Because of the rise of YouTube and video tutorials, screen-casting programs have become very popular. I have used screen capture programs in the past, however now they just don’t cut it. Screen-casting software not only captures, but it also allows editing. As a blogger, I sometimes create screen-casts tutorials, which require quick and painless publishing. I recently switched from PC to Mac because Macs make a lot of things easier to do. The main reason I believe this is because of Apple’s simplistic approach. I have started using Telestream’s ScreenFlow, which follows this simplistic approach (simple yet powerful). It had a very small learning curve of about five to ten minutes.
ScreenFlow Pre Recording Countdown (Click For Full Size Image)
Features
ScreenFlow supports high-resolution screens with ease. If you have multiple screens ScreenFlow gives the option of selecting the required source. The feature that I believe differentiates ScreenFlow from all other Mac screen-casting software is the ability to “Callout” a window after recording is over. This is no simple zooming technique, it actually makes the window larger compared to everything else on the screen. This could be handy in case you did not know you want to Callout a window before finishing recording. One of my favorite things about ScreenFlow is the way it saves project files. Every project file contains all files needed to open the project in one package. That way files are not all over your hard drive. When you are constantly moving, copying, deleting, and creating new files having one file per project is helpful for organizational reasons.
ScreenFlow Workspace (Click For Full Size Image)
Support
When contacting Telestream’s support I always received a fast effective response, which shows the Telestream team is there to stand behind their product. I have found some small inconveniences that I have reported to Telestream hopefully they can accommodate for fixes soon (At the time of writing this post the version I am using is 1.5.2). Firstly you must add a video or audio effect for each clip separately, you cannot just drag it from one clip to another. When adding an additional recording with the “Close ScreenFlow before recording option” selected without saving the entire project prior. It will ask you to save the project, but then it won’t record you must to go back and select add additional recording again. Another feature I feel would make ScreenFlow even more amazing would be the ability to blur out personal information such as usernames and passwords. I have received a reply from the support team looking into all these issues for the next version.
As a screen-casting program ScreenFlow ticks off all the boxes I need. It is a very powerful yet easy to use program. I can create screen-casts fast. I am glad the Telestream team made it very simple and not a full-blown video editing solution. This way the application file size stays small (13 Megabytes), the program does not get too complicated, and performs what it does very well. On a final note I noticed that Telestream have made this program amazing by building it systematically. First they got the basics down and slowly they add features as opposed to building it with all the features they can think of. That way the program not only works better, but also is formulated better. I would recommend it for any Mac user that needs to produce screen casts. You can Try and Buy ScreenFlow on Telestream’s Website ($99).
Ps. If you have any questions or are confused by anything in this review and would like an answer, please comment and I’ll do my best to respond.
