ScreenFlow, hot off the press from Vara Software (who also make the awesome teleprompter-style software I use called VideoCue 2) is an incredible, breath-taking work of genius that comes as a huge sigh of relief and wave of elation for Mac screencasters everywhere.
Having battled with the horror of SnapzProX, found temporary solace and then abject misery in the frame dropping antics of iShowU, with it’s delightful blinking cursor “feature”, and then switched to Screenflick (formerly Screencast) only to get frustrated with its constant crashing, tiresome interface and slooooow start-up procedure, I find myself in a rapture of delight having discovered today the majesty of ScreenFlow.
If I sound breathless, it’s because I am. I just shelled out the $99 price tag faster than it took me to finish watching the demo screencast.
Why? I mean, isn’t that pricey?
Trust me, if you screencast every single day of your life, on a mac, under the glitches of Leopard (sorry pre-upgrade people, this is a Leopard only app), you will be jumping for joy when you see what’s on offer here.
This is what mac screencasters have been waiting for, and for a long, long time.
Those cool zoom and pan features in Camtasia? Check.
Executed in a far better way in a beautiful interface? Check.
Time line editing that doesn’t totally suck - oh yes.
Call outs, mouseposé style highlighting and OmniDazzle style zooming of a portion of your screen? On screen keyboard commands? Naturally.
Amazing, no-drop frame, crystal clear, HD quality visuals.
This is the kind of thing that is going to hugely reduce my screencasting workflow. No more hand keyframing those zooms and pans in Final Cut or Motion… No more having to have to perform simple editing in a different app (yes, I might still do some of the fancier stuff in FCP/Premiere, but you get the idea).
No more creating fancy reflections by copying the video source and using masking, blur, rotation etc. because fancy reflections come as standard here.
Other stand out features include highlighting of the cursor, or the foreground window; awesome full screen presentations from Keynote, with our without picture in picture video (from your isight or the cam of your choice). I can even bring in media from other sources and mix it in.
Output using a range of presets OR full quicktime support for your custom specs.
Basically, short of titling and all the fancy motion graphics wizardry I do, this is a complete package, and it rocks, rocks, rocks.
If you make screencasts, want to make screencasts, and want a powerhouse piece of kit for a measly $99, ScreenFlow is it.
Trust me when I say that this is a game changer. I know people that use FCP for doing the tasks that this thing will do alone. The only thing missing here is titling, but smart folk will use something like Keynote to sort that out. Am I going to stop using FCP, Premiere, After Effects etc? No, because a lot of my work now is much more motion graphics based. But if I were just making regular screencasts, this would be more than enough for the entire workflow, and I don’t doubt that it will be saving me a whole lot of time.
Software companies, would-be video podcasters, trainers, educators and a lot more folk besides are going to find a lot of use for this.
And, and… It even has built in screencast tutorials for the different features. Talk about eating your own dog food.
Expect an in-depth review when I get a day off, but basically, just go, now, and buy this.
TechSmith had better come up with something very special when they release Camtasia at the end of the year in it’s all new mac format, because this one is going to be hard to trump.
If you’re wondering, this is not a paid post and I have no affiliation with Vara at all. Merely a song of joy and delight at what I’ve been waiting for this last 18 months or so doing this full time for a living.
Hat tip to awesome e-learning blog eQuixotic for breaking the news (and that of the forthcoming Camtasia, which I am on the beta waiting list for)!
12 Comments
hehe! I was thinking of you when I saw this. Must make you ‘the screencast man’. It is incredible $99 -> awesome product
Haha - I really need to get out more if I’m the “screencast man”. LOL.
But yes, this is a rocking piece of app
Indeed, I also directly bought it
And I even started to use it instead of iMovie for simple videoblogging stuff as it’s so much faster. It would be cool if they would more features for this usage.
And I am just praising this and Übercaster on my podcast
Thanks for posting about it!
Hey Christian
übercaster rocks too, agreed. great interface, nice feature-set. together with this, that’s a killer micro production combo.
i agree that there are a few features i’d like to see added - i’m going to post some thoughts here soon on that front, but overall this really rocks. loving the 3d space thing too.
Michael,
Hell, you made me want to go out and buy a Mac. Nice sounding product.
Regards
Shane
This is a great product. Thing is, it doesn’t install for Tiger.
Hey Shane - haha, reckon you Windows folk have been spoiled long enough with Camtasia (although the forthcoming mac version looks like it’s going to be sweet)
Rich - I should have mentioned that. As far as I know the issue is that Screenflow uses some of the core effects and *enter vague mode* other advantages only present in Leopard. Nice to see Leopard actually having advantages for once, it’s been a roller-coaster since I installed it and I can see why people have hung back on installing. Reckon that after a couple of big software updates and ProApps updates things are about good to go now - as long as you have plenty of memory to throw at it.
Hello, Lee Lefever pointed me to your site, and low and behold, look what I find, the holy grail of screen capture software for the Mac! I have debated using Camtasia in Parallels, but this might be the better alternative. Cheers.
PS: mind if I follow you on Twitter? I’m the nutintuit guy (www.nutintuit.com)
Thanks! Josh
Hey Josh! Been meaning to drop you a line since Lee mentioned nutintuit - nice work!
Screenflow is mighty fine, and with Camtasia on the way later this year, it looks like there’s less reason than ever to stray over to the dark side.
I’m following you on Twitter, too, if that’s cool?
Hey Michael. Fine with me. We should chat sometime. I really like your work. I will drop you a line soon.
I have been using screenflow to, and I find myself itching to do a bit more in FCP. However I have not yet found a good set of settings for export into FCP. I have been using the “Lossless” setting, and scaling to 100%. What do you find you use?
I tend to use either Animation or Apple Intermediate these days - animation is quite standard with motion graphics type stuff, and AIC seems to play quite nicely with FCP. Have yet to find a perfect solution for FCP though, it seems to be reluctant to work with screen-captured source footage at best - as compared to Premiere, which seems - for whatever reason - to be better suited to this kind of footage - I prefer FCP though…