Hello, anyone have expirience using camtasia? I would like to use a product to record some of my trading to review later for educational purposes. My drawback to camtasia is there are some reports its a bit resource intensive when using it, and I don't want to bog down my trading computer. Anyone used it without incident, or have an alternative? Thanks
I love SnagIt and Camtasia. I don't really notice a performance difference but I guess it depends on what your computer is running on. They have a trial so check it out and see for yourself. I'd suggest doing it during a slow time or a day when you don't plan to trade live in case it does bog your system down.
You can do basic screenrecords w/ SnagIt and it's less on the memory, so maybe start there and see. I use SnagIt daily for taking trading snapshots, annotations, etc.
I use Camtasia to record every trading session, and use playback just like you would to review a football game. There are many benefits to recording sessions but one drawback comes to mind: - File size. Each recording is between 800MB and 1GB for one 1600x1200 screen, but you'll have this problem with all screen recording software. You'll need a big HD and high density tape backup system to archive your recordings.
I use Camtasia, but I am rarely trading live at the moment so I cannot comment on the resource usage. I run a decent machine though. Vista Quadcore 2.5g homebuilt with 2 gig ram 512 mb videocard so I dont see any issues normally at 1600x1200. To reduce file sizes you can... Use the Camtasia codec Not record audio Use time lapse to record 5 frames a second rather than 30 This should get you about a 350mb file size at 7-9 hours record time. I am currently looking into the ability to record and playback tick data by various vendors, this would be a great tool and an easy way to archive the data. I assume the files would be small. This might be useful for you as well. If anyone is using playback regularly, please message me or post here, thanks.
Great replies, thank you. Here's the comp I'll probably be running it on....my system info says: Intel core2 quad CPU...2.66GHz 3.25 GB of RAM Runs on XP professional. With this I'd like to record roughly 6-8 hours of market action and my trading per day.....audio not important now. I wouldn't store the files on the HD of this computer...probably get an external. W/ the adjustments mentioned by the previous poster to decrease file size...would this computer be fast enough to run camtasia without getting bogged down? Thanks again.
Why not just download Camtasia and find out for yourself? They offer a free demo for 30 days with no restrictions to the software. Record 1min sessions with various settings to see how much memory/min you are taking up. While running the software you can even press CTRL-ALT-DEL to monitor how much memory the software is using. So there you have it. A complete answer and it will only take maybe an hour of your time if not considerably less.
I generally have used camtasia when i execute trades, so i can see what was going on at the time, when i'm in a reflective mood.