Every now and then a Mac utility comes along that seems better than the utilities that came before. For about 10 years I was a great fan of, and purchaser of, Ambrosia’s SnapzProX, a great utility to record anything on your Mac’s screen. Is there anything better? Yes.
Yesteryear
I don’t want to fault SnapzProX. It works well, but traces its heritage back to Mac classic days. It does more these days but remains pretty much the same: a five mouse rating from Macworld five years ago.
Apple does a good job putting their own software out to pasture by introducing new and improved, sometimes revolutionary, products. What’s revolutionary about capturing your screen as a movie?
Half a dozen different Mac utilities do the same thing in slightly different ways. What I wanted was a really handy, easy-to-use, movie screen capture utility to create video instructions on my Mac.
Enter iShowU.
Capture Me, Elmo!
There are more ways to capture your Mac’s screen as a graphic file or a movie than Microsoft has laid off employees. Little Snapper captures screen shots and tosses in organization, editing, and annotation tools.
Instant Shot just captures various parts of your screen but is handy by living in your Mac’s Menu Bar. Screen Flow takes the genre farther into Feature Land™ with the ability to create screen movies, edit the movies, then share with others.
All these tools are good at capturing what’s on your Mac’s screen, either in static shots or movies, including the free Capture Me.
Sweet Spot
What can’t be overlooked is what you get with a movie screen capture utility. Teachers, presenters, customer support, marketers, anyone with a need to show someone what’s on their Mac can be wowed by movies from your Mac’s screen.
What I like about iShowU, and why it has become my favorite screen capture utility for movie making, is that sweet combination of easy-to-use, set it and forget it, and raw power. The learning curve just doesn’t exist for basic uses.
Can you say, Presets? Decide what you want to record, then click on a Preset file format; large, low quality, high quality, small, medium. That set up alone is sufficient for most needs.
Did I say easy? iShowU gives you a capture rectangle to drag over any part of your Mac’s screen. Click the Record button and whatever you do on your Mac shows up as a movie. Add a voice over via your Mac’s built-in microphone.
Need more? There’s iShowU HD Pro which adds USB camera support, uploading to YouTube, audio mixing, watermarking, and other professional level features. I’ll do a review of iShowU HD Pro, with samples, at a later date.