
• Add sound to a specific object, such as a caption, click box, highlight box, or button

Getting Started
For a refresher on creating markers in an audio editor click here. In sound editing, an audio file REGION specifies a segment of audio data which (in the context of e-learning) can be narration – a word, a phrase, a sentence, or some other meaningful unit of information. Regions are of variable length and usually align to the duration of the instructional event they are associated with. Audio editors like Sound Forge enable you to divide a sound file into different regions with specific start and end points (see Figure 1).

Figure 1. Regions in Sound Forge

Unlike Presenter, Captivate cannot read markers, so to import audio into the application, you must first process the audio file so that it can be readily added to each component of your e-learning content by extracting smaller sound files from the master file (see Figure 2).

Figure 2 Extracted Regions

Once extracted, the files are ready to be imported into Captivate. At this point in the process, I expected to be able to add the folder containing my extracted files to Captivate 4. However, this happened:

… so the rest of this process was completed in Captivate 2.

Note: I attempted a range of activities to work around the error message – I won’t bore you with the details here – but I had no success in circumventing the issue. Not good. For Adobe Captivate.

Without the facility to import the files via the library feature in Captivate 4, I reverted to the process of manually importing each audio file as prescribed in Captivate 2 (see demo, below). While this is a tedious process, it is still much faster than recording and editing content directly into Captivate, for the simple reason that Captivate is a content authoring tool, not a dedicated audio editor.

I read somewhere recently that if you walk around with a hammer, pretty soon everything looks like a nail; when creating e-learning content it’s very much a case of using the right tool for the right job to save yourself time and effort.

You Try:

To create and extract regions in Sound Forge:

Open Sound Forge. From the File menu, select Open… -> [yourFile.wav]

Ensure the file’s audio markers are preserved as intended from last time.

Now, from the Special menu, choose Regions List -> Markers to Regions.

All existing markers will be converted to regions using the data between each consecutive marker as the region boundary. For example, if your file contains three markers, this command will create two regions; the first region will span the area between the first and second markers, and the second region will span the area between the second and third markers.

Next, from the Tools menu, choose Extract Regions to create new files from regions in the Regions List.

The regions will be extracted to a directory on your computer.

 

Next time: Back to mobile learning. Delivering e-learning via a range of instructional modalities using m-learning.

______________

References:

Baddeley, A.D.; G.J. Hitch (1974), "Working Memory", in Bower, G.A., The psychology of learning and motivation: advances in research and theory, 8, New York: Academic Press, pp. 47-89

Colvin Clark, R.  Mayer, R. E. (2002). e-Learning and the Science of Instruction: Proven Guidelines for Consumers and Designers of Multimedia Learning. Pfieffer.

Mayer, R. E. (2001). Multimedia learning. New York: Cambridge University Press

Paivio, A. (1971). Imagery and verbal processes. New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston.

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Now read on…

This post will cover how to integrate your audio-with-metadata files into Adobe Presenter. In my next article I will discuss using markers to generate content for Captivate – the processes are different. While the process is quite straight-forward, it’s easier to show you this process in a demo than describe it in a linear fashion using text and images (after all, this is an E-learning blog, folks!).

First some background: as you probably know, Presenter enables you to publish Microsoft PowerPoint-created content in a Web friendly format. The Presenter Audio Editor supports editing voice-over narrationvia its functionality in PowerPoint.

As well as using an external audio editing program, you can perform basic audio and animation editing tasks within your presentation, including:

• Viewing the presentation audio, including slide and animation markers
• Playing, recording, deleting, and editing audio, including adding silence
• Inserting commands to control playback
• Adjusting volume and processing options

Using audio markers
Adobe Presenter displays a visual representation of a presentation’s audio, along with markers that represent commands for controlling playback. Audio is edited incrementally, one slide at a time.

To view audio markers, open the PowerPoint presentation you want to edit. Click the Adobe Presenter menu or ribbon and click the Audio Edit button. The Audio Editor is displayed (see Figure 1).

Figure 1. The Audio Editor in Presenter

Using the Slide Navigation drop-down list, select a slide to edit (see Figure 2).

Figure 2. Slide Navigation drop-down list

The Audio Editor displays a visual representation of the audio file called a waveform. Markers along the top of the waveform represent commands you can use to control the timing of slide transitions, animations, and other events during playback of your content.

In Presenter, you can add four types of markers in the Audio Editor (see Table 1):

Table 1. Markers applied to the Audio Editor

Playing, recording, deleting, and editing audio

Use the playback controls in the Audio Editor to review the audio for the presentation. You can also record new audio, delete selected sections, and insert silence.

Adjusting volume and audio processing options

The Adjust Volume dialog box is used to adjust audio playback levels. Adjust Volume also enables you to use some basic audio processing options including normalization (finding the optimal audio volume) and signal boost for quiet audio. The default settings should be fine if you’ve recorded your audio properly. I suggest that you experiment with these settings to understand how changes to these options affect the audio quality of your rendered presentation .

You Try:

To adjust audio volume and digital signal processing options:

1. Click the Tools menu in the Audio Editor and select Volume. The Adjust Volume dialog box is displayed.
2. Adjust the settings and click on OK.
3. Click the File menu and select Exit.When you exit the Audio Editor, Adobe Presenter prompts you to save your changes.
4. Click Yes to close the dialog box and return to PowerPoint.

Adding Audio with Marker to Adobe Presenter

Note: Even though this demo is about adding audio to a presentation, for copyright reasons there is no narration track associated with the file.

Next: Importing audio in to Captivate.

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How do you insert markers and how do you synchronize with captivate slides?

So over the next few days I’m going to outline the process of using markers in audio files, and how these markers can be used to simplify the process of synchronizing audio narration with visual content in presentations created not only in Captivate, but also in Presenter too.

Now read on…

In this post, I am going to focus on using audio markers in Sony Sound Forge, a professional sound-editing program or non-linear editor (NLE). The Sound Forge audio editing suite is the most powerful in a range of audio editing programs owned by Sony and originally developed by Sonic Foundry. I have been using Sound Forge in one form or another since the late 1990’s and in my view, it is the most flexible and adaptable tool in the audio editing market space (see Figure 1). Sound Forge includes a diverse and powerful set of digital audio signal processing tools, as well as many effects for manipulating audio.

Many e-learning professionals use other NLEs (including the open source program Audacity) to create and produce their audio. I would recommend any of the tools I mention in this article as acceptable for audio content creation.

Figure 1. Sound Forge waveform editor UI (click to enlarge)

Sound Forge software allows you to edit, record, encode, and master nearly all forms of digital audio including WAV, AIFF, and MP3. According to the Sound Forge website, the application has tools for:

• Sound Design and Mastering
• Stereo and Multichannel Recording
• Audio Editing and Workflow
• Powerful Effects Processing
• Audio-for-Video
• Dolby Digital AC-3 export

I’m not going to discuss the fundamentals of audio editing here, but we can say that to a great extent, audio editors are like ‘word processors for sound.’ All the good ones, including Steinberg WaveLab, Audacity and Adobe Audition employ the same user paradigm, and as a result the features of one are pretty much replicated in all the others. 

In audio editing, the purpose of a marker is to highlight a specific moment or event on the timeline so that you can return to it later. You may want to highlight a extraneous noise like a cough or click for deletion, or mark two points in a selection to copy or remove it. In audio narration, markers are typically used to set the transition between two sentences, slides or  onscreen event (see Figure 2).

Figure 2. Sound Forge marker (click to enlarge)

Using Sound Forge

Some basics…

Opening a File

Sound Forge can edit WAV, MP3, AIFF and a range of other file types. To open a file, just click FILE-> OPEN. The file will open in either mono or stereo, depending on the specific file format.

Controlling Playback

Open a sound file. Use all of the buttons highlighted in Figure 1 (don’t forget to zoom in and out).

Selecting Sounds

Its easy to select a particular sound area. Just click and drag over it. If selecting a stereo sound, drag between the left and right channel to get them both (see Figure 3).

Figure 3. Click and drag to select audio – stereo instance (click to enlarge)  

You Try:

1. Practice selecting areas of the wave.
2. Adjust the selection by dragging at the point where the selection ends.
3. Play the selection.
4. Copy and paste the selection to the end of the sound
5. Delete sections by selecting them and hitting delete on your keyboard.

You can also select in smaller segments (right down to the single bit level) by holding SHIFT on your keyboard and using the LEFT or RIGHT arrow keys. The more you zoom in to the waveform, the higher the level of precision you can achieve.

 

Markers

Markers enable you to choose edit points and to help you to accurately events in the waveform timeline. To add a marker:

1. Click a point in the waveform.
2. Select SPECIAL >> INSERT MARKER from the menu, or press the M key

If you have many markers in your audio file, it’s useful to name them. It’s typical for audio narration for e-learning presentations to have many slides or events, and by extension quite a number of markers. I suggest that you name the markers for the slide or event that the following narration describes. To name a marker, right-click  its handle and select EDIT… (see Figure 4). Enter some appropriate text in the dialog box – here, I have called the marker "Course Outline."

Figure 4. The Edit Marker dialog box (click to enlarge) 

Marker Navigation

You can automatically navigate from marker to marker by pressing CTRL + LEFT ARROW to go back, or CTRL + RIGHT ARROW to move forward through the timeline.You can select the waveform between markers by pressing SHIFT + CTRL + LEFT / RIGHT arrow.

You Try:

Using your sound editor of choice, try out the activities described in today’s blog post. Click the link to download a fully functional 30-day trial version of Sound Forge.

 

Saving Markers

Markers are automatically included when you save your audio file. Some professional audio editors also enable you to save the markers as metadata in a separate file called an Edit Decision List (EDL) which is useful when you’re creating video presentations, but that as they say, is another story…

Next: Using markers with Adobe Presenter.
Soon: Using markers with Adobe Captivate.

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Technorati Tags: Adding Markers,Adobe Captivate,Elearning,E-Learning,Audio,Narration,Content,Captivate,Adobe Presenter,Sound Forge

We have been looking at both Camtasia and Captivate for our online development. My question is if you have  knowledge of ANY Apple compatible capturing software with the same capabilities of Camtasia and Captivate? Or if either Adobe or Techsmith ever plan on making this available to the Apple community?

Two great questions centered around the notion that there is no screencasting killer app for the Mac. Now, I have a Intel-chip MacBook (it also runs Windows using Boot Camp), but I use Windows PCs for learning content development and production – it’s a work / life balance thing. As a result, I have never really considered the options for e-learning authoring on the Mac before now. But since I was asked, here’s my two cents worth… 

There are a number of choices. First, you could run the programs you’re evaluating (TechSmith Camtasia or Adobe Captivate) on a Mac with Windows / Boot Camp, but my view would be given the processing resources needed to generate content in a native Windows environment, running them via a virtual machine would be to enter a world of pain I’m not prepared to contemplate: there are too many links in the chain; it’s too risky. Murphy’s Law says that on a death march project with a deadline looming, the the authoring environment would not be up to the task, regardless of how well it behaved prior to to that.

With that option rejected let’s look at the other choices available for the MacOS. To answer my correspondent’s  second question first, it seems that TechSmith are looking at a mid-2009 release for the Mac version of Camtasia. Click here to view a screencast about the latest developments in this product.

 Camtasia for the Macintosh is soon to be a reality 

Not so good, I’m sad to say for Adobe fans. According to The Apple Blog there are currently no plans to bring it to the Mac. When questioned, the Adobe development team responded:

Captivate is built from a program that ties deeply into the core Windows. To bring it to the Mac would require a total rewrite, something that we’re not sure we can justify at this point. If we had significant interest from Mac users, it’d be a different story.

If you want to register your interest in a Mac version of Captivate, click here to let Adobe know via their feature request form.

Next to the the third of the “Big Three” rapid e-learning development authoring tools, Articulate similarly does not support MacOS natively. However, in a very comprehensive post here, guest blogger Jim Gritton (co-founder of GB Learning Consultancy) discusses

Parallels Desktop for Mac, followed by CrossOver Mac and now VMware Fusion. Both Parallels and Fusion are Windows emulators: they use virtualization technology to allow you to run Windows as a virtual machine alongside the Mac operating system, as you can see from the screenshot below:

While it may seem contradictory that I discuss an emulator here, Articulate is a little different, in that it can interact with Mac-native KeyNote-created presentations and even integrates with the Mac Dock (via Parallels).

Obviously more optimistic than me (see Death March above) Jim asserts that:

If you’re wondering about my set-up, I’m currently running Parallels Desktop with Windows XP on a 20-inch, all-in-one iMac, sporting a 2.16 GHz Intel Core Duo Processor, 1 GB memory and a 240 GB hard disk. This isn’t the fastest or most powerful Mac on the block, but it isn’t the slowest, either. I’m not going to pretend that running Windows applications using Parallels is as fast as running Mac applications natively on my iMac, but it’s no slouch. Nor has it let me down.

One approach that seems to me to have some potential is CrossOver Mac, which builds on the open-source implementation of the Windows API, Wine. This enables Unix-based operating systems (like Mac OS X and Linux) to run Windows applications “natively.” Hmmm… might look in to this myself, but it breaks my “Macs are for fun” work / life balance rule, in a thin-end-of-the-wedge kind of way…

What are we left with? Quite a lot, as it turns out.

In terms of native MacOS screencasting Mac, the evidence of my research suggests that Telestream’s ScreenFlow is the most popular application.

ScreenFlow Export wizard screenshot

According to their website ScreenFlow includes:

In the multiplatform world, Qarbon’s offering ViewletBuilder seems to have potential. This product seems to have some powerful e-learning features including LMS integration.

Qarbon’s ViewletBuilder

According to Qarbon, the product’s highlights are:

• Create and publish Flash tutorials and simulations in minutes
• Expand the reach of your online marketing with interactive slideshows and presentations
• Develop and deliver powerful, dynamic courseware without programming
• Capture detailed viewer responses with quizzes, tests, surveys and polls
• Seamlessly share Projects amongst Authors
• Integrate your content with your organization’s learning management system (LMS)
• Benefit from its multi-platform solutions Windows, Linux & Mac

From the open source world SWF Tools is also available for the Mac. SWF Tools is a collection of SWF manipulation and creation utilities written by Rainer Böhme and Matthias Kramm. It is released under the GPL.
Features included are:

• PDF2SWF A PDF to SWF Converter. Generates one frame per page. Enables you to have fully formatted text, including tables, formulas etc. inside your Flash Movie. It’s based on the xpdf PDF parser from Derek B. Noonburg.
• SWFCombine A tool for inserting SWFs into Wrapper SWFs. (Templates) E.g. for including the pdf2swf SWFs in some sort of Browsing-SWF.
• SWFStrings Scans SWFs for text data.
• SWFDump Prints out various informations about SWFs.
• JPEG2SWF Takes one or more JPEG pictures and generates a SWF slideshow.
• PNG2SWF Like JPEG2SWF, only for PNGs.
• GIF2SWF Converts GIFs to SWF. Also able to handle animated gifs.
• WAV2SWF Converts WAV audio files to SWFs, using the L.A.M.E. MP3 encoder library.
• AVI2SWF Converts AVI animation files to SWF. It supports Flash MX H.263 compression. Some examples can be found at examples.html.
  Font2SWF Converts font files (TTF, Type1) to SWF.
• SWFBBox Allows to readjust SWF bounding boxes.
• SWFC A tool for creating SWF files from simple script files.
• SWFExtract Allows to extract Movieclips, Sounds, Images etc. from SWF files.
• RFXSWF Library A fully featured library which can be used for standalone SWF generation. Includes support for Bitmaps, Buttons, Shapes, Text, Fonts, Sound etc. It also has support for ActionScript using the Ming ActionCompiler.

SWFTools has been reported to work on Solaris, Linux, FreeBSD, OpenBSD, HP-UX, MacOS X and Windows 98/ME/2000/XP/Vista.

If you want to experiment with a ‘lite’ authoring environment for the Macintosh, try free-to-use Jing (by TechSmith).

• Screenshot still image capture
• Record onscreen video
• Share instantly over the Web (FTP), IM, e-mail
• Audio Narration

Jing lacks many features that proprietary screencasting software has, including local saves, multiple output types, and delivery formats, but it’s free to use, so a restricted function set should be expected. Once content is captured and saved, a URL for the file is automatically created and can be shared with others to view or access.

So there you have it. A whistle-stop tour of content capture and rapid e-learning authoring tools for the Mac. I would be very interested to hear how Mac users fare with these applications, or can suggest any others that are used in this context on the MacOS platform. What really surprises me is that there aren’t more tools already, after all, the Mac is the doyen of the digital media development industry and I would have thought that the tools available for e-learning development would reflect this preference for the platform. But that’s another story.

NOTE WELL:

Given the number of positive comments I have made about TechSmith recently, I want to emphasize that I am in no way associated with them, and that the purpose of this blog is not to showcase or cheerlead any commercial interest. It just happens at the moment they seem to make the most effective tools in this market space. I would suggest to their competitors that they step up to the mark and compete with applications that really meet the needs of learning and development practitioners and I will certainly be pleased to discuss their solutions in positive terms. Equally, should anyone fall short of the mark (MPEG4  or FLV, anyone?) I will highlight it on the E-Learning Curve Blog with no prejudice.

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Given the number of responses to the E-Learning Demo comparison articles, I have decided to combine them and make them available to all as a downloadable whitepaper (PDF format) so that the review can be read in one easily-accessible document.

Click here read the review in a new browser window, or right-click and Save As… to download a copy of the paper to your PC or Mac. You will need Adobe Reader to view the file. Click here to download Adobe Reader 9.

My final thought for today: I put a lot of time and effort into writing (hopefully)  useful, informative and stimulating material for this e-learning blog. Being a learning and development professional, the posts I find most satisfying to write concern the reasons people want to learn, the theories and approaches that support learning, and how best to enable learners to acquire knowledge. I guess I have to admit that sometimes I forget that maybe the practical ‘just-in-time’ material is as important as the more esoteric material. In future, I’ll certainly add more posts concerning the practical elements of e-learning development, deployment and delivery into the mix.

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In my previous posting, I discussed the two applications’ user interfaces and audio capabilities. Today, I will look at workflow and usability.

Captivate Usability

Captivate offers three customizable capture presets – demonstrations, assessment simulations, and training simulations. If you choose an assessment simulation, Captivate won’t capture mouse movements that highlight boxes, or text captions that would tell the learner how to proceed in the assessment. In demonstration mode, Captivate doesn’t include Click boxes, since it assumes that the audience is passively viewing the content.

As mentioned last time, Captivate uses an object-orientated paradigm to develop content. As such, events and interactions are captured as a series of screens. In edit mode, the content author can flexibly create new screens, import content (in a number of formats including AVI, PPT, and FLV), change the sequence of events, and delete unused content. As you can see from Figure 1, the edit tab look-and-feel is a combination of the Macromedia / Adobe Unified User Interface and Microsoft PowerPoint: this indicates to me that Adobe are targeting users familiar with developing content in the latter program as their core market for Captivate.

Figure 1. Detailed view of the Captivate UI.

[Click here to view larger image]

In this context, the UI works very well indeed; you can actually create a PowerPoint presentation in it’s native format, import it to Captivate, enhance it with motion-based media, animations, quizzes, and audio narration, and generate a learning object with ease. The inclusion of a timeline at the center-top of the UI is reminiscent of Flash and Director, so users familiar with these authoring tools can transition to Captivate-based content creation. The timeline also contains the vector-based mouse layer, which enables the modification of the mouse motion track in a demo or slide,

Compared to Camtasia, Captivate captures a broader range of text and interactive elements. The author can also add Text Entry boxes, clickable buttons, animations and text animations. Once an element is added to the timeline, it can be lengthened, reduced, and repositioned, which allows for a high level of precision – count on spending plenty of time tweaking the automatically captured elements to get the timing right.

Camtasia’s Usability

If you’ve ever used Windows Movie Maker, you will be familiar with the Camtasia Studio UI. The interface is based on the video editing suite paradigm and includes all the common features of this editing environment – a preview window, a timeline where edits are made, a clip bin, and effects (cross fade, contrast/brightness etc) controls. Since Camtasia captures all mouse and screen events, it’s perfect for developing process flows, hot to’s and application demonstrations. Camtasia does not automatically generate onscreen text media like callouts, but they can be added manually in post-production. As with Captivate, TechSmith’s program allows for very precise location of callouts and highlights. Similarly Flash Hot Spots—callouts with additional Flash properties— can be included – though you have to render the entire project to view their operation, which is a nuisance (Captivate facilitates a single frame, five frame, or entire movie preview which is great for testing interactive functionality). It is possible to add quizzes in Camtasia, but the results are not scored as they are in Captivate.

Conclusions
And so this is where I came in: I still don’t know which application I prefer. Used together as part of your e-learning content development toolkit, the applications will provide   you with the ability to cover most (if not all) e-learning development eventualities. Because of my own professional background in digital media development, I feel more at home using Camtasia, but that does not mean that it’s better at what it does. In terms of Camtasia’s advantages I could highlight the better digital media manipulation, sophisticated features like zoom-and-pan, and wider range of output formats that Captivate just can’t match. On the other hand, Captivate is much more capable and easier to use when creating assessments and simulations, especially with its ability to preview Click Boxes and other user input in Preview mode.

A comment contributor to the E-Learning Curve Blog called rjnagle was kind enough to share their experience of the apps with me:

Captivate has lots of quirks that take getting used to. I haven’t used the elearning capabilities, only the demo capabilities.

First, the html output consists of several swf files, several of whom reference the other. It can be troublesome to put on a website.

Some basic editing features end up taking a lot of time. (for example, I’ve never figured out how to crop the beginning of an animation, only the end). I notice that sometimes when you impose text it will append dead time at the end.

I wish there were a way to speed up the animation time so that it plays more rapidly.

Also, despite the claims of the documentation, you simply can’t attach more than one slide to an audio clip. It causes lots of problems.

I do like the fact you can import slides from other projects into the current one.
-

They go on:

I have been disillusioned about Captivate, but once I recognize what it does well, I can manage.

The problem is that on the job you typically are able to choose one or the other, not both.

As I said when I began this series, each program has uniquely excellent functionality.

In the context of my contributor rjnagle, I would have to suggest that if your requirements center on demo development (and not e-learning), Camtasia Studio is the better tool. As for me? Well… I would assert that (for the moment) both tools are essential. Once you become familiar with their strengths, weaknesses, and quirks, it is hard to imagine working without either one. 

____________

Find Out More:

Adobe Captivate Homepage

TechSmith Camtasia Studio Homepage

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Now read on…

Writing this review has proven to be a much more difficult (and time-consuming) task that I had anticipated it would be; in fact, I can say that I experience a mild cognitive dissonance whenever I’m asked the question “which do you prefer (or recommend): Camtasia or Captivate?”

The answer is I don’t know. Or more accurately, I still don’t know. More on this later. Like most people (in any industry) I tend to have a single ‘weapon of choice’ for each task I undertake. Last weekend I spent some time doing some DIY around the house for example, and despite owning many screwdrivers, I always return to my trusty old Stanley DynaGrip 10, pretty much regardless of the gluing and screwing job I’m doing. Similarly when I post-produce video I use one editor – Vegas Video, when I edit audio the files are authored in SoundForge, and I use DreamWeaver to do 95% of my HTML and website- related production. But when it comes to authoring demos? Well… there I have a problem. Inevitably I run mentally run through the dialog that I am about to share with you, dear reader.

Adobe Captivate and TechSmith Camtasia Studio are similar e-learning content development tools with uniquely different strong points. If you’re creating a software demo, or a PowerPoint presentation to deliver online, Camtasia is a better application; conversely, if you’re making interactive web-based training, or a complex software demonstration, Captivate is superior is definitely the tool for the task.

Even where their functionality converges, their operating procedures and user interface are so different that each will probably appeal to different users. If (like me) your background is in media production, you’ll find Camtasia easy to learn and use, and Captivate frustrating. On the other hand, if you’re used to authoring content in PowerPoint, you’ll find Camtasia a strange, and Captivate more intuitive and fit-for-purpose.

Figure 1. Captivate UI (above), Camtasia UI (below).

[Click image to enlarge]

Beyond these, however, are certain functions at which one product excels and the other either doesn’t perform or performs quite poorly. For example, Camtasia excels at capturing streaming video content, which Captivate cannot do. If you need to ‘pan and scan’ a close-up of a screen element of the content that you’ve captured, Camtasia is your only choice. However, the reverse pertains if you’re creating a quiz – Captivate offers a much richer toolset. Similarly Captivate’s ability to generate Word or PDF versions of files for hardcopy distribution is a fantastic timesaver.

Indeed, the more you use both tools, the more you begin to realize that if you’re authoring a range of e-learning, demonstration, and presentation projects, you probably really need both .

Using Camtasia
Like most screen-capture utilities, Camtasia captures a video of the screen as you interact with it, with added audio if you enable narration, as well as Picture-in-Picture (PIP) video if you add a webcam. The resultant CAMREC output file is a recording of all of the audio, video and interaction elements. In editing mode, Camtasia enables the addition of multiple tracks for captions, breakout boxes, callouts, PIP, quizzes, and so on.

Using Captivate
Captivate works differently. Rather than capturing one multiplexed file, Captivate captures the user’s interactions as a series of screens, each containing one mouse click and movement. Very much like its progenitor Flash, Captivate stores each object of each captured screen as a separate element. As with Camtasia, you may add additional content enhancements – 508-compliant closed captioning, callouts, quizzes, etc in post-production.

Audio
Both applications enable the author to either record audio narration in real time during capture time, or import MP3 or WAV audio in post-production. In my experience, Captivate audio recorded in real time loses synchronization over the duration of the recording: this becomes especially noticeable in 20-minute-plus recordings and can be very frustrating to remediate. However you can add post-content captured audio slide by slide (tedious), or by importing a completed audio file. A very neat feature of Captivate is that it recognizes audio markers, so if you include these in your WAV or MP3 file, it will synchronize with the slides in the presentation. I have also noticed that the audio generated by Captivate can be pretty ropey (even though it’s MP3 format) – in fact, at some of the lower sample- and bit rates, it reminds me of the horrible .VOX format I had to use in my Authorware days, back in the last century.

In my view, Camtasia Studio provides a much more easy-to-use and intuitive audio recording and editing experience. The fact that you can see all the audio on a timeline layer means that you can see how the audio fits in context with the whole presentation’s ‘big picture.’ The ability to split audio and move it around the timeline is an added bonus. Similarly, I feel that the audio enhancement features – normalization, noise reduction (NR) and so on – are easier to preview and use in Camtasia. In terms of outputs, there no end to your choice of formats – MP3, WAV, and WMA. The facility to render podcast-formatted audio is a very cool feature that Captivate just can’t compete with.

This concludes this part of my head-to-head review.

Next time: Video editing, content rendering, and my conclusions.

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