We have been using Camtasia for about two years and Captivate for one. We had to use both packages for compatibility between departments.

Camtasia seems to work better for quick, full motion video. Once you learn its quirks, you can make some good demos using Flash, audio and (as stated in other posts) Zoom and Pan.

Captivate has an advantage over Camtasia because it captures discreet screen captures that can be edited individually without affecting other portions of the project. This allows easier editing if you want a quick and fast demo. Captivate also has more options for multi-track training that allows you to branch based on answers provided.

The best way to decide which to use is to play with the downloadable demos for each and create the same video with each and do a direct comparison. We use both for various funtions.

Good to know. I haven't made the time yet to download Captivate and see the differences. I suspect that that's really my next step in defining what I actually want to work with. Thanks for the comment!

Greg - here is a very good discussion of the topic. It expands on several point that you may find useful.

http://phlesig.wordpress.com/2007/02/26/2157-captivate-vs-camtasia/

I use Camtasia for basic training videos with voice overs. I find the screen capture good once you have worked out the best sizes for your application. The action of the mouse during capture of the target app is a bit odd, seems to change the acceleration rate however once you get used to it the results are good. The hotkey start, stop and resume in last known mouse location is very handy as is the record last area settings.

The timeline editor in theory provides all the necessary components but I find it unreliable and annoying.

Yes you can add captions, but the caption editor is full of bugs, inserting line feeds and manual caption points nearly always results in concatenation of the subsequent captions which then need to be redited. There is no option to lock the following captions and move them all down together following an insertion mid stream. This is also the case if you add in an extra video clip mid stream, all the captions stay where they are and need to be manually re-synched. same with the voice. ITS VERY ANNOYING. This needs work which camtasia admit after I contacted them.

Producing the videos in different formats if very good and so long as you have a decent PC / laptop, I've never found it to be a big issue.

I found the pan and zoom feature whilst being nice idea added a lot of size to the files.. up to 50% which in my case was not ideal

I've not really used the quiz feature just the basic record and voice narration. The audio enhancements have managed to get rid of a fair bit of pops and clicks but the male and female voices enhancements always sound like a robot in a swimming pool, better to be in a quiet room and keep still as much as possible.

Another really annoying feature is when working in a project directory the save as locations and defaults are not always remembered. allowing you to inadvertently save stuff all over the place and lose or duplicate bits quite easily.

I know a lot of these things sound trivial but they really make a big difference when the program is new and when you are trying to produce stuff under pressure.

Some of the other timeline issues are simply modal.... ie you can't move certain markers and pointers until you've pressed finish.. but really you need to switch back and forth much more easily. Ironcically I find windows movie maker (in all its "basicness" ) much easier and more realiable to use.. which is not a good recommendation for a specialised multimedia product.

My frustrations with unreaability and quirkinesss have led me to look for better alternatives but it sounds like Captivate is limited to export formats. I like the range Camtasia offers.

Sorry if the information is a bit random but thats how it came out...

cheers

Rob