How to Download a Camtasia Studio 4 Video

Earlier articles in this series discussed how to download videos produced by Camtasia Studio 2 and Camtasia Studio 3.

As stated previously, it is rather complicated to download Camtasia videos because the file names are scattered all around the HTML, XML and JS files that comprise up the video web page. The names of the files are dependant on the version of Camtasia Studio that was used to produce the video.

This article describes how to download videos generated by Camtasia Studio 4.

As a sample, have a look at this video:

http://CamtasiaVideoDownloader.com/video/TestCamtasiaStudio400/TestCamtasiaStudio400.html

View the video in your browser, and then examine the source code of the webpage.

As with the earlier versions of Camtasia, the <TITLE> tag of this page contains the words "Created by Camtasia Studio 4". Consequently this is the first detail to check for when you study the page.

Further down the webpage you should notice:

var fo = new FlashObject( "TestCamtasiaStudio400_controller.swf",
    "TestCamtasiaStudio400_controller.swf", "1008", "631", "7", "#FFFFFF", false, "best" );
fo.addVariable( "csConfigFile", "TestCamtasiaStudio400_config.xml" );
fo.addVariable( "csColor" , "FFFFFF" );
fo.addVariable( "csPreloader" , 'TestCamtasiaStudio400_preload.swf' );

This code is in exactly the same format as for Camtasia 3. The filenames you want are shown here, these being:

TestCamtasiaStudio400_controller.swf
TestCamtasiaStudio400_config.xml
TestCamtasiaStudio400_preload.swf

As with Camtasia 3, the name of the actual SWF video file isn't here! What you have to do next is to open the XML file in your browser, or download it and open it in a text editor such as Wordpad. Towards the bottom of the file you will notice this chunk of XML code:

<fileset>
 <video1>
  <duration type="Number">126.33</duration>
  <uri>TestCamtasiaStudio400.swf</uri>
  <frameRate type="Number">15</frameRate>
  <keyframeRate type="Number">0</keyframeRate>
  <blendingMode>Normal</blendingMode>
  <isFlv type="Boolean">0</isFlv>
 </video1>
 <pip>
  <duration type="Number">126.30</duration>
  <frameRate type="Number">10</frameRate>
  <keyframeRate type="Number">30</keyframeRate>
  <uri>TestCamtasiaStudio400_PIP.flv</uri>
 </pip>

This segment is in the same format as Camtasia 3, and it contains the names of the video files. In this case there are two files specified, and they are:

TestCamtasiaStudio400.swf
TestCamtasiaStudio400_PIP.flv

There are other files to download as well if you would like the video to play from the HTML page. Looking in the HTML file near the top, you will find references to 3 extra files:

<script type="text/javascript" src="swfobject.js"></script>
<script type="text/javascript" src="cam_embed.js"></script>
<link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="FlashTemplate.css"/>

These 3 files are completely different to Camtasia 3, unlike the files mentioned earlier which are all the same. To get all these files, you could utilize a download file manager, and download the following files one at a time:

http://CamtasiaVideoDownloader.com/video/TestCamtasiaStudio400/TestCamtasiaStudio400_controller.swf
http://CamtasiaVideoDownloader.com/video/TestCamtasiaStudio400/TestCamtasiaStudio400_config.xml
http://CamtasiaVideoDownloader.com/video/TestCamtasiaStudio400/TestCamtasiaStudio400_preload.swf
http://CamtasiaVideoDownloader.com/video/TestCamtasiaStudio400/TestCamtasiaStudio400.swf
http://CamtasiaVideoDownloader.com/video/TestCamtasiaStudio400/TestCamtasiaStudio400_PIP.flv
http://CamtasiaVideoDownloader.com/video/TestCamtasiaStudio400/swfobject.js
http://CamtasiaVideoDownloader.com/video/TestCamtasiaStudio400/cam_embed.js
http://CamtasiaVideoDownloader.com/video/TestCamtasiaStudio400/FlashTemplate.css
http://CamtasiaVideoDownloader.com/video/TestCamtasiaStudio400/TestCamtasiaStudio400.html

In actual fact, because this particular video doesn't include any motion video, the FLV file mentioned (TestCamtasiaStudio400_PIP.flv) does not exist on the web server--but when you play the video it doesn't seem to matter to the video player, even though the Duration defined in the XML file is not set to "0" (which it was with Camtasia 3).

So long as you have downloaded all the files correctly, you should now be able to click on the HTML file on your own hard disk, and the video should start playing.

Sounds finicky doesn't it? A much easier way to download Camtasia Studio 4 videos is to use Camtasia Video Downloader, which does all the hard work for you.

Article source: How to download a Camtasia Studio 4 video

About the Author

Lex Edmonds is a Camtasia expert and a software developer, and is the author of Camtasia Video Downloader, the best way to download Camtasia videos from the web, even from password-protected membership sites. His website is at http://CamtasiaVideoDownloader.com

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