[Web4lib] Macromedia Captivate (formerly RoboDemo)

[Meredith Farkas]

I have been using Captivate for over a year and love it.  It's so intuitive
and in my opinion is the best tool for creating a really polished
screencast.  They make it really easy to record audio after the video and
alter the timing of each frame of the screencast to fit the audio.  That
being said, there is one major flaw I have found that would give me pause
before purchasing it.  Sometimes when you have everything nicely uploaded to
the Web and you try to view the screencst, the video will lag behind the
audio.  So your narrator is describing something that the viewer will see 10
seconds later.  If you pull the timing bar back to the begining and start
again, it works fine, but how many students will think to do that?  Not sure
if it is a problem with all screencasting software (like a limitation of the
computers playing the screencast) or just a Captivate problem.  I tried out
Camtasia a year ago and I wasn't crazy about it (versus Captivate) but I
know they have really improved the software since then and have heard a lot
of good things recently.

Last year, I reviewed both Captivate and Camtasia here
http://meredith.wolfwater.com/wordpress/index.php/index.php?p=206.  Keep in
mind though that is was an older version of Camtasia and that I was not yet
aware of the timing problems with Captivate.

This site gives an excellent overview of what's out there and what to
consider before purchasing the software
http://www.donationcoder.com/Reviews/Archive/ScreenCasting/  I know a lot of
people also use Qarbon Viewlet Builder and I've heard good things about
that.  It's also less costly than Captivate, I believe.

Cheers,
Meredith



On 4/18/06, Tawnya Plumb <TPlumb at uwyo.edu> wrote:
>
> Hi all,
>
>
>
> Does anyone have experience using Macromedia Captivate (or RoboDemo) to
> create online database tutorials?   What is your impression of the
> software?   What other software would you consider for creating
> tutorials?
>
>
>
> Thanks for your input,
>
>
>
> Tawnya Plumb
>
> Electronic Services Librarian
>
> George W. Hopper Law Library
>
> College of Law, University of Wyoming
>
> tplumb at uwyo.edu
>
> 307.766.5733
>
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>



--
Meredith Gorran Farkas
http://meredith.wolfwater.com/wordpress/