If I had a dollar… Sure, that’s what we’re here for!
Screen capture apps for the Mac are like ; there’s just too many of them to choose from. They can however be distinctly grouped into their respective classes—simple, good, and professional. It’s for you to decide what kind of power you need, the kind of workflow you prefer, and finally, how many of these videos you’re going to be making in your everyday life.
Test bed: iMac Core Duo 2.0 Ghz with 2GB of RAM. Also tested every app on MacBook with Core 2 Duo 2.1Ghz/2GB RAM just to make sure it all works out.
Simple Screencasting
These apps are usually available at throwaway prices, and don’t have any features other than the basic capture of your desktop. There’s no editing features besides trimming the single clip on both ends, no effects besides some presets that get applied to the entire clip, and no great export options as well.
To start with, let’s mention QuickTime X, which comes free with Snow Leopard. You can capture your screen—it does so the entire screen with no room to crop—and then trim it to a suit your needs. It also sucks a whole lot of CPU while recording—over 150% at all times. Export options include iTunes, desktop, or YouTube. It’s good for when you don’t have a screencapture app around and need to quickly show someone—granny?—what you’re talking about, but for most purposes it’s quite useless. Let’s move on.
Copernicus
A free little screencasting app, Copernicus almost as useless as Quicktime. It can capture pictures and video, with no scope for audio. It’s got minimal recording options, almost no editing, and has a ui that will take you back a few years. It is, still, free, and will come in handy for those not using Snow Leopard. Mind you, don’t try the “record to memory” option. It has crashed my entire Mac on more than one occasion.
Good Screencasting Apps
These are solid screen capture apps, with good features right from capturing, to basic editing, and offer a plethora of export options. They usually cost between $20-$30, and are great to have if you create more than the occasional screencast.
Screenflick
A very down to earth application, Screenflick is divided into two key areas. First, is capture. In this window you set what you want to capture, how much you want to capture, and whatever ‘annotations’ like mouse clicks and key presses you want to tack on to your output. You can of course capture microphone as well as built in audio output.
The recording process is fairly straightforward. It’s average in terms of CPU cycles, using up 80-90% CPU for fullscreen video. It’s multi-threaded, so that’s a good thing. The whole system does however get a little sluggish. But overall it’s fairly decent performance.
Once you’re done with recording video, you switch over to the videos tab. Previously recorded videos stay here, uncompressed, ready for export. You can preview the video (but not scrub through), and then export it using the Quicktime rendering engine. For $25, Screenflick a fairly neat app for screencapture.
Screenium
Here’s an app that’s a little more bold in its design. Screenium from Synium (where do they get these names‽) features four large buttons at the top, for grabbing selected area, full screen, follow mouse, or a single window. You can tack in the video feed from your iSight camera, mix in audio, add keystrokes and mouseclicks. Screenium also lets you add captions, but you have to set them before recording. It’s basically for calling out things like your contact info, or author of the video. While recording, you have to hit the corresponding hot key, and the text will show up.
The recording itself is pretty straightforward. Not too many CPU cycles, not too less either. 80-90% for full screen video, multi-core optimised. Smooth video. Videos are then saved in the media library, from where you can export them using the Quicktime rendering engine. For $29, it’s quite a bit more powerful than Screenflick.
Sequence
A relatively feature starved screencasting app from App4Mac, Sequence features a minimal UI for capturing and exporting video of your Mac. You can either drag a selection, or grab the full screen. It’s also got the regular stuff like record computer audio, microphone, as well as the ability to make screenshots. Uniqueness includes the ability to draw stuff on the screen to highlight any elements. Finally, export options include local disk, iDisk, or FTP sites. In terms of workflow, it’s hardly useful since when it’s launched it pretty much demands your whole attention. I can hardly imagine myself launching an app just to take a screenshot. In terms of CPU usage, it spiked to 130% while recording at just 10fps.
All things considered, it’s an app that belongs to the first category, yet commands a price of the pro category. At $43 even for a permanent lifetime license, you will have to be pretty misinformed to spend on this app when there are far better and cheaper alternatives out there. Moreover, you have to pay another $43 for a full year’s support, as the license comes with only 1 month of free support.
Pro Screencasting Apps
These apps offer much more in terms of capturing options, editing, exporting, and command a higher price. They’re meant for those who want to make money off tutorial videos, or podcast productions.
iShowU HD
When I first got to using the Mac, iShowU was the ruling champion of the screencasting apps on the Mac. Through these last few years we’ve seen some really powerful screen capture apps with great user interfaces. iShowU did advance in terms of adding the “HD” tag to the mix, but its UI is still stuck in the pre-Leopard era.
There’s a lot of things ‘wrong’ with iShowU, whether you’re talking about the plain version, HD, or Pro. First of all, unlike the new age screencapture apps, it doesn’t differentiate between windows, so ends up capturing every pixel on the screen for every frame; ends up eating a whole lot of CPU. They did add a low power mode, but that only skips frames that look alike, so you don’t end up with an optimal quality video. Moreover, it doesn’t allow you to play with your video after you’ve captured it. You have to set all your compression settings before starting the capture.
While iShowU is a pretty good app, there’s much better stuff on the market. High CPU usage, and lack of editing aren’t going to score any points.
Screenflow
The grand daddy of screencapture apps on the Mac, Screenflow features a fantastic user interface for video editing. The beauty of Screenflow, is its capturing involves hardly any thinking. Every channel is captured separate, and the video is of the whole screen whether you like it or not. Screenflow intelligently identifies the desktop and other static elements, and focusses processing power on foreground activity.
Once you’ve captured, the full UI loads. You can then separate the audio, add transitions, audio effects, mouse effects. With 2.0, Screenflow regains its title as the most powerful screencapture app on the Mac. Telestream has added things like ‘freeze frames’, 3D transitions, and export to YouTube. We haven’t done a full review of Screenflow yet; it’s coming soon.
In terms of power available to create a slick professional screencast, you can’t go wrong with Screenflow. At $99 for a license, it’s expensive, but worth it.
Camtasia
The new kid on the block, at least on the Mac, Camtasia apes Screenflow in its core user interface. It features the same powerful mode of Capture, and the same wide editing board for perfecting your video.
What’s different in Camtasia? While Camtasia certainly lacks in power, especially when compared with Screenflow 2.0, it makes up for in terms of a smoother workflow. Adding effects, and fine tuning them is far quicker in Camtasia than with Screenflow. For a version 1.0, that’s a pretty good acheivement. If you’re looking to create good looking screencasts, but quickly, Camtasia’s your better bet. However, as of right now Camtasia lacks in certain areas especially text overlays, so the power lies with Screenflow. They both cost the same, $99.
Check out my review of Camtasia.
Snapz Pro X
People swear by Snapz Pro X from Ambrosia Software, and I’ve always wondered why. I had used it in the past, but the UI didn’t ‘look’ very appetizing, so I never quite used for what it’s worth. But reviews are reviews, and I had to check it out.
Snapz Pro X works on the principle of being invisible until you need it. Hit the hotkey, and the HUD shows up. Mind you, it’s as aqua as aqua can be. From thereon you can choose to snapshot your entire screen, window, or an area. This is still screenshots, mind you. It’s got a fairly complex screenshot system, which allows you to preset the file type, and other settings before grabbing it. Hit enter and you’re presented with a Preview window.
For the ‘Movie’ bit, you select a portion of your screen, and hit record. At first I was stunned by the low CPU usage. It was like 6-10% (10fps) or 30-40% (30fps) while scrubbing through coverflow in iTunes. Once you’re done, hit the hotkey, and the compression window shows up. The resulting video was surprisingly smooth. Even when Snapz is running in the background, there’s hardly any memory footprint; great for low powered systems.
So is low CPU usage enough to warrant a $69 Snaps Pro X purchase? I’m not sure. Even Screenflow and Camtasia both max out at about 60-70% CPU on my system, and the video is also just as smooth, if not smoother. The only thing that Snapz has got in its favour is the way it stays out of your way (you never have to launch it) until you need it. However, Snapz is stuck in time, and either needs to evolve, or drop the heavy price tag. That said, I’m open to arguments from Snapz fans, in case I’m missing something crucial.
So who wins?
For the high end, you can’t go wrong with Screenflow. It’s a beautiful app, feature rich, and offers solid performance. Camtasia is a close second, and in many ways edging forward in terms of speedier workflow. For the mid-end, Screenium offers much more bang for buck than the competition, with just enough features to capture good video. You can always use iMovie to edit your video. For the low-end, I suppose QuickTime X is good enough for single captures. Your comments are most welcome, lest I missed out on some crucial features or workflow.
