Camtasia Studio Learning Center

Camtasia Studio allows you to record anything that you can view on your computer screen; including software applications, web pages, PowerPoint presentations, and much more.

Key for “Video Format vs. Common Video Players”

	Native support or widespread adoption that will lead to a pleasant viewing experience for the vast majority of people.
	Indicates a level of knowledge or workaround for the user, and may not lead to an ideal viewing experience.
	Not supported or much better alternative available.

Video Format vs. Common Video Players

	MPEG-4 AVC H.264 (Flash)	FLV (Flash)	SWF (Flash)	WMV	MOV	AVI	M4V	RM (RealMedia)
Web browser
CD
iTunes
QuickTime
WMP (Windows Media Player)	Supported in WMP 12
Screencast.com
YouTube
RealPlayer
iPhone/iPod Touch	Conversion required

Additional notes about each format:

MPEG4 AVC

Advanced Video Coding. Viewers need Flash Player 9.0.115 or higher installed. (Well over 90% of browsers surpass this requirement.) Windows Media Player 12 announced it will support native h.264 (the codec we use in the MPEG-4 AVC). Use iTunes to convert MPEG-4 AVC for play on iPhone or iPod Touch.

FLV

Flash Video. Viewers need to have Flash Player installed. Raw FLV files may not be opened by default in a viewer’s browser, so be sure to tell viewers they may need to manually open the file in a web browser.

SWF

Shockwave Flash. Viewers need to have Flash Player installed. Raw SWF files may not be opened by default in a viewer’s browser, so be sure to tell viewers they may need to manually open the file in a web browser. SWF file size grows tremendously when recording a great deal of motion on the screen, however the upside is that SWF produces great-looking video. Finally, SWF videos are limited to 16,000 frames. To approximate time, divide 16,000 by the number of frames recorded per second. Divide this answer by 60 to find the number of minutes the video can be. Example: If you record at 10 frames per second, you have 1600 available seconds of recording (16,000 / 10). Divide this by 60 (60 seconds per minute) and you'll find you're limited to approximately 26 minutes.

WMV

Windows Media Video. This format is a poor choice if Mac users will be watching your video. Mac users would need to get something like Flip4Mac.

MOV

QuickTime. MPEG-4 AVC can be played in QuickTime. Since it’s possible your Windows audience may not have QuickTime, you may want to consider using MPEG-4 AVC as it’s more versatile and you’ll achieve similar results in quality.

AVI

Audio Video Interleave. AVI is lossless, which means there is no compression or drop in quality but the file size will be HUGE! This format might be good for CD or DVD distribution, but it’s not very web friendly.

M4V

MPEG-4 Video (for iPod). This format is supported for native playback on some mobile devices like iPods and iPhones. Here’s a tip: if you change the file extension from .m4v to .mp4 you’ll likely find that your MP4 players can open and play the file.

RM

RealMedia. This format has declined in popularity but there are some that seek this format, in particular if they have a streaming server in place for RealMedia