One of the great advantages of the communication technologies available today is that people from all corners of the globe across varying time zones can collaborate on a project together without getting onto an airplane. I would submit my work at the end of the day in North America to be reviewed by my colleagues in India who were just starting their day. They would send me their comments and requests which I would receive when my day was starting. During my evenings/nights and their mornings we would use Live Messenger to communicate the more immediate issues.
To those who were not involved in the process I have made it sound like a well oiled and organized machine, while the rest of us know the real story.
One part of the process that was new to me was recording demos. I had never thought about how they were made, so when I was told that it was part of the job I did a little research. The answer I heard from everyone I spoke to was a package called Camtasia Studios from TechSmith (www.techsmith.com).
Their site claims them to be 'The leader in screen capture and recording technology'. I am relieved to say that their product lived up to this claim. Camtasia was easy to install and to use, and although the price is quite reasonable (USD$299 per copy) they did offer me a trial period of thirty days (full package) before buying.
Although I was once forced to dabble in graphics (thanks Poppy) but my experience with video had been limited to watching them. Coupled with the rest of what I was dealing with at the time I was not looking forward to delving into this field, but Camtasia made it easy to record - whether it was full screen, parts of a screen, or specific windows.
Once the video was recorded, editing was a snap. I was able to splice out mistakes and lag time seemlessly to keep the videos within the time limits.
The last step was recording the voiceovers. I was able to watch the video and talk over it in real-time to make sure the viewer would see and hear the right information at the right time.
One of the most appealing features was that Camtasia supported every file type I could think of. It is amazing what you have to consider in creating demos, and by supporting most of the common audio and video file formats as well as codecs really simplified things for us.
In short, a big thumbs up for Camtasia and TechSmith. Thanks for making me look (and sound) so good!