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TechSmith Screen Capture Codec (TSCC) When talking about codecs, it's helpful to understand three terms: Codec is the abbrev...

TechSmith Screen Capture Codec (TSCC)

TechSmith Screen Capture Codec (TSCC)

When talking about codecs, it's helpful to understand three terms:

Codec is the abbreviation for compressor/decompressor. Codecs are applied to audio, video and image files to compress their size. The benefit is that the files don't use as much disk space when stored or as much network bandwidth when streamed. To open a compressed file, the same codec must be used to decompress the file.

Compression is the coding of data to reduce file size or the bit rate of a stream.

Lossy is a compression technique that decreases image, audio, or video quality in order to reduce the file size.

So, the video codec is responsible for compressing the video frames during recording and for reconstructing the video frames during playback. Often, the makers of a codec will sacrifice image quality in order to achieve higher compression and smaller file sizes. These codecs are termed "lossy" and are incapable of reconstructing the video at its original fidelity. Most commonly available codecs for recording screen videos are lossy, resulting in screen capture videos with reduced image quality and a "fuzzy" appearance.

Camtasia Studio includes TechSmith's own Screen Capture Codec (TSCC), providing lossless image quality coupled with excellent compression ratios. Since the TSCC is lossless, it preserves 100% of the image quality, even through multiple decompression/recompression cycles that are typical during the production process. The TSCC is optimized for screen capture so that the resulting files are small and highly compressed.

The compression codec also affects the capture frame rate or speed of compression. The high frame rates required for smooth video increase the need for high compression speed. High color screens also impact compression speed. The TechSmith codec offers exceptional compression speed at all color depths - unlike, for example, some codecs that only support 8-bit color. (The Microsoft RLE codec is lossless but is restricted to 8-bit color.)

This means you benefit from TSCC features:
Even codecs that are more widely distributed do not perform as well as the TechSmith codec to deliver the highest quality, smallest file size and fastest compression speed.

  • TSCC Feature: Lossless compression
    Benefits: 100% quality is required for screen recordings to be readable. Survives endless editing cycles.
  • TSCC Feature: Optimized for compressing screen recordings of office-style applications
    Benefits: High compression ratios. In other words, small file sizes.
  • TSCC Feature: Fast compression speed
    Benefits: High capture frame rates. In other words, smooth high quality videos in terms of motion (like cursor movement).

Options:
TSCC is the default method of compressing/decompressing video in Camtasia Recorder. While the default codec can easily be changed to any of the standard Windows codecs, we recommend that you use TSCC when recording your videos with Camtasia Studio. You can still change the codec later, in Camtasia Producer.

When a video is compressed with TSCC, anyone wishing to view the video must have TSCC installed on his or her computer. There are no charges, royalties or licensing requirements for distributing videos encoded with TSCC or with distributing the codec to others for viewing.

Use one of the following methods to share the TechSmith Screen Capture Codec:

  • Use Pack and Show to package your video with TSCC to create a single executable.
  • Distribute a copy of the codec installer, TSCC.exe, which is available on the Camtasia Studio CD-ROM and on our Web site. Copy TSCC.EXE onto the same media where your video distribution resides and either have your installer run it at installation time or instruct the user to do so.
  • For TSCC compressed content delivered on the Internet, an ActiveX control is available that can be embedded in a Web page to automatically install the TSCC codec when a user lands on the page using Microsoft Internet Explorer Web browser. This very small control checks if TSCC needs to be installed or updated and if so, downloads and installs it.
http://www.techsmith.com/download/codecs.asp

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