Extending or freezing a frame allows you to pace your video better. More importantly, since freeze frames are applied on a per track basis, it buys you more time for something like a voiceover or an annotation. Freezing the frame Move the play head to the frame you want to extend. Right-Click on the track you want to extend and choose the Extend Frame option or press SHIFT+E. For the keyboard shortcut to work, the track must be selected first.

Sometimes you may want to take a screenshot from a Camtasia Studio project. For example, to use as a YouTube custom thumbnail. You don’t need to export the video first and then use a video player with screenshot support. Export frame option is available from within Camtasia. First, go to the frame you want to capture. From Share menu choose Export frame as or press CTRL+F Choose the file type and click save.

Sometimes the audio volume of media files is so low that it is barely audible. When faced with such files, you may want to boost the volume above the maximum level. Media players like VLC and mpv allow you to do this very easily. Boosting or normalizing audio is a little less convenient in Media Player Classic, but it can be done. warning: Increasing audio volume above 100% percent causes audio distortion; it may harm your audio equipment; extremely loud sounds could even cause hearing damage.

By default, VirtualDub shows only the current time in its status bar. info: Please note that by current time or current-frame, I mean the current-time and current-frame as determined by the position of VirtualDub’s play head VirtualDub’s status bar can be configured using a format string. You can set it to show the end time of the video as well. It can also show where the current frame lies in the full uncut source video.

Anti-Twin is a Windows application which is one of the best tools for identifying and removing duplicate files. It is free for personal use. The duplicate removal step is very tedious in most duplicate file finders but this is not the case in Anti-Twin. The features available in Anti-Twin are not exactly unique but the user interface makes it really easy to use. One caveat is that Anti-Twin has not been updated in many years.

For what is essentially an image viewing application Faststone image viewer has a surprising number of useful editing features. One of it’s most powerful features is the batch convert feature. Batch convert gives you a lot of options like resize, crop, compress, rotate, color adjustments, add watermark etc. Let’s take a look at the resize option. Even if you are a not going to do any batch processing, the Batch Resize option of FastStone is well worth a look since it has a lot more resizing options than it’s dedicated single image resize.

Vegas numbers markers in the order they are added. If you have added markers out-of-order in the timeline their numbering will not match their order in the timeline. Deleting markers can also lead to a mismatch between the order of a marker in the timeline and its number. This behavior may not be what you want, in which case the markers can be renumbered using the Edit details window. Here is a video showing all the steps

The default auto-save interval in Vegas Pro is 5 minutes. The default interval is reasonable, but it can be changed if required. Changing Internal Preferences In order to change the auto-save interval, you need to access Vegas Pro’s internal preferences which are hidden by default. Changing internal preferences is somewhat risky, which is obviously why they are hidden. When changing internal preferences it is better to keep a record of the items you have changed in something like a text file.

AppTimer is a small, free utility which can be used to measure the start-up-time of applications. It can launch a program and measure the time it took, to be ready to accept user input. It could also close the program automatically and repeat the test a specified number of times. As you can see in the above picture you have the option of supplying command line arguments to the program being run.

Applications, which detect and display keystrokes in real-time, can be very useful for those who do screencasts or screen recordings. Here is a quick look at three such applications.