Most teams are sitting on a stack of Zoom recordings (webinars, customer trainings, all-hands sessions) that nobody ever turns into anything.

Doing anything with them seems too... messy, and a lot of people don’t realize that there’s an asset there in the first place.

In this episode, Matt sits down with Carson Vestergaard, Instructional Designer at TechSmith, who breaks down why the easiest training video you'll ever ship is often one that already exists in your meeting recordings folder, and how Camtasia's new Zoom integration is making that possible.

Carson’s team on TechSmith’s customer education side runs this workflow every week. They pull a Zoom recording into Camtasia, and the integration automatically splits the speaker from the screen.

From there, Audiate's text-based editing changes how the cleanup feels. What used to be an afternoon of manual work becomes a read-through.

Beyond the Zoom integration, the conversation gets into Sync Audio (Camtasia’s new feature that auto-aligns multi-mic recordings without the manual clap-and-spike trick), AI noise removal that handles the leaf blower outside the window without breaking voice clarity, and the screenshot-overlay trick Carson leans on to keep tutorials current long after the original UI has moved on.

Carson also shares a few insider tricks for keeping the viewer's eye where you want it, from cursor zooms to on-screen highlights.

Learning points from the episode include:

• 00:00 – 00:57 Intro
• 00:57 – 02:34 Carson’s career path:
• 02:34 – 03:54 The most underrated editing skill
• 03:54 – 06:47 Inside Camtasia’s new Zoom integration
• 06:47 – 10:12 Cleaning up a webinar with Audiate’s text-based editing
• 10:12 – 14:18 Layouts, the cursor caveat, and why this is Zoom-only
• 14:18 – 17:38 Sync Audio and AI noise removal in loud rooms
• 17:38 – 20:43 Multi-take editing and why videos are easier to update than you think
• 20:43 – 22:30 Carson’s favorite tools
• 22:30 – 23:02 Outro

Important links and mentions:

• Connect with TechSmith on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/techsmith/
• Learn more about Camtasia: https://www.techsmith.com/camtasia/
• Explore Snagit: https://www.techsmith.com/snagit/
• Learn more about Audiate: https://www.techsmith.com/camtasia/audiate/

Video editing can be very overwhelming at times. It feels like it can take

a while to learn or take a while to master. But there's new features

that we talked about coming out, like the zoom integration for example, that

just saves so much time. Like you already did the hard work of providing

a training on a zoom meeting or providing really well thought

training on a webinar. Why not be able to reuse that instead of just having

it be one and done and so bringing that into Camtasia, making

it look really nice, cutting out any words or phrases you don't want in there

anymore and an upload it from there just saves so much

time. And then of course the goal of any video at the end of the

day is teach somebody something, no matter how big or small.

So providing focus on the screen, like what exactly are you wanting them to look

at? Increase your cursor size, zoom in, throw a quick box around it,

throw a highlighter over it. Just really get your point across in the

simplest way possible. Good morning, good evening, good afternoon,

wherever you are and wherever you're watching from. My name is Matt Pearce. We're in

studio today and we are going to be talking about about some new stuff happening

in Camtasia and some opportunities if you're a trainer, to

be able to use these functionality to enhance what you're doing and

maybe extend the life of some of the work that you've already done. I've got

a special guest, Carsten Vestergaard. Did I say Vestergaard? Right. That is correct. Thank you

for being here. We're glad that you're here. Tell us a little about what you

do at TechSmith. Yeah, I'm an instructional designer at TechSmith

on our customer education team. So our team makes all the tutorials,

certification courses, we do all the webinars, any kind of training related

activity like that. And I mostly work with

Snagit, but all of us work cross product, so

Camtasia and the whole Camtasia suite as well. But

yes, I'm an instructional designer, making tutorial videos, doing

webinars and helping to write our tutorials. Well, and I think it's worth noting

because I think from a backstory kind of perspective, you've been a teacher,

you're a coach, so you do lots of kind of educational content

or learning throughout your life. Yeah, it all kind of

relates in the end. Like I started here as an intern in our in

TechSmith's HR department and then became a high school

math teacher. So of course lots of training there in person.

But Videos also, that was during COVID time, so everything was

posted online. Lots of video editing and then

coaching, volleyball training and instructional design. So it kind of all

relates. Awesome. Well, I love that. So. Well, we've got a couple things to talk

about, but before we do that, what's a tip about using images

or video that you'd want listeners of the podcast to know about that Maybe something

that helps you out a lot. It sounds simple, but focus,

like where to focus on the screen. So lots of zooming and

panning, I guess is the official phrase for it, but lots of zooming in. Just

a simple highlight of where to look or a box of where to look. Or

making the cursor bigger so people are looking to where you're trying to point

to, especially when the screen gets super busy.

I make a lot of videos for, of course, at work. My day

job is videos all day, every day. But

making like, tutorials for my volleyball team as well,

or how to navigate, like the schedule site and how to find all the

trainings that they're looking for. Just anything that can kind of provide focus on the

screen. How. How zoomed in is too zoomed in. Oh. Everyone always

told me when I was learning how to video edit, zoom in

more, make the cursor bigger. And I remember going 800 on the

cursor one time and I just got flooded with comments like, too much,

too much. I'm like, okay, okay, so a lot. But I.

I finally found the max. I thought there wasn't a max, but I think I

did hit the max. Do you remember what that number is off the top of

your head? The cursor was 800%. I remember. That's the biggest. That was

the. Yeah. And then zooming in, I don't know,

like 400, 500% would probably, which is a lot. It gets

crazy. So I'm assuming you record very full screen,

highest resolution you can get.4k. So you can do that better. Yeah, yeah,

exactly. Awesome. Well, speaking of zooming in, we're going to tie into

zoom. So there's a new feature in Camtasia, the

zoom integration, which allows people to bring in zoom

content into Camtasia directly. So tell us, just high

level, really? What does that do for someone if they're like, oh, that

sounds interesting. I use zoom, which is. I guess we should maybe state that

it's the, you know, the Internet web standard for connecting, I guess.

I don't know if it's a standard or not, but it seems very popular. Yes,

definitely. Any zoom meeting recordings or

webinar recordings you can bring into

Camtasia now automatically and without going

too deep, it opens up Camtasia Rev, which is just a feature of

Camtasia. And it allows you to immediately style

your video so your camera separate from your screen. Because usually when you're

recording a Zoom call or a Zoom webinar, you have your speaker or

speakers if multiple people are unmuted and then whatever you're

sharing on your screen. So you can manipulate those streams separately,

make them look really nice, make a bunch of edits, like cut out all

the pre meeting chat, where we always have like

five minutes of chat at the beginning of any TechSmith call usually.

And then at the end when everyone's saying bye or asking questions that won't

be relevant in the recording to cut that all out easily and then like

have this nice produced video at the end. Well, let's talk about the

streams first, because I think that seems like as I've been looking around,

it seems like that's a unique thing, right? Because the thing I've experienced and we've

done, I've done events at TechSmith where we've taken that stream and you get like

a camera that's a square thing and then it's just kind of plopped

up in a corner and then you got your screen or slides or

whatever that was recorded, but it's like kind of messy, it's not very polished. So

why do you think that's a big deal for people? I think it's a big

deal for people because one, in a video

edit later, you might want to switch back and forth. Like sometimes the speaker becomes

irrelevant and while speaking about focus on the screen, you want to just focus on

the screen and completely get rid of the webcam. Or

sometimes in Zoom, if you turn your camera off, it just says your name and

like that black circle or black square and. And that just looks odd in

a recording. So you could take that out. Or if there's nothing on the

screen, which we know happens in Zoom calls a lot, no one's sharing their screen.

Then you could make the webcam full screen. So just having

being able to manipulate and I think Zoom is one of the only,

you know, meeting softwares that can record

your screen separate from your camera. And full

like full disclosure, you need Zoom Pro or any paid version of Zoom

in your settings. You can turn Zoom to record your screen

and camera separately, but it's rare. So then

Camtasia is able to take those separate streams in. Yeah, it

seems like that just the Time savings. If you're using a webinar or a

meeting recording and you want to use it for an end polish, it does feel

like a significant, like less effort

than if you just brought it in from like the. I think Zoom gives you

a folder with like all, all the files. Yeah. There's like five separate

ones that you could do, like screen and camera. Just camera,

just screen. I think there's more. Like the gallery view, the single view.

There's a lot. So now you don't even need to choose. Camtasia just finds them

for you and knows which ones to bring in. So let's put on our

hat for our listeners out there who are maybe in a world of

maybe they're instructional designers like you are, or maybe they're doing web

based training or facilitating some things. What would you

imagine someone would like? What's one of the things you could get benefit

from if you're using the Zoom integration? Yeah. I'll first start with an

example that Our team at TechSmith Customer education does

multiple times a week, which is we do a lot of webinars in a

few different languages. And so we bring them in to.

We bring the recording now into Camtasia with this new feature and we always

start the webinar like 10 minutes early. And that's where all of us are just

kind of chatting behind the scenes or we're asking people if they can hear.

They can't. Or hear the music. See us. Is everything working?

Tell us where your classic. Where you tell us where you're from. Right,

exactly. And their stuff. Yeah, weather. Got to throw in the weather.

And so in a recording that we're going to post later, none

of that's relevant at all. No one needs to sit through 10 minutes of random

chatter. So we use Audiate now to completely cut

that all out. So rather we used to just have to trim and like look

at the waves. The audio. Audio waves. Or just listen to it. Like where does

this chat end? Keep hitting play and pause to figure out where we should trim

to. But now Audiate allows Camtasia

Audio allows text based editing. So we just read through everything so we

can read. So let me. So you're bringing in from Zoom into Rev, Right.

And it's gonna give you the layout. Then you're saying send it to Audiate, which

I guess we should emphasize that anyone that has Camtasia gets the text based

editing feature, correct? Yep. Okay, so now you got it in. It transcribes the

entire webinar. Yep. And you're Just getting rid of stuff. Yes,

exactly. I skipped a few steps there. No, I just want to make sure I

get it. Clarifying. Yeah. So once audio transcribes, you can just

read through our whole hour long webinar, every word that anybody said.

So then we just highlight what we don't want and delete it and

same thing at the end of the webinar there's always like, thank yous, have a

great Thursday. But we don't. People don't even know it's Thursday on a recording. Random

things like that. So we'll just highlight and delete all of that. That's

awesome. So it doesn't make, it does seem like if I'm a, if I'm a

trainer out there or I'm creating this virtual content

opportunities that the reusability of that content just went up because

one, you can cut the fluff, you can even probably trim out other things if

it's something was, you know, somebody maybe asked you to restate something

or maybe you just mess something up. Right. That reminds me. Yeah. We cut

out all the ums and ahs. Like obviously when someone is speaking in a

webinar or a meeting for a full hour, they're going to think they're going to

say a few times or repeat their words a couple times or stutter

at the beginning of sentences. So we cut all that out as well. And that

usually cuts, you know, like a good minute or two out at the end

of just straight up hesitation words that don't matter.

Yeah. Again, it seems like if you're a trainer also you've got this high reusability

of content because we know. So you set a

training for a day, someone will say, well, I'm sick that day or I

can't make it or my plans have changed. And I think everyone in the

kind of universe now does. Like this is

recorded for the most part. Right. And then you want something that's a nice

delivery for after. Yeah, exactly. So are there other

things that you feel like benefits from the zoom integration that

we might want to think about? If I'm a new user thinking about using this

in my organization, what are the other options or opportunities for me?

Well, when it brings it into Camtasia Rev and you can choose the layouts, like

you can put a cool dynamic background behind your screen, which is just kind

of like moving colors of just to provide some kind of

dynamic element or colorful element and then

manipulate, like I said, the screen and webcam. So usually what we

do for our webinars is we show both the screen

and the speaker for a bit, but then partway through our webinars

our speaker will turn off their camera so that people are just focusing on their

content. Especially because we're teaching Camtasia and Snagit where your webcam is

going to be on anyway. And then the double webcam gets turned be a lot.

So then we'll just. You can pick, you can split your content in

Camtasia and pick multiple layouts and then add a transition between them. So you'll

see like the speaker and screen at first and then there will be a nice

transition and just kind of the screen will slowly zoom in and

that webcam is gone. Because like I said in Zoom, if your webcam is

off, it just says your name in like a black box and it's just doesn't.

It provides nothing and it's no value there. No value.

Yeah, I guess one of the things it's worth mentioning and just.

You can correct me if I'm wrong. The, the when you bring in those screen

recordings or whatever, your cursor does not get enhanced though.

That's correct. That's the only downside and it's because Zoom is unable

to record cursor metadata separately. So

if anyone listening has used Camtasia and Snagit in the past,

Camtasia can record your cursor. So you can make your cursor bigger, you

can add highlights. Zoom, because you're bringing it in from Zoom, cannot. So

your cursor is going to do whatever your cursor did throughout your meeting or

webinar. But everything else you can completely manipulate like add filters

to your camera, add a border to your camera, add a nice

shadow or reflection to your camera or screen

and we can still, you can still zoom in on the screen and stuff like

that. So maybe there's a tip there that like, hey, if you're going to use

this and you're recording the screen, increase the size of your cursor in

your system settings. Right. We used to do that all the time. That is a

good pro tip actually. Yeah, increase your cursor off the bat before you

start recording. Which yeah many like third party apps can do.

Or just use Camtasia later to zoom in. If you didn't increase your cursor and

it's too late, just zoom in and then your cursor will. It'll be

much more focused and larger from there. I love it. You had

mentioned earlier that you have to have it's Zoom any

paid version of Zoom. So Zoom Pro, Zoom business. I forget all their names.

So, you know, people are gonna ask, well, I don't use Zoom. I'm on

teams. We webex. GoToMeeting

Adobe. What's Adobe's? I can't remember what theirs is. Oh, sorry,

Adobe. But there's all these other tools that people use. I think

you mentioned earlier. Blue jeans. That's an old one. That's an old one.

There's all sorts of them. But this is a Zoom only feature, correct?

This is a Zoom only feature, yes. Other

meeting recordings or other recording software is like

teams, et cetera, cannot record your camera and screen

separately. So you could still bring those into Camtasia and make a bunch of

edits and still even export to Audiate like we were talking about, and cut out

any text that you want really easily. But you won't be able to

manipulate your camera separate from your screen and get the layouts like

you can with Zoom. So maybe those other tools start introducing separate

recordings for the things. Maybe we will get there. I would love it.

Yeah. I think it's helpful for me to understand that the difference in the technology

and why, you know, you can bring in any MP4 to Camtasia, but Zoom's

given us a little bit of something to work with. So I want to shift

gears because I think the Zoom stuff is super exciting. There's a feature also coming

out that I'm excited about, which is Sync Audio. Tell us a

little bit about what does it mean to be able to sync. What is that?

Like, sync audio. Like, what is that? Yeah, I'm trying to

remember what someone on my customer education team just did the other

day where they needed to sync audio and they had two microphones going to

test a couple out because they were outside. So they had like a pin lapel

mic and another mic kind of like this sitting out in front of them.

And you can. You used to have to manually match up the

audio way we taught people how to like, hey, do a clap. Get the spike.

Match up the spike. Zoom in all the way. Yes. Like this very manual process.

Scream your head off to get a audio spike. Or clap your hands

is the calm way. I like, scream your head off. That's a great one. In

the studio. And then that's what you'd look for to kind of match up the

audio waves so that you could get your, your two AUD clips to sit

on top of each other and, you know, choose which one you want or cut

pieces out. And now Camtasia can line up the audio Waves

for you automatically. I'm thinking about use cases because for me, like, I

do, obviously, in a podcast like this, I've got multiple.

Usually we're not in the. I'm not in the studio, but I still end up

with, like, multiple audio recordings. So separate audio for me and

the guest and then the kind of. The main kind of track, that's like our

video. But yeah, it just opens up so much opportunity to bring

those things together. And I. I don't have to zoom in, you know, it's just

like it does one track at a time and I've used it and it's. Honestly,

it's more accurate than I can get. Yeah, same here. And this, this is a

perfect example of even us too, just sitting here anytime where you have multiple

mics going and need to line up those audio streams later. So

for anyone who is thinking about that, I guess what

for your team, what kind of things do you think you might use that for?

Sounds like there was some testing of microphones. Anything else you guys might, as

instructional designers, that doors that opens for you or opportunities.

Anytime where we're really moving around is when we might use multiple

mics. So recording outside or in a studio,

which you guys are doing more, you're starting to do more of, right? We are,

yeah. Or getting two people involved in a video, anything that

would involve that kind of collaboration, we're gonna move away from the features a little

bit. What are your biggest as an instructional designer? Like you said, you're making videos

for volleyball, you're making videos for work, you're making a lot of videos. What's your

biggest audio frustration? Like, what's the thing that you wish if you could wave a

magic wand, make it go. What? What would you wish for? Oh,

good question. I live in an apartment and there's noises

sometimes when I record, like the lawnmower outside if my window's open,

always a leaf blower. Oh, my God, a leaf blower. Or like,

even the AC buzzing or a fan buzzing or the fridge buzzing, anything

like that. So Camtasia and Snagit and all

our recorders have AI noise removal, and it

perfectly gets rid of that. I, Troy, who works at TechSmith,

who lives in Germany, did the coolest video. I'm sure all

of us have seen it. It's somewhere out there on social media,

but where? He sat in the middle of a street in Berlin and recorded, and

it was very noisy around him. And AI noise removal, like, perfectly

removed all those car noises and people talking and the wind and

everything. Behind him. So that would be the main one. The other one is

anytime I'm recording, I say sentences multiple times. My

voice dies out at the end of a lot of sentences. Or I just didn't

say it right or it was awkward. So I'll say sentences

multiple times and then pick the ones I want to keep. And that text

based editing and audio that we were talking about before is the easiest

way because I just read through and I see. Okay, I said this

sentence here three times in a row. Let me listen to them. I want number

two, highlight, delete the first one, highlight, delete the third one and it deletes

that audio as well as the video that I had going with it. So. So

it's easy to do multiple takes. I appreciate that one I just did. I've been

recording lectures for a university course that I've been making

and lots of takes scripted out. Right. And I have to say

things multiple times. Cause I make mistakes. Yeah.

Having the ability to read and see the like the duplicate.

And then, you know, then I gotta listen to make sure I didn't. The first

one wasn't really the best one. Sometimes it was. But I'm gonna

say. And if the audiate team's listening and audience tell us if

this is something you'd want because we've got the. Like you can detects

duplicate words. Yes, I want duplicate sentences or

phrases or highlight those so I can go find them later and

not keep duplicate. Yeah, that would be nice because I've already used the duplicate words

a bunch. Not with scripted things. You know, I won't accidentally say the same word

twice, but in webinars all the time, like open up,

open up, snagit. Because I'm still trying to click the button. Anything

like that, it'll already automatically delete. Yeah, a

lot of that. That or so. So

man. So so many not good duplications of words that I'm

just spewing as filler. So Carson, as we

get close to wrapping up here, thinking about the audience that's probably seen your

tutorials. If there was. We talked about a tip at the beginning. But

I'm thinking about people who are. They're in the thick of doing, creating

videos. They're probably maybe not making as many as you are. But what would you

want them to know that would maybe from what you've experienced over your

time at TechSmith, as someone who's made a lot of videos now, what do

you wish everyone knew about either products or just advice for

video creation? That's a hard Question. I think

they're easier to update later than you think. That's been on

my mind a lot. Like videos can go out of.

What's the word I'm looking for? Become irrelevant.

Is it get stale so much faster or one thing in your UI

changes? Anything like that. So

the, the best part of video editing or the thing that people should know

is like throwing in. You can even just throw in a new

screenshot over the top of your video in Camtasia.

And so if, if this UI change and it's only this one

page that you loaded, just throw a new screenshot of the page above it and

it'll like nicely transition into it. Or if there was a date up

on your screen, 20, 21, and you don't want to know, you want

people to know that your video is that old. Just, you know, overlay a new

screenshot on top of it. Which is, you know, nice how Snagit and

Camtasia can kind of work together because you can bring images in and now easier

than ever, right? Send your images to Camtasia or from your images in

Camtasia to Snagit and change them and send them right back. It's pretty awesome.

It's. It feels like cheating, but there's a lot of faking behind the scenes. Like

it's. It's not as much video recording as you think.

It's kind of a lot of screenshots with a cursor that you think are

actually clicking, but it's really just switching the page and it makes videos so much

easier to update in the future. It's not. There's no cheating in

video editing. It's called editing. That's right. It's movie magic. That's what we

like. Well, Carson, this has been a fantastic

opportunity to sit down and talk about a couple features, hear a little bit more

from you about why these are so valuable. We like to end our show

with everyone giving us their final take. So, Carson, what is your

final take? My final take is. Video editing

can be very overwhelming at times. It

feels like it can take a while to learn or take a while to master.

But there is new features that we talked about coming out, like the zoom

integration, for example, that just saves so much time. You already did the hard

work of providing a training on a zoom meeting or

providing really well thought training on a webinar. Why not be

able to reuse that instead of just having it be one and done and so

bringing that into Camtasia, making it look really nice, cutting out any

words or phrases you don't want in there anymore. And in uploading

it from there just saves so much time. Are

using screenshots to kind of fake what you were doing before saves

so much time. And then, of course, the goal of any video at

the end of the day is teach somebody something, no matter how big or small.

So providing focus on the screen, like, what exactly are you wanting them to look

at? Increase your cursor size, zoom in, throw a quick box around

it, throw a highlighter over it. Just really get your point across in

the simplest way possible. I love it. Well, Carson, thanks for joining me in the

visual lounge. Thanks for having me. My first podcast ever. Awesome. I love it. I

love being the first. Hey, everybody. Well, you've heard, Carson. There's so many ways that

you can make your life a little bit easier. And it's not cheating. It

is good design and good editing. And we hope that

you take time, that you're spending time, get to know the products

that you have, get to know the new features, because they're there to help you

to make your ability so much easier. And we like to say, of course,

at the end of every show, we hope you take a little time to level

up every single day. Thanks, everybody.