Not to be confused with Fantasia, a magical screen recording tool has been around for many years. Books have been written on the use of this software to instruct others on how to teach and demonstrate other software and ideas.
Unlike Fantasia, the screen recording software Camtasia was not made by Disney, but does contain some proprietary data. Camtasia is a screen recording software by the developer TechSmith. First released in 2002, it was available first for Windows and much later, Macintosh.
The first versions of Camtasia would encode screen recordings in an AVI container, using the TSCC codec. The TSCC codec, aka TechSmith Screen Capture Codec, was developed by TechSmith and the codec was distributed freely. Let’s see what MediaInfo knows about it.
mediainfo Camtasia1-s01.avi General Complete name : Camtasia1-s01.avi Format : AVI Format/Info : Audio Video Interleave Format settings : BitmapInfoHeader File size : 1.66 MiB Duration : 2 s 333 ms Overall bit rate : 5 966 kb/s Frame rate : 15.000 FPS
Video ID : 0 Format : TechSmith Codec ID : tscc Codec ID/Info : TechSmith Screen Capture Duration : 2 s 333 ms Bit rate : 87.3 kb/s Width : 320 pixels Height : 240 pixels Display aspect ratio : 4:3 Frame rate : 15.000 FPS Bit depth : 8 bits Bits/(Pixel*Frame) : 0.076 Stream size : 24.9 KiB (1%)
The AVI video format was the default recording format for the first couple versions. In version 3 the default format changed to the proprietary CAMREC format.
Camrec video files are a proprietary TechSmith file format that is used to store multiple files and information in a single package. Overall, .camrec files store your screen and camera recording plus some meta data about the various streams. However, it is important to note that you cannot view or play .camrec files outside of Camtasia Studio.
The CAMREC video format isn’t entirely proprietary and uses a common container.
Scanning the drive for archives: 1 file, 4696576 bytes (4587 KiB)
Path = Camtasia3-s01.camrec Type = Compound ERRORS: Unexpected end of archive Physical Size = 4698112 Extension = compound Cluster Size = 4096 Sector Size = 64
Date Time Attr Size Compressed Name ------------------- ----- ------------ ------------ ------------------------ ..... 3912 3968 manifest.camxml ..... 4672000 4673536 Screen_Stream.avi ------------------- ----- ------------ ------------ ------------------------ 4675912 4677504 2 files
The CAMREC file might be unknown to most video players, but the AVI within the compound object is the same as the versions before it. Camtasia even has a built in extractor if you really need to pull the AVI out of the format.
Each CAMREC file contains a manifest.camxml. They seem to be UTF-16 XML files, with and without the XML declaration. The Screen_Steam.avi file seems to be in all my samples, but not clear if there can be a variant without an AVI file.
This CAMREC container was used in the Camtasia Studio software until version 8.4 when the default was changed to a new Codec, based on MPEG4, with the TREC extension.
mediainfo capture-1.trec General Complete name : capture-1.trec Format : MPEG-4 Format profile : Base Media / Version 2 Codec ID : mp42 (mp42/isom) File size : 277 KiB Duration : 3 s 41 ms Overall bit rate mode : Variable Overall bit rate : 746 kb/s Frame rate : 19.091 FPS Encoded date : 2025-02-11 03:48:25 UTC Tagged date : 2025-02-11 03:48:34 UTC FileExtension_Invalid : braw mov mp4 m4v m4a m4b m4p m4r 3ga 3gpa 3gpp 3gp 3gpp2 3g2 k3g jpm jpx mqv ismv isma ismt f4a f4b f4v
Video ID : 1 Format : tsc2-D0 Codec ID : tsc2-D0 Duration : 2 s 933 ms Bit rate : 495 kb/s Width : 924 pixels Height : 696 pixels Display aspect ratio : 4:3 Frame rate mode : Variable Frame rate : 19.091 FPS Minimum frame rate : 10.000 FPS Maximum frame rate : 30.000 FPS Bits/(Pixel*Frame) : 0.040 Stream size : 177 KiB (64%) Title : 100 Encoded date : 2025-02-11 03:48:25 UTC Tagged date : 2025-02-11 03:48:34 UTC
TechSmith Recording File (TREC) files will identify as an MP4 in most identification tools, you will need MediaInfo or other tools to understand the codec used. If we look at the header of the MP4 TREC file:
We see the standard header for an MP4 file. The codec specific to the Camtasia software is identified later in the file, but identification using a PRONOM signature might be challenging. In looking at the hex of the file, near the end, you can find embedded PNG’s and other data. VLC and FFMPEG can read the codec, but players like Quicktime struggle.
A promising section near the end shows the name and version of Camtasia Studio. More data needed.
Camtasia also uses a lot of Project files to managing the video editing process of your screen recordings. The project files can vary between the Windows and Macintosh versions.
The older versions of Camtasia for Windows up until version 8.4, used the CAMPROJ extension for their projects. These are in XML and simply use “<Project_Data>” for the root element. With Version 8 having a later element “<CSMLData>” to manage the assets. Other projects also have a File element that begins with either “tscrec4://” or “TSCRec://”. But it may be best to identify the older versions with the “<ClipBin_Array>” element.
For Mac version 2, they used CMPROJ for the Project, but also it was an Apple Bundle/Package file. It also used a recording file with the extension CMREC, but is also Apple Bundle/Package file which contains MOV and DAT files.
The most recent versions of Camtasia for Mac and windows use the TSCPROJ extension. They are plan text files with some resemblance of JSON.
There are a few formats related to Camtasia, but the CAMREC format is the one that shows up the most in my work. So today I am only proposing a signature for CAMREC and the CAMPROJ formats. We will have to have some discussion on the TREC format to determine if standard MPEG-4 identification is fine or if the format needs its own PUID. You can find some examples and my proposed signature on my Github page.
I wonder sometimes what goes through a software/hardware developers mind when deciding a format to use for a new device. There are so many options our there for audio formats to choose from. I am sure there are pros and cons to using one technology over another but it seems a few decide to go ahead and make their own. I am sure there is some commercial advantage to developing a proprietary audio format, but with all the established choices it seems unnecessary.
Sony developed their own audio compression formats, which I explored in an earlier blog post. I came across a small goofy looking RCA voice recorder, model VR6320.
Many of these RCA VR series recorders can record in a WAV or a VOC file format. The WAV files are pretty run of the mill, but the VOC format is unique to RCA recorders.
The VOC format is not to be confused with another audio format with the same extension. The Creative Voice Format is a bit more well known. It was used with the Creative’s sound cards (Sound Blaster family) many folks had in their Windows computers in the 1990’s. But the RCA file format is different, and because of the same extension needs its own identification so they are not confused with each other.
sf REC00001.VOC
---
siegfried : 1.10.1
scandate : 2023-11-19T23:33:47-07:00
signature : default.sig
created : 2023-05-12T09:10:13Z
identifiers :
- name : 'pronom'
details : 'DROID_SignatureFile_V112.xml; container-signature-20230510.xml'
---
filename : 'REC00001.VOC'
filesize : 47231
modified : 2015-01-09T20:51:10-07:00
errors :
matches :
- ns : 'pronom'
id : 'UNKNOWN'
format :
version :
mime :
class :
basis :
warning : 'no match; possibilities based on extension are fmt/1736'
The RCA VOC file format seems to be undocumented, there isn’t much available. You can always download a copy of the RCA Digital Voice Manager software, which may or may not run on your current system, and convert the VOC files to WAV or you can use a piece of software coded in 2008 called “devoc“. The developer used to have an online website you could upload the VOC to and it would convert it automatically, but is not longer available. The code can also be found here.
Let’s take a look at the header of a couple of the files I have:
Most of samples I have show “VCP162_VOC_File” in the header, but I have one sample with “RP5120_VOC_File“. I have heard of others, one being “V432_Voice_File“. There could be more variations. One could assume the header is somehow associated with the model number of the device, but that doesn’t appear to be the case. Although there is a device with the model number “RP 5120“. It might be that the older RP series get one header and the newer VR Series get VCP? I will need more samples to confirm, if you have any send them my way. Also, according to the manuals, there is a SP and LP mode to manage the bitrate of the file to squeeze more minutes on the built in memory of these devices. This doesn’t appear to affect identification, but might be good to differentiate in the future.
For now you can take a look at the signature on my GitHub page.
Recently I have been exploring the MP4 format, more specifically the ISO Base Media File Format. It appears to be quite the versatile format. Based on the general Box/Atom format. Don’t mean to go much into the format here as there are so many formats which use this structure, like Quicktime MOV, Jpeg2000, to the more recent Canon RAW CR3. I have also been digging into the DASH MP4 format, but we’ll save that for a later time.
One of the more interesting uses of MP4 lately is 360 or spherical video. They are becoming more and more popular with content creators and also used for mapping like Google street view.
A while back I picked up a Insta360 Nano S camera. It attached directly to my iPhone. With a camera on each side it could capture images and video which could later be processed to produce some interesting results.
Of course it needs to be processed first so it doesn’t look like you are peering out of your peephole. Insta360 provides software for you to process the video into a regular video or some fun creative spherical video that makes you look like you are walking on a small globe.
The formats produced by the Insta360 Nano S are plain old JPG and MP4, but uses the extensions .INSP and .INSV respectively. Neither of which are documented in PRONOM yet. But because of the nature of 360 camera’s there is a little more under the hood. If you would like to look at some samples you can find some here.
The INSP file begins like any other EXIF JPEG file, but ends with a little additional info.
The 360 cameras have some additional information from the different gyros and accelerometers, as well as GPS information. The INSP file stores much of this information after the end of the JPG format. You can also see a string of alphanumeric numbers at the end, which is consistent with most of the files I have seen. One python parser of the additional data calls it the magic number. “8db42d694ccc418790edff439fe026bf” would make a good pattern for a signature.
Mediainfo indeed sees the file as an MPEG-4 with a AVC codec, but with a invalid extension.
Complete name : VID_20210222_170428_005.insv
Format : MPEG-4
Format profile : JVT
Codec ID : avc1 (avc1/isom)
File size : 41.1 MiB
Duration : 7 s 608 ms
Overall bit rate mode : Variable
Overall bit rate : 45.4 Mb/s
Encoded date : UTC 2021-02-22 17:04:18
Tagged date : UTC 2021-02-22 17:04:18
IsTruncated : Yes
FileExtension_Invalid : braw mov mp4 m4v m4a m4b m4p m4r 3ga 3gpa 3gpp 3gp 3gpp2 3g2 k3g jpm jpx mqv ismv isma ismt f4a f4b f4v
In addition to a video and audio track, there is a text track.
Text
ID : 3
Format : Timed Text
Codec ID : text
Duration : 7 s 600 ms
Bit rate mode : Constant
Bit rate : 240 b/s
Frame rate : 10.000 FPS
Stream size : 228 Bytes (0%)
Title : Ambarella EXT
Language : English
Forced : No
Encoded date : UTC 2021-02-22 17:04:18
Tagged date : UTC 2021-02-22 17:04:18
With a little Exiftool magic, thank you Phil, we can see some of the extra data within the video file.
Serial Number : ISS2418ND7XH4H
Model : Insta360 Nano S
Firmware : v1.17.12.3_build1
Parameters : 2 947.866 946.388 964.646 0.000 0.000 90.000 942.993 2891.656 952.520 -0.682 -1.501 89.186 3840 1920 1040
Preview Image : (Binary data 578944 bytes, use -b option to extract)
Time Code : 62.155
Accelerometer : 0.0717358812689781 0.837667405605316 -0.541449248790741
Angular Velocity : -0.00380666344426572 -0.0143540045246482 0.0170918852090836
Thanks to tools like Exiftool and MediaInfo we can take a peek into some of these formats. New ways of using the existing formats and new formats entirely keep popping up making it hard to know exactly what you have. Initially I just assumed the Insta360 formats didn’t need anything extra as they just used well known format with their own extension, but I needed to look a little closer. Many other cameras are now putting additional data at the end of a standard JPG. It will be interesting to see what new ideas camera developers come up in the coming years.
GoPro has a 360 camera as well and looking at a sample .360 file, I can see it also uses an MP4 base media format, but uses two video tracks to store video from the two cameras. Might need to dig into that format soon as well.
