MacMost Now 55: Mac Screencast Software

Gary Rosenzweig takes a look at seven pieces of software that capture video from your screen actions.

You can also watch this video at YouTube (but with ads).

Video Transcript: Hi. This is I'm Gary Rosenzweig. We've gotten a lot of emails here recently about how we do our screen captures for MacMost. There's a lot of different screen capture software out there for Mac. Let me show you the ones we use and also some of the other options out there on this episode of MacMost now.
Now by screen capture software of course I mean capture to video, not just a regular screen shot. The one piece of software that's been around for a while that does this is SnapzPro by Ambrosia software. Now this is a great little piece of software. It allows you to basically screen capture but it's got a bunch of extra features like for instance you can decide whether to have the cursor or not, you can have the capture area follow the cursor around on the screen and you can save it in a variety of different formats. Software's been around for a while, it's about $69 and it works very well. One of the annoying things if you use SnapzPro is that when you're done it takes forever to encode it. So you finish say a five minute screen cast, that's a tutorial say, and then you have to wait five, ten, fifteen minutes for it to finish encoding. Well there's one cheap piece of software out there called iShowU that is a very basic piece of screen capture software but has the advantage of encoding on the fly so when you're done capturing, you're done. Now at the opposite end of the spectrum is one called Screen Flick. Now Screen Flick allows you to record your screen cast and then it will go ahead and let you export it over and over again in a variety of formats. So you can say record a very small one for quick streaming on the web and then record a larger one for download. And Screen Flick is also pretty inexpensive, coming in at only about $29. 
Now here at MacMost we do use Snapzpro for a lot of things but we also use Vara software's Wire Cast to record this main podcast. Now that's mostly for on the fly video production and it's got a small attached program called Desktop Presenter that allows us to do on the fly screen captures. But Vara Software also has a new piece of software out called Screen Flow. And Screen Flow is a $99 piece of software that allows you to just do screen captures. But it's more than just that. As a matter of fact it's the closest thing to [XXXX] on the PC which you've probably heard about is the main software that people use on PC. What Screen Flow allows you to do is actually record not only the screen but yourself in video as well as multiple tracks and then go ahead and do some editing. It's also got tons of features like being able to feature mouse clicks and key presses and things like that inside your screen capture. So if you want something that's really high level for the Mac look into Screen Flow. 
Now some people have a problem with what to do with a screen capture once you're done. You usually end up with a QuickTime movie. So someone like me would just convert that to flash or upload it to a website like You Tube or Blip TV. But if you want to have something that's flash right out of the box then you should maybe look into the $65 Screen Mimic program. Screen Mimic allows you to export your screen cast as flash when you're done, right from the program so there's no other steps. So if you're looking to go right to flash, Screen Mimic is probably the one you want to look at. A new program that should be hitting the market pretty soon is called Screenium. This is in beta testing right now but it's due out any time. So check into that. It should be pretty inexpensive at $20. If you're looking for something even cheaper, as in free, take a look at Copernicus. But it's very simple; it just records the screen so you have to add your audio later in something like iMovie. So that was a quick review of the screen capture software available for Mac. If you know of another one leave a comment to this post at MacMost Now.
Until next time this is Gary Rosenzweig with MacMost Now. If you like this podcast be sure to subscribe to it at iTunes and tell your friends and leave us a review there. The reviews really help spread the word about the Podcast and help others find it.

Comments: 10 Responses to “MacMost Now 55: Mac Screencast Software”

Darko

17 years ago

Jing is also one grate app for screen casting that does video and sound at the same time, and it is super easy for use and therefor great for beginners. It is also free at the moment, and available at

http://www.jingproject.com/

Rodrigo Blanco

16 years ago

I am using Jing. However, I haven't been able to figure out how to upload Hi-res video to Youtube...

rosenz

Rodrigo: You can't. You upload to their free service, not YouTube. However, the new premium version of Jing has a YouTube upload.

Roger

Hello, which software would you recommend to record a screenshot video and format it to later burn a dvd with good to best quality? I tried Snapz pro X but when burning the dvd the resolution makes it poor quality.

Thanks.

If you own Snapz Pro already, then use that. The format is something you set. So use a higher resolution and better frame rate, etc.

golp

15 years ago

mmm...i use Macvide ScreenCap for screen capture

Tom7

I have a dumb question -- and I know it's dumb so feel free to laugh at me.

I got Final Cut pro from my wife for Christmas and haven't yet learned it. Before I buy a screen cap software package, I want to make sure I don't already have one in Final Cut. You wouldn't happen to know the answer off the top of your head to that one, would you?

Gary Rosenzweig

You can now use QuickTime X for screen captures in Snow Leopard. But these other applications offer ease-of-use and other features.

Don

13 years ago

Have you had a chance to look at Camtasia for Mac? I'm curious how it stacks up against Screen Flow.

No, I haven't. They are competing head-to-head now, so I'm sure they have similar features.

Comments Closed.

MacMost Now 55: Mac Screencast Software

Comments: 10 Responses to “MacMost Now 55: Mac Screencast Software”

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