[divinemann]

I was wondering there is a program to capture video from your mac.

I have Wiretap Pro and it works greatfor audio, is there a video program thats equivlent?

[709]

If you're trying to capture video in the same way that WireTap captures audio, then Ambrosia also makes Snapz Pro. It's pretty slick. In fact, I just used it today to capture a .swf animation and convert it to QuickTime.

[Bryson]

Snapz Pro X

It's even by the same people who make Wiretap Pro.

Zing! Too slow....

[chucker]

Lately, I have come to prefer iShowU.

[Dorian Gray]

Originally Posted by chucker Lately, I have come to prefer iShowU.

Hi chucker, could you elaborate on why that is and whether that would still be the case if you had a PowerPC Mac? Is it a performance issue or the very good price of iShowU or something else? Thanks!

[chucker]

First of all, I'd like to say that I've bought neither product. I don't need this functionality frequently enough right now to justify that. This also means that I haven't had any contact with the developer(s), so I can't attest to support quality, responsiveness to feedback or anything like that.

But if I were to need an app like this, I would happily choose iShowU without much hesitation.

The biggest reason is that Snapz hasn't seen significant updates in a long time. From VersionTracker:
2.0.0: 2004-02-02
2.0.1: 2004-07-09
2.0.2: 2005-05-31
2.0.3: 2006-08-25

While some performance enhancements were made, most of the changes between 2.0.0 and 2.0.3 amount only to bug fixes and compatibility changes (support for Tiger and Intel machines). This leaves us, essentially, with a product that's over three years old.

By contrast, here's some of the recent iShowU release dates:
1.28 (2007-01-22)
1.29 (2007-01-22)
1.31 (2007-01-23)
1.32 (2007-02-19)
1.33 (2007-03-04)

One could assume that it's being updated so frequently due to having many bugs, but not only is that not my experience at all (it has always seemed reasonably reliable to me); it's also the case that many of these updates bring minor but notable new features. Not to mention, of course, that thanks to Sparkle, updating is a wonderfully simpel process. So in this case in particular, the frequent updates (and, by comparison, the lack thereof when it comes to Snapz) are indicative of a dedicated development team.

Snapz very much feels like an outdated app, as well. It has a long history and there's nothing wrong with that, but there's no good reason it couldn't have been modernized a long time ago. I wasn't fond of the brushed metal interface iShowU used to have, but aside from that, the app was simple yet flexible. They have since moved to a much nicer 'smooth metal' chrome.

I haven't done any benchmarks to compare CPU utilization between the two, which – it goes without saying – is a major issue with these kinds of applications. I have, however, been extremely pleased with recording large H.264 files in real-time with iShowU. Small files, great quality. I have a MacBook Pro, though, so your mileage may differ especially on a PowerPC Mac.

Maybe there's a Snapz 3.0 coming that will be a more modern equivalent. Until then, I couldn't possibly recommend it when there's a solution that I've found to be fairly flawless.

Unless, of course, you need the still image abilities of Snapz, but I can't see much use for them either; OS X's built-in options are more than flexible enough, as far as I can tell.

If there is no need for halfway professional quality, by the way, there are several alternative solutions, such as http://www.unixuser.org/~euske/vnc2swf.

[Dorian Gray]

Originally Posted by chucker Snapz very much feels like an outdated app, as well.

Yes, I certainly agree with that. But it's nevertheless very efficient to use, although perhaps slightly unintuitive the first time you use it.

Originally Posted by chucker I have, however, been extremely pleased with recording large H.264 files in real-time with iShowU.

I'm sure that wouldn't be remotely possible with a 1.33 GHz G4, but it's not really necessary for me either. Snapz Pro X doesn't even offer the option to encode in real-time to the delivery codec. In any case, I prefer to use a lossless authoring codec for the recording, relying on hard disk speed rather than CPU power. Then I have a lossless video to compress with different delivery codecs to compare which performs best for that particular video content (adjusting frame-rate, etc.).

Originally Posted by chucker Small files, great quality. I have a MacBook Pro, though, so your mileage may differ especially on a PowerPC Mac.

I presume it uses Apple's H.264, which is an excellent H.264 codec nowadays.

I'm going to give iShowU a try when I get the time, because it does look pretty nice. The need for Soundflower doesn't sound as great, but I wouldn't want to complain before trying it.

[chucker]

Originally Posted by Dorian Gray Yes, I certainly agree with that. But it's nevertheless very efficient to use, although perhaps slightly unintuitive the first time you use it.

Yes, there's little wrong with the user interface per se, but I'd be a lot more confident about it if they at least put out a 2.1 release with some noteworthy new feature, just as a 'sign of life'.

I'm sure that wouldn't be remotely possible with a 1.33 GHz G4, but it's not really necessary for me either.

Heh. Well, iShowU comes with several low-CPU presets, so that isn't really a problem.

Snapz Pro X doesn't even offer the option to encode in real-time to the delivery codec. In any case, I prefer to use a lossless authoring codec for the recording, relying on hard disk speed rather than CPU power. Then I have a lossless video to compress with different delivery codecs to compare which performs best for that particular video content (adjusting frame-rate, etc.).

*nod*

In that context, might I suggest giving http://boredzo.org/codec-comparison/ a read.

I presume it uses Apple's H.264, which is an excellent H.264 codec nowadays.

Yep. It does allow you to use any QuickTime codec, though. So if you wanted to, you could also use the x264 codec instead, which if I'm not mistaken uses far less CPU (but accomplishes lower quality).

I'm going to give iShowU a try when I get the time, because it does look pretty nice. The need for Soundflower doesn't sound as great, but I wouldn't want to complain before trying it.

I definitely think it's worth giving a shot. There's no installer or anything, either, so you can relatively cleanly remove it as well (which is not exactly my experience with Snapz Pro X…).

[divinemann]

Once again another satisfied customer, is ther any mac question you guys can't answer?
Thanks for the info guys.

[Dorian Gray]

Originally Posted by chucker In that context, might I suggest giving http://boredzo.org/codec-comparison/ a read.

Useful, although I think the tester downplays the massive differences in file size. For internet delivery this is surely of paramount importance. He's also quite picky about quality, isn't he? So am I when it comes to the quality of video from a camera, but for videos of a computer screen I'm generally not so fussy, as long as the content remains easy to see/read.

Originally Posted by chucker So if you wanted to, you could also use the x264 codec instead, which if I'm not mistaken uses far less CPU (but accomplishes lower quality).

In my great H.264 codec test of Anno Domini 2006 (now with working links to the comparison images) I didn't find this to be the case. QuickTime delivered better quality, yes, but was actually competitive with x264 in CPU time consumed (I measured encoding time with the "top" utility in a Terminal window, so the times are accurate). I think Apple's H.264 got a reputation for being slow that wasn't wholly deserved, merely because QuickTime 7 was the first mainstream implementation of H.264, and H.264 of any kind is much slower to encode than the MPEG-4 Part 2 standard that everyone was used to. Although it's true that QuickTime was woefully slow on Windows the last time I checked. Not sure what it's like on Intel Macs now.

[chucker]

Originally Posted by Dorian Gray Useful, although I think the tester downplays the massive differences in file size. For internet delivery this is surely of paramount importance.

Agreed.

He's also quite picky about quality, isn't he?

Nah, determining quality was part of the idea. He came up with a good quality result (Animation) and a low file size result (unsurprisingly, H.264).

In my great H.264 codec test of Anno Domini 2006 (now with working links to the comparison images) I didn't find this to be the case. QuickTime delivered better quality, yes, but was actually competitive with x264 in CPU time consumed (I measured encoding time with the "top" utility in a Terminal window, so the times are accurate). I think Apple's H.264 got a reputation for being slow that wasn't wholly deserved, merely because QuickTime 7 was the first mainstream implementation of H.264, and H.264 of any kind is much slower to encode than the MPEG-4 Part 2 standard that everyone was used to. Although it's true that QuickTime was woefully slow on Windows the last time I checked. Not sure what it's like on Intel Macs now.

As I understand it, both Apple H.264 and x264 have made significant progress in terms of performance, so it might be worth re-doing such a comparison.

[Dorian Gray]

It takes a heck of a lot of time to hammer out a proper comparison, but I might try at some point. At the moment I can't even manage to download ffmpegX 0.0.9x r2 (been trying for a couple of days). Looks like the server is down or something. Reason I need to download it now is that I finally got a "new" Mac (12-inch PowerBook) to replace my dead iBook. If anyone knows where I can find a torrent or something that would be cool.

ftp://ftp2.ffmpegx.com/ffmpegx/ffmpegX.dmg

not this address?

[Dorian Gray]

Thanks for the not-so-subtle hint to get on with the comparison, DanielSmith. I did manage to download ffmpegX a couple of days after my last post in this thread. But I still haven't done the comparison and at the moment I don't have the free time.