MacScreencasting

The new iLife ’11 just came out yesterday and I wanted to see the changes in iMovie. As you know, I use iMovie quite a bit for my video editing. I find it faster than Final Cut Express and well, good enough. One of the major improvements Steve Jobs touted was the improved audio. Did he deliver?

This video takes a quick iPhone 4 video, with the raw audio, and shows you 5 key enhancements iMovie brings to the table. They include:

• Turn on audio waveforms
• Adjust the volume
• Add audio effects
• Reduce background noise
• And, adjust the equalizer

[View iPhone version]

The new iMovie brings lots of improved audio control to your videos. If you’re shooting with the iPhone, I still recommend using a microphone with the kVConnection cable for the best possible audio. But if you need to make adjustments to your raw audio, the new iMovie ’11 definitely does the trick.

TechSmith has introduced a great new feature to Camtasia:Mac version 1.2. It’s a table of contents feature that makes it super easy to navigate to various points in your video. If you create longer screencasts, this tool is invaluable.

[View iPhone version]

This feature is great for longer tutorials or e-learning. You could also record Skype or Google Talk interviews and add markers for each question. This way your listeners can jump right to the question. And I really like the way the table of contents appears when you mouse over the video and disappears when you mouse off of it. Oh, and did I mention the search feature?

The only downside I see to the tool is that the output has to be Flash. In other words, it won’t work with iPhone or iPad video playback. Now I know for some, that’s not a big deal, but for those of us who create content primarily for a mobile audience, it really doesn’t help us that much. I’m playing with a few different options for that though. Look for a new post on that soon.

In the meantime, Camtasia:Mac has upped it’s game with this release.

On my previous posts regarding an iPhone 4 microphone, I wasn’t able to test out the kVConnection audio cable because I didn’t have one. Well I ordered one and here are the results.

[View iPhone version]

This simple adapter plugs into the headphone jack of your iPhone 4. You can then add one of your microphones to the other end. For this test I used one of my favorites, the Audio Technica ATR-3350 [aff].

I’m very pleased with the results. It makes iPhone 4 video sound as good as it looks. I highly recommend it.