Why we love ScreenFlow: screen capture for the Mac | Social Signal

If you spend any time teaching people about online tools, or documenting them, or pitching them, chances are you've thought about screen capture software. And last week, a post on the Web of Change email list asked for recommendations on just that topic.

I weighed in on the side of Telestream's ScreenFlow, and I'm sharing it here in case you're looking for something for your next computer or Internet tutorial:

I have a two-year torrid love affair with ScreenFlow (although Darren Barefoot has actually proposed to marry it, so consider me trumped). It's Mac-only, but if you're in the Apple universe, you get an awful lot for the $99 pricetag.

Here's some of what I like:

• A simple, intuitive editing interface that – for me, at least – beats the more recent versions of iMovie for making sense right off the bat
• Fast and easy creation of callouts (that is, highlights, with background blurring and darkening, and foreground zooming)
• Fast and easy annotation with text and shapes
• Easy addition of new recordings
• Simple adjustment of playback speed

And here's some of what I'd like to see:

• Clip masking or cropping (Update: Lynn from ScreenFlow comments below that you can crop a clip by selecting it and then ctrl-dragging the sizing handles. Huzzah!)
• Integrating edited clips into one, so you can then apply affects to the whole
• Customizable presets for text, annotations and callouts
• More customization in the export settings, especially publishing
• Better HTML5 support in publishing

Check out some of the other feature requests from the user community.

A note: because its export function relies on QuickTime, you're limited to Apple's selection of video formats (of which H.264 is probably the most universal). So if you have your heart set on WebM or Ogg, you're out of luck.

How about you? Got a favourite screen capture tool? Do you use QuickTime's free screen recording feature on the Mac? CamStudio on Windows? Camtasia? Jing? Make your case in the comments!*

* Vendors, you know we love you, but please leave this conversation for users and customers. Thanks!