iShowU: Review and Giveaway
As rich media on the internet continues to evolve, text becomes a more mundane way of expressing yourself. This is where iShowU shines. iShowU is the easiest, and quickest way to record your screen, and share it with anyone around the world.
Video capturing applications have always been few and far between, because video is so much more complicated to deal with than still pictures. However, iShowU is able to overcome this difficulty, and provides a seamless experience for the user.
iShowU is a powerful app with a simple interface. It’s single-window gives you a variety of options that let you choose the video format that is best for what you want. Want a HD video to be burned on a DVD? Want a small file, with highly compressed video, but good voice quality? Want a video with very high frame rate, and no audio? iShowU can give you that with just a click of a button. It comes populated with a variety of video formats for you to choose from. And unlike other applications, iShowU does not give you complex compression types. Instead, it surpasses the actual compression, and focuses on what the user wants. If you want a small video for the web, click the preset “Small, High Quality, Small file”. It’s really that easy.
Recording a video is as easy as clicking the Record button after clicking a preset. The video begins to record, and is noticeable by a red light in the menu bar. However, the best thing about this application comes when you are finished the video. When you click the Stop Recording button, the video immediately shows up on your desktop. You don’t need to wait for compressing or encoding. You are done. This saves a lot of time, and allows the application to be used more experimentally, knowing that there won’t be a long wait rendering.
Once you start to use more of the advanced features in iShowU, you can modify the current pre-sets, or make your own. iShowU allows you to choose whether you want to record the microphone or the system audio. It lets you choose the quality of the audio, and gives you an audio level indicator so you can see how well your microphone is working.
iShowU offers a bunch of video options, and makes it so easy that really anyone jump right in. The quality options are on a slider, that make it easy for anyone to choose how much quality they want or need. And if you don’t know which compression type or quality type to choose from, you can experiment with different mini-videos. There is nothing to risk, because you don’t have the long render time at the end. Finally, iShowU even allows you to add a countdown before your video recording, which allows you to have all of your windows ready before the recording starts.
There is one feature in iShowU that is executed perfectly. Many video recording apps will give you a spot to enter your capture size, or the size of the video you are recording. You will have to enter a predetermined size such as ‘640 x 480′. iShowU offers this option for advanced users, but also provides a much easier solution. By clicking the Edit Recording Size button, iShowU will dim your entire screen, except for the area that will be recorded. You can easily drag the corners of this window bigger or smaller to increase or decrease the recording area. You can also hit Cmd-1 through Cmd-4 to use their helpful presets, which are in determined by the size of your screen.
iShowU is a unique application that acheives something very complex flawlessly. With the easy, understandable presets, no render times, and ability to edit recording size fast and easily, iShowU stands out as an application that was thought out from a user interface perspective. At the same time, iShowU is not a watered down version of screen recording software. It also includes high-end and professional options that are easy to grasp and understand, yet very powerful. For $20, you can’t go wrong with iShowU, and you will end up with a very professional result.
Shinywhitebox, the makers of iShowU, have offered to give away one license of iShowU randomly to one lucky MacApper reader. To enter the contest simply comment, and describe one feature that you’d like to see added in a future version of iShowU.
Be sure to subscribe to MacApper to not miss any of our regular giveaways!
If this program had the ability to edit the “ishowu movie” after recording it…. that would be great!
For instance if I could go back and highlight an area…..
Would have loved to have the ability to adjust audio levels/EQ after one has recorded recorded a video.
An “Export to iMovie ‘08″ feature would be a nice addition as I tend to do a lot of post proccessing and voiceover afterwards!
How about integrating that with a iSight-powered commentary? Both the screen and the iSight video image would be visible.
You could workaround this by powering up isight and putting it on the screen during the recording, but that’s a dirty hack and needs manual labor to move the window away from the top of what is happening.
Yeh, an export to iMovie would be a nice touch…
A “share with dot.mac gallery” button.
I really like iShowU, just installed the demo and made a first short screencast
As mentioned before, an automatic export to iMovie 08 would be awesome. And further a function for some simple macros would be great, e.g. to hide all the windows except for the activ when you hover the left bottom corner of the recorded field.
really great application…
I’d like one copy, pleaseeee !
Automatic export to FTP would be so great…
Thanks !
Ability to put a bug on the video, maybe even with a hyperlink capability.
Wow. Now that I think about it, iShowU has a lot of potential. I would really love the ability to slightly edit the movie, record the isight at the same time, and export to .Mac Web Galleries. Great ideas. Keep them up.
(And no, I cannot win the contest
)
The option to resize the recorded video into a smaller size. Example: full-screen capture reduced to half-size.
@Luis Great point. ShinyWhiteBox is working on another application called Stomp that works as a video encoder. It is really great, you should check that out.
This app is great. Hookups on the giveaway
Great app. For me Shinywhitebox should add possibility to create playlist recorded movies.
I would like to see Growl integration.
Incorporate a Share menu similar to the iLife suite so you can quickly share your file with all of the iLife products — iMovie is the first obvious need, but also GarageBand and iDVD and even iWeb would be a nice feature. And while their at it, go ahead and choose other video editting software if it is installed on the person’s computer (Final Cut Express, FCP, etc).
I would love to have it much like Snapz X Pro where you select a window to capture, then it adds a few pixels around the entire window in which it shows a shadow – makes for really nice images. But in this case, it would be videos
Thanks MacApper and ShinyWhiteBox!
-Jack
I’d love to see it integrated in iMovie also.
That would be truly a very useful feature.
by the way I am giving away some stuff on my blog also if anyone is interested just drop by;)
I’d like to see iShowU being able to insert a live iSight overlay/picture-in-picture into the recorded video – that would be pretty useful for screencasts and tutorials.
And of course, I’d like to win the giveaway
.
I would like the ability to edit and overlay things like titles, or arrows or boxes to highlight important areas of the screen, better than just pointing
I’d like the ability to highlight certain parts of the screen e.g. flash something around the mouse pointer to draw attention to it, or draw a box around a certain area. I know there are apps out there that already do this, but I’d love to see it integrated with iShowU, seems logical.
I’d like to see the ability to do simple edits, like chop off the beginning or end, so that I wouldn’t have to import to iMovie or something afterwards.
Features to possibly add:
*Captioning support.
*Recording keypresses and adding as captions for walkthroughs/tutorials.
*Watermarking.
*Picture-in-picture and/or other compositing options.
*Flash video export.
*Live ichat feed and/or auto FTP/.Mac upload
*option to run applescript/automator action before or after video has been recorded.
*captured video gallery with options to send to stomp, email etc.
———
Very cool program and a very good deal. It’s definitely worth the money and I’ll likely purchase a license whenever I need to create demonstrations.
It’d be nice if iShowU had a way to zoom a circle of pixels around the cursor to draw attention to it.
I would like to see a “send to imovie” button as well as a possible way of recording isight inside the program too that way if your filming a video podcast or something you don have to switch back and forth between programs to film both screen captures and the video. I guess it would have to be simultaneous or something. I dont know, it just sounds cool.
the ability to turn on/off recording system audio in the middle of a record would be nice
Flash export for web, hands down.
So far I really like this (and would LOVE a free copy). One thing I would suggest would be a simple preference to hide the main window automatically while editing the recording area, similar to the pref to hide it while recording.
I was just getting ready to buy this! or was considering it. I had already downloaded and tried the demo version, which is great.
reading other peoples ideas, i have to say that i disagree on most of the ideas. Anything along the lines of captioning and other video editing features can be accomplished AFTER you record the screen. It just doesn’t make sense to be working on all of that at the same time. It is much easier to simply record and then add those extra features to your video afterwards.
So what would i suggest?
One of iShowU’s best features is its ability to pick a specific region of the screen to capture. But what if you want to be zoomed in to several different areas during different times in a video? I think there should be a way to make the recording box follow your mouse (similar to the way you can have the screen follow the mouse while zoomed in using apples “universal access” preferences). This would give you much more ability to record different types of screen activity.
I really hope I win the giveaway! I want this software so badly!!!!
Export as Flash video
I agree with Jake for the most part. However, I have a slightly different suggestion.
I use a dual monitor display setup. I wish there was some way to switch between screens while recording. Then I could have separate images set up and ready to be displayed and seamlessly switch between them. This would be a great feature!
In terms of how to execute this, I was also hoping maybe there could be a window in window option. A small version of the secondary screen appears in a corner, out of the way. Then you can switch which screen is the primary/secondary. This would allow you to show multiple procedures simultaneously. A great improvement!
PICK ME!!!!
@Jacob That feature is already in iShowU, it’s one of my favourites. And don’t worry, you’ll still be entered in the giveaway.
@Scot Stevens I would but it’s random
How about iPod video presets?
I love ishowu, I worked in my education as a technical graphic assistant with it.
I found two, technically, thing which i like to be added in future releases:
1. More Audioformats in Audio Section. By now you can just select to use AAC or full audio but not MP3, WAV and so.
2. Direct Export as Flash Video. (Because many of those screencaster use it)
Thanks
I would love to see the ability to export as a gif (I know, this would require a MUCH MUCH lower framerate, and probably on a limited capture span) But that would be fairly awesome.
i love this app – want to win a copy for my son to use!!!
my feature request (with kids in mind): 1) add a simple interface option that takes away the ‘intimidating’ launch screen and instead shows some preset options like “capture for an imovie” or “capture for putting on my ipod” and so on – these are just visual UI shortcuts and perhaps a simple preference option (open with shortcuts/wizard OR open advanced interface)
that would be so killer, and sooooo simple to implement…
I LOVE how at the end of the recording you get an INSTANT ability to play back what you just recorded. I expected some time for it to finish encoding or something.
I would love for a built-in way to put a spotlight on my cursor, via a key-combo. There is a PC product that does this, and it would be nice for it to be built into this app as well.
Nice App!
Wow DMD nailed the features I was thinking of and a whole lot more. I haven’t tried iShowU yet but judging from the review and many of the comments it could benefit from a flash video export and ftp service. Right now I’m thinking of Jing, which offers a free account with screencast so that once your done recording an onscreen video it is already wrapped up into a flash file (swf) and uploadable.
I have heard comments about adding mouse highlight but I thought that was already in iShowU. If it isn’t then its likely that the caption support for keypresses (also mentioned by DMD) is not in iShowU. The reason I have worked with videocasts myself is for tutorials or showing program features and these features are vital.
I could see there being some hotkeys/buttons that when pressed would make a pre-set title/caption appear or dissappear. This is kinda of an unusual feature but the idea is that this sorta “title/caption” data is put onto the video after it is created in a video editor. By allowing me (the user) to do this with iShowU during the video I could do everything I want during the recording and not have to edit the video to simply add a title. This could implemented in a number of ways, I just mentioned hotkeys because its invisible to a full screen movie.
Save to youtube! iMovie has it now, so should you!
I’d like to see an iMovie integration and possibility of screen captioning. It would be ideal for making tutorials). Great application. Thanks!
I think iShowU is pretty good as it is. I don’t like feature bloat. If there’s any improvements to be made, I’d prefer optimisation so it runs better on low end machines, rather than adding more features.
Although I agree with several updates I would like to see in a future version, one that stands out from the rest for me, is to record key presses.
Most screen casts are used for tutorial purposes and many times, meta-keys need to be used even while going through application menus.
It would be great if these could be recorded and shown on the screen as the video is being recorded.
Great app.
the ability to select which screen to record, or have a set automatic record time
A great ap! Flash export would be a great addition along with a hosting option (as Jing and Skitch offer) for a seamless leap.
I’d like to see a menu selection allowing submission of the captured video to a Podcast Producer workflow.
More of an enabling feature. AppleScript and Automator actions with enough controls to get it going easily.
There’s a community of Drupal developers who teach others through screen casts through VNC. I’m not always available and to have it record automatically would let time shift it. Another problem is lost screen casts. Have enough redundant recordings from people like me would reduce that possibility.
http://groups.drupal.org/drupal-dojo
I’d love to see some method for streaming your video to a video camera for capture on tape. Maybe not something everyone would use but definitely something I’d find useful. That way I could save a full hour of video without worrying about how much disk space that would take up.
Great app though!
Would love to be able to capture across multiple screens.
Export to iWeb would be handy as well.
The capturing across screens idea is nice but many of us don’t have multiple screens so an implementation of this using Spaces would be awesome as well.
Hopefully, the person chosen as the winner of this giveaway will actually get the prize. Someone close to me won one of these giveaways and never got his prize. When he wrote the website to find out why, he never received a single reply.
So, don’t get your hopes up too high people.
Derek,
I’ve won on this blog before, and received my prize promptly. I know many others who have had the same experience as mine….
@Derek At MacApper, we always communicate with the developers first and ask their permission to give away license. Unfortunately, you have had a bad experience somewhere. Here’s the proof for you.
http://myskitch.com/definetheline/dock-20071203-203411/
I do appreciate the feedback and that’s great for those people that did get what they were promised. The dryptaway giveaway didn’t deliver on it’s promise, however.
Just to show I’m being sincere about this, here is the proof. Read the comment by Mr.D.A. at the end.
http://macapper.com/2007/03/25/giveaway-winners-dryptaway/
It wasn’t an expensive program true, it’s just that the deal wasn’t honored.
+1 for iMovie integration.
The giveaway will end tonight at 11:59PM EST. Please ensure that your entries are submitted by then. Thanks to everyone who has contributed.
This sounds good.. I would have tons of uses for iShowu.
I really like the idea that you apparently don’t have to wait for iShowu to compress the file after you finish recording. As much as I like SnapsPro, I don’t really have the time to wait for it to compress the video. Also, I have to compress it again in quicktime to make the file small enough to send over the net or simply to store on my hard drive. I would love to give iShowu a go for my little video projects.
well ishowu is a really nice app, many of my fav bloggers use it for they screen cast that have helped me alot to get me started in to the mac os x world
so my sincere thanks to ishowu, and shinywhitebox
a feature…..
maybe it would be nice to have onboard voice effects (dont know if the idea is in the comments already, havent read em)
The giveaway is now over. The winner will be announced in a few days.
Tomorrow
Great program.
Suggestion: Make it easier for a user to select a custom-size window by having the user just click position of first corner (say top-left) and then position of second corner (say bottom-right). Allow more precision by having an optional digital magnifying glass of the local region (of existing screen) where the user wants to place their corner markers.
I purchased the iShowU HD after a friends recommendation and reading the comments. I just downloaded it but it seems to run very slow on my computer. I eventually had to force quit out of the program because it would not allow me to select anything. There needs to be a way to make it run faster otherwise I will be requesting a refund.
I am running a 2.5 GHz Intel Core 2 Duo and version 10.5.4 on my MacBook Pro that was just purchased in June.
well this is a great software for a great price and i wished that i could export the videos to final cut express HD and edit them. Also you could place the moves on iMove by going to file import and find the video
features that the AVERAGE user would like to see:
*Pref to remove the screen whilst setting recording area
*Post recording watermarking
*Post recording captioning, aswell as the option to record key presses during for automatic captioning.
*Use of isight camera – via shortcut keys?
*Post recording addition of the afore mentioned isight recording, either picture-in-picture or switch.
*Flash video format