| Mac Stuff |
Last updated: April 08, 2008
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| Screen Capturing Software for Mac |
When you create a video tutorial for computer software, a screen capture application is a must to have. We do use screen capture applications to make ours. And there are many of them just for Macs. So which is the best? After comparing three of them, we conclude that none of them is far from being perfect.
Snapz Pro X Snapz Pro X's performance is not completely stable, but if you develop your own way of avoiding problems, it can perhaps be the best of all.
It has long been known that the frame rate will be incorrectly recognized with Final Cut Pro. For example, suppose that you set the frame rate to 24 and record screen movements. If you import this video to Final Cut Pro, the frame rate will be recognized as 10. (See Figure 1-3.) The lowest frame rate that Final Cut Pro accepts is 23.98. Ambrosia knew the problem and noted in their forum that they had contacted Apple to resolve the issue. One year or longer passed, and Ambrosia upgraded Snapz Pro X to 2.0.3 in August, 2006. But the same issue still persists. So what did they really fix? And they didn't even release a Universal version.
ScreenRecord ScreenRecord is somewhat different from other two titles. While Snapz Pro X and Screenography run behind the system, ScreenRecord runs as an application independent of the system. And there are a few unique functions like changing the Mouse pointer to one that you choose. (Figure 2-1) Unfortunately, ScreenRecord has a few flaws. The most serious one is that the application quits itself while recording. There existed this problem when we first reviewed it some 14 months ago. And it still exists under OS 10.4.8 Tiger.
Screenography Screenography is a relatively new comer to this area. Its performance seems more stable than Snapz Pro X. There are a few minor issues, though. One thing that we have noticed is that some of the capture settings need to be made every time you use it. For example, suppose that you set the screen capture size to 1,200 x 900 and record screen movements. If you quit Screenography once and relaunch it again to use it, you have to set the screen size again. If you want to scale down the screen size to, say, 60%, you have to do it every time you use Screenography.
Another minor issue with Screenography is its hot key combination. The default combination for activating its screen capture function is Command + Shift + 5. Suppose that you change it to Command + Shift + 4. This combination is used by the system to take a screenshot in a customized size. And if you make this change, since Screenography doesn't override the existing one used by the system, you will never able to activate its screen capture function. In such even, you must throw out the following file that is stored inside Preferences folders (both System and users): com.verticalmoon.screenography.plist.
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