it is set for PAL DV - lower field first.
Videoformat - uncompressed.

ayath

Why do you chose a broadcast video output format for PC projection?

Camtasia capture in progressive scan, so using something like WMV in progressive scan for output seems to be a better solution for me.

That because Camtasia uses it's own TSCC lossless codec during capture. Your source will always look awesome. If things are looking fuzzy....it's definitely due to your choice of output (PAL DV) altering the aspect ratio.

I ran into this as well on several projects and the key here is to keep your Vegas output width and height to the exact same size as the screen action your capturing....like 800x600 etc. Also - I believe I had to set my pixel aspect ratio to Square.

Cheers!

VP

Not to seem rude or anything, but...

If I ask for help on getting this right it seems rather odd to ask why I use broadcast setting for output.
It would be ever so much more helpful if I was told what settings would be good to use. OK wmv, I got that - then for the rest of the settings.

And to answer the question - I am new to Vegas. I know very little about all these output formats - as I suspect most of you clever dudes did'n either when you started.

I am hoping to make a presentation in full screen (1024) and hopefully in a format that is good and that doesn't take up too much space on a disk.
Reason I ask is because it is much faster to ask someone who knows rather than trying out all the combinations.

Also I am using avi because someone on this board said that avi was best choice for format.

Ayath

Ayath,
you're doing just fine with it. What's happening, is you likely captured your Camtasia footage at a high resolution, like 1280 x 768 or higher, and then you're working in lower resolution outputs. By using a touch of unsharp mask, etc, you will get pretty good result, but the best result is by lowering your computer monitor resolution to 800 x 600 prior to capture, because the downsample can only go so far before it starts looking soft. Zooming in on the shot makes a huge difference too.
Be sure you've got all clips in Camtasia in TSCC and in avi, not CamRec. Additionally, converting that avi straight over to YUV helps a lot. The way that Camtasia works is very similar to HDV, with B and P frames that get munged up when you start editing straight on them.

Camtasia is likely capturing at full resolution ( i.e. 1024x768 ), and playing
back at full res.

Your Vegas project is likely not set to 1024x768, nor are you exporting video
from Vegas at 1024x768, so there are bound to be a number of compromises
made if you are exporting at DV res. ( 720x480 )

One solution would be to set your Vegas project to the same res as the
Camtasia video capture, then export/encode at the same resolution from
Vegas into a digital file. You would view this digital video file on a computer.

Editing and outputting your video in HD format might be another possible
solution if you want to view your final work on an HD TV.

Hi,
I used Camtasia with Vegas a couple years ago to create some software product demos. As mentioned above, Camtasia uses the tscc codec which is near perfect... I captured all my screen activity with camtasia and then brought it into Vegas for ease of editing.

Then I rendered the finished project from vegas (I believe choosing the tscc codec there as well). The resulting file was WAY bigger than expected... so I just brought it into Camtasia Producer and rerendered it to tscc... don't know why, but the file size dropped by a 10th and quality looked just the same.

Good luck,
Jeff

Thank you very much for your help. You are The Dudes. B-)

Have managed to make a near perfect end user file.

Ayath

This question doesn't have to do with Camtasia. When I export a video to avi file, mine is looking fuzzy too. I tried to follow the advice given, and I changed my screen resolution to 800 x 600, but it didn't help. Is is because when I captured my video the screen resolution was set to 1024 x 768?

Thank you, Tara

You must capture the screen with your resolution set to 800 x 600 if you want good quality in the resulting avi file.

Thank you. One more question..I have a completed video...could I print to tape then change my screen resolution and capture the completed video into Vegas and then export to an avi file to get good quality?

No.
What you capture, is what you'll need to edit. To print to tape, the resolution must be 720 x 480. Somewhere, you'll be working with a slight loss in resolution.
Simply import the Camtasia AVI's that are 800 x 600 into Vegas, and edit from there. You'll have some scaling, but it should be minor. You CAN print this to tape, but if you do so before scaling it, it will be a useless process, because Vegas will scale it anyway, but you might not like what you get.

O.K. thank you very much. I was actually just talking about regular dv footage in Vegas and not importing from Camtasia. I am assuming that it works the same way though.

I'm sorry, I'm not understanding your question then. How would you get the footage from your screen captures into Vegas or to your camera if you weren't using Camtasia with which to capture?
There are scan converters, but HD scan converters (which is what you'd want) are much, much more expensive than Camtasia.

I am very sorry..I have not been explaining myself very well. When I have captured regular DV footage that I shot on my video camera into Vegas, I edit it and then render as an avi file...the footage seems fuzzy in the avi file. I was wondering about that when I read this thread. I don't anything for screen capture such as Camtasia. I guess I should have started a new thread. I apologize.

Be sure your preview window is set to Preview/Auto if you're working with the Vegas preview monitor, and set to Preview/Full if you're working with an external monitor. That likely will clear up your problem, and yes....your problem is unrelated to this particular thread. But...I hope this helps anyway?
When you capture footage from your camera, Vegas doesn't touch the media information. If it's fuzzy in Vegas, it's a mis-set preview window, or it was fuzzy from the camera. It's a direct transfer of bytes from the camera to the hard drive on the computer. Consider the tape to be a "linear hard drive" when you're shooting/capturing. It's converted to digital in the camera, and from there, it stays digital pretty well forever, except when the picture reaches the display, and if you have an HDMI transfer system, it stays digital all the way thru.

Glad I read this thread.
Was thinking of using Camtasia for a safety orientation project client wants to access on line.
I can see I would need a technician to accomplish that.
I had no idea it would be this complex.