It’s designed for making HD-quality video of all on-screen actions to reach audiences online, on Apple portable media devices, and on popular video sharing sites like YouTube. Camtasia for Mac records exactly what you see on your computer screen, what you say, and how you interact with any web site or Mac-based application such as Keynote You can then take the interactive content and share it online, on Screencast.com, on CDs or DVDs, or via iTunes for playback on the iPod, iPhone and iPod touch.

It’s easy to get up and going with Camtasia’s intuitive interface, which is surprisingly Mac-like, considering the app was available on the Windows platform for some time before coming to the Mac. Camtasia splits the screencast production work into two, using Camtasia Studio Recorder and Camtasia Studio Producer.

Your media is located on the left side. The Canvas work area is on the right, and a video time line sits on the bottom. To create a screen cast, you set up your webcam and sound preferences, then hit the red record button. If you want to go to the main screen first, select New Project under the File menu.

After you’re doing recording, the full Studio Producer interface presents itself and you have numerous options for editing and beefing up your screencast. You can choose from a variety of filters and effects (color adjustment, sepia tones, drop shadows, etc.), implement transitions, zoom in on certain areas of your screencast, add arrows, text or pointers, etc.

I especially like the SmartFocus feature, which automatically detects mouse movements and adds these pans in between. I also love the “Ripple Delete” feature, which lets you remove a clip as well as the space it occupies in your timeline.

When you’ve completed your masterpiece, you can export it into such formats as AVI, QuickTime, AU, AIFF and 3G, which makes it suitable for using on iPod, iPhone and other mobile devices.

Is Camtasia for you? Not if you merely need simply screen capture/screen casting abilities. You can do that with QuickTime X. However, if you need the higher end features mentioned above, TechSmiths’ Product is for you.

Camtasia for Mac is integrated with TechSmith’s Screencast.com hosting service for video sharing. Camtasia for Mac trial users and customers receive free 2GB of storage and 2GB of monthly bandwidth on Screencast.com.

Camtasia for Mac supports Mac OS X 10.5.6 or later, including Mac OS X 10.6 (“Snow Leopard”). Web cameras and microphones for capturing audio and video are available for purchase separately. After the special introductory price of $99 Camtasia for Mac will have a suggested retail price of $149 with a 30-day free trial.

Macsimum rating: 8 out of 10