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FYI, Screen capture programs

HaroldL

HaroldL

Alibre Super User
FYI, Screen capture programs

If anyone is looking for a inexpensive screen capture program with quite a few options for getting a image off the screen, take a look at HyperSnap 6 at http://www.hyperionics.com.

The also have a HyperCam 2 for making screen movies.

They do have the "Free Trial" download.

I also downloaded their HyperCam 2 this weekend to try out for making some tutorial type movies, and, after making some downsizing adjustments to my screen resolution, was mildly impressed with the results.

You can see some of the HyperSnap 6 images in the Binaries at http://www.alibre.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=3691

As an aside, we use HyperSnap DX at work in an enterprise environment with good results. DX is their version 5.xx.

HaroldL
 
J

jreynolds

Member


I use Snag-It. It will do all sorts of screen captures and you can also use it for rotating the part and making an avi file. I think it runs around $30.
 
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sigseven

Senior Member


It doesn't have many features for just the regular screen captures, but for recording video I have been very satisfied with Fraps. They are focused on capture from games, so the performance overhead when capturing is better than the other programs I tried. Probably not the best if you're only interested in still screen shots though.
 
HaroldL

HaroldL

Alibre Super User


Wow guys, thanks for all the input on other screen capture programs.

I did download and check out them and a few others that I found.
What I have learned in this exercise is that there are a couple ways that screen captures work, and a lot of players in the game.

One way is to just take a snap-shot of the screen every few seconds or when ever a mouse click is sensed. That will produce a small file and seems to be best suited for screen captures of software that does not have a lot of screen activity other than mouse movement. It will track mouse movement and dialog boxes pretty good. But fast motion, like scrolling a web page or a Word doc or rotating a 3d model, looks like stop motion movies, pretty jerky and full of jump cuts.

The other way is to record frames at a user adjustable frame rate from say 5 to 30 frames per second, it's more like recording video. This will undoubtedly produce larger files, and if you have enough memory and hard drive space this may not be an issue for you. And of course you have audio to record too, if you'd like to narrate what you are recording.
There are some settings to do with the codecs used to record the video that will give you better or worse movies too.

It comes down to what do you want to do with the video/screen capture and what quality do you want in the final product.

While Hyprionics has a decent screen capture program in HyperSnap6, jreynolds suggestion of Snag-It has a few more options and even allows for recording short videos of the screen activity.

Snag-Its' big brother in the screen capture corner, Camtasia, while a bit on the expensive side, has editing functions I like over the other movie type recorders. And the outputs available are numerous, I was able to produce a short movie that plays on Windows Media Player and output to an Ipod file at the same time.

Some of the "free" to $35-$45 shareware programs just did not have the finished look that I wanted and was looking for. I guess you get what you pay for. Even when I tried the free down load of Microsoft Media Encoder, I would still need an editor like Camtasia has to complete my projects.

I am trying to narrow down my selection on these and then make the final cut so I can delete all the demo-downloads off my computer and get back some disk space.

If anyone is interested in it, here is a link to Jon Udell at Info World. According to his writings, he is the originator of the name "ScreenCasting" after taking a poll and getting a concensus from readers.
http://www.infoworld.com/archives/t.jsp?N=c&V=Strategic Developer&F=2002
This takes you to his archive so you'll have to dig a little since he has written several articles pertaining to the subject of screencasting.

Again, thanks for your input on this subject.
HaroldL
 
S

sigseven

Senior Member
Re:

HaroldL said:
Even when I tried the free down load of Microsoft Media Encoder, I would still need an editor like Camtasia has to complete my projects.
Click to expand...
VirtualDubMod is free and lets you do some basic editing, just not fancy post-production type effects. It has a lot of encoding options as well, you just need to make sure you have the codec you want to use installed first.
 
HaroldL

HaroldL

Alibre Super User
Re:

MilesH said:
Hi Harold,

Although slightly dated now, there is a thorough review of screencasting tools here: http://www.donationcoder.com/Reviews/Ar ... index.html
Click to expand...

Miles,
I did take a look at the site and part of what their reviews said kind of steered me toward Camtasia. Their concerns about BBFlashback worried me a little. I'll give it another look though.

sigseven,
Have you used VirtualDubMod? It looks a little complicated to install and run. But I'll take a look at it.

Harold
 
M

MilesH

Alibre Super User
Re:

HaroldL said:
I did take a look at the site and part of what their reviews said kind of steered me toward Camtasia. Their concerns about BBFlashback worried me a little. I'll give it another look though.
Click to expand...
I think most of their concerns have been addressed, with 2 updates, since the review was published. Always best to try things out yourself, though.
 
M

MilesH

Alibre Super User
Re:

indesign said:
Camtasia is nice. It gives a good quality video at a very small price.
Click to expand...

Not sure about the "very small price" bit :) It's $300! - you can get BB Flashback with the discount for $100.....
 
S

sigseven

Senior Member
Re:

HaroldL said:
sigseven,
Have you used VirtualDubMod? It looks a little complicated to install and run. But I'll take a look at it.
Click to expand...
To install and run it, just extract it to where you want it installed and then run VirtualDubMod.exe to use the program. There isn't any real installation.
 
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