Sequencing Screen Captures in Edit Mode

Question

I've used Camtasia alot and am transitioning to Captivate. To
test recording and editing in Captivate, I recorded one minute of
screen activity to simulate capturing an application demo. When I
end the recording, it converts the recording to thumbnails and puts
them in Storyboard mode but also chunks it into slides that I can
not sequence in Edit Mode. I get 10 seconds chunks and I can't
figure out how to put them together to make one sequence. Do I have
a wrong setting? Any help is greatly appreciated.

Answer 1

Hi Jennifer and welcome to our community
This isn't intended to slam or highlight either product, only
to point out differences.
Camtasia captures full motion from the onset. Captivate
captures individual screen shots and places them on slides.
Captivate does do full motion capture, but it's not intended to be
used like Camtasia's is. For example, you would never want to
surround Windows Media Player using Captivate and record a five
minute video. But you could do this with Camtasia. (copyrights
notwithstanding)
Camtasia allows text captions, but you have to add them after
the fact. Captivate can add these things automatically. Captivate
wins with these hands down, as there is more variety and they look
more polished and professional.
Captivate has only two different output types. .SWF and .EXE.
Camtasia offers a wider selection. Including .FLV (Flash Video) ,
.AVI (Audio/Video Interleave, .WMV (Windows Media), .QT
(QuickTime), .RM (RealMedia).
The Camtasia Timeline represents the entire project.
Captivate's Timeline is per slide.
Camtasia has some neat transitions you may use, but you have
to split the movie manually and it takes a bit of getting used to.
Captivate has a few transitions for slides, but the process seems
more intuitive. At least to me.
Captivate offers three "levels" of audio. Background track,
Slide and Object. Camtasia essentially has two and seems a bit
rigid as opposed to Captivate.
Both products offer quizzing functionality. However,
Captivate's seems more robust and easier to use. At least it does
to me.
Both products record the screen, but as near as I can tell,
Camtasia is unable to record like Captivate does, where you end up
with a simulation. You may certainly add Flash hotspots later, but
Captivate does it for you.
Those are just a few differences I noted. There are many
more. Hopefully this helps give you an idea. Personally, while both
products do essentially the same thing (record the screen) I easily
see a need to have both.
Hopefully this was helpful... Rick