ScreenFlow 2 adds some great features to let you create sleek screencasts.  There are now new transitions to flow between different clips. If you drag two clips together a transition will automatically be placed in between. You can change the type of transition by double-clicking the transition area. You can also drag new clips in from another screen recording and you can speed up or slow down clips.

This update adds a lot of features to help you edit the audio in your clips. First off, you can detach the audio from the video clip, and even copy it to a different video. You can also have ScreenFlow automatically fade out the background audio when you have a voiceover player, and fade back in after it is over. They have added live audio scrubbing too, so you can quickly scan through to get the the section in the audio that you want.

ScreenFlow 2.0 also added a few other useful features. You can now export your video to YouTube, right out of the application. And Telestream added a feature that lets you pause the recording, and then resume it later. Finally, they added a few keyboard shortcuts, improved performance, and added Snow Leopard support.

This is a great update to a great application. It is a little pricey, $99 for a new license or $29 for an upgrade, but I think that anyone interested in screencasting should try out the demo. If you just need a cheap simple application to record your screen, you might want to try another alternative. You can download the trial and buy ScreenFlow at Telestream’s website.

Final Cut Studio has been around for a number of years, gaining traction on it’s Avid counter-parts. Being used by large-production companies for feature films, or short goofy clips by high school and college students, Final Cut serves a broad audience with its suite of editing, creation, and manipulating tools.

*Note: To be fair, we haven’t yet gotten our hands on the software, this is working from the advertised feature list from apple.com

Final Cut Pro 7

Final Cut gets the bump to the big 7.0, and while it offers a number of small new features, I was hoping to see a stronger feature set for a big version change like this. Apple calls it “the year’s most stunning new release.” If this is the year’s most stunning new release, it’s going to be quite a disappointing year.

• Current Final Cut users will be happy to get an improved export system called “Easy Export.” This one was common sense: allow users to continue working on a project while it’s encoding in the background. I’m excited for this, but it seems like something that should have been done in the first place.
• Apple is heavily touting it’s ProRes codec family as a big feature, and while a more extensive codec family is useful when working with multiple types of clips, I hardly see it as a big feature.
• Apple is parading better integration with iChat and Cinema Tools, support for more formats, more effects and transitions, and blah blah blah… None of these features are so earth shattering I would pay $299 for the upgrade.

Motion 4

I don’t event know what to say about Motion. No major updates to the interface, no major new features, just more of the same tacky templates, particle emitters, and preset patterns.

• Lots of other small little useful tools Motion has had for years made better…

Soundtrack 3

Soundtrack got the most new features of all the apps in my opinion, which is sad for this video-centric suite.

• Soundtrack sounds like it got a bunch of tools to repair common audio problems with just a few clicks. This will be refreshing change, as before it could be clunky to make smaller edits in a large timeline.
• Soundtrack 3 improves integration with Final Cut to make it a more useful counter-part in the editing workflow. Make precision edits to dialogue levels on two tracks to that they match perfectly. Another great feature, but it always seemed like a feature destined for Soundtrack, nothing that will change how you use the advanced multi-track editor.

Color 1.5

A lot more of the same. Color grows up a bit, and gains… you guessed it: tighter integration with Final Cut.

• Not much to report. Come back next version.

Compressor 3.5

• Compressor gets a bit of a facelift, and I understand that it’s hard to improve an encoder. Compressor does a better job of handling batch jobs, gives you better batch templates to work with, and a great 3rd-party-plugin system to let you better write your own custom workflows.
• Compressor supposedly now gives “pristine” format conversion, including excellent SD-to-HD up-conversion. A plus, sure, but it’s hard to quantify what “pristine” format conversion means in comparison to what Compressor used to be.

DVD Studio Pro 4

• To be honest the Apple website doesn’t really say much about DVD Studio Pro of consequence. It touts features already available in the software for years, and just more of the same.
• Blu-ray support? I’m guessing (and your guess is as good as mine). Compressor supports it now, so it leads one to believe that you would be able to burn Blu-Ray images at least. No where on the site does it say that it does though, and no Macs currently support Blu-Ray media, or have drives to read/write the discs.

Conclusion

I’m honestly at a loss of words as for what to say about the new Final Cut Studio. By no means do I think they’re bad programs, I think they’re all excellent, but there are no compelling features to justify the upgrade. It adds better inter-app integration, it offers some improved sharing features for popular formats and services, and just improves over-all. There’s honestly not much to report.

Either Apple did a terrible job advertising new features on their website, or the new suite is just the slightly more-polished version of Final Cut Studio 2 it sounds like. If users were planning on buying Final Cut Studio already, they should go for it, there are some useful new fixes and tie-ins, but it’s not really worth the upgrade from the current version.

VLC can play almost any type of media file you can throw at it—video, audio, streaming, even recording. It is a cross-platform application, and even proprietary filetypes such as Real, Quicktime, or Windows Media pose no problem at all. It can play DVDs from any region of the world, without having to use up one of the five times you are allowed to switch the region of the DVD Player application.

The newly official release of VLC 1.0 brings with it many new and updated features from the program’s past. There is increased support for skins. The display can be made to look like pretty much anything you can dream of, and there are many skins already uploaded at the VLC site to peruse and download. If you want it to look like Quicktime, or Winamp, or even the computer screens from Star Trek, you can. This allows the program to suitably fit with whatever your desktop background or system set-up happens to be at the time.

The new version also allows you to customize the interface on a more basic level. If there is a button you need, you can add it. If you never use rewind, you can take it out of the controller. The goal of the application is to be a perfect tool for you, the viewer, and it does everything it can to be one.

VLC 1.0 also has sophisticated recording technology, both from internal sources as well as the external microphone and camera built in to most Macs. It also improves upon playback, with better control of fast-forward and rewind, instant pausing, and new compatibility with HD formats, other applications’ playlists, streaming audio, and so on.

VLC can be downloaded for free from its website. Try it out. You may never go back to Quicktime.

Hulu Desktop brings the best of Hulu.com while adding an intuitive albeit somewhat confusing user interface, but after playing with the app for a little while it all makes sense. Upon opening the application, the video you were previously watching begins to play and you are given the options: Start Watching, Menu, and Switch Profile.

Diving into the menu system, you are given options for looking at Popular and Recently Added videos as well as TV, Movies and even Search. In actuality, the navigational system is very similar to that of it’s web version except it is all “live” and you don’t have to worry about pages loading or having to stop watching your video to find something else. The menu is easily accessible at all times by simply hitting the ESC button on your keyboard or by hitting the Menu button on your Apple Remote.

While watching a video, you are given a very familiar bar indicating your current position in the video but it has one very helpful feature that its web counterpart does not have. When putting your mouse over the timeline you are given a picture of what is at that position, something that is handy when looking for a particular part of a video. When you click on the video and pause it, a menu pops up on the left hand side giving you the feature that Hulu.com has, like Closed Captioning, Ratings, and etc. In that menu you will also find a help section which gives you all the keyboard and Apple Remote shortcuts, allowing you to watching your favorite videos without the aid of your mouse.

Overall, Hulu Desktop is an intuitive copy of its web-based brother, Hulu.com. The only real additions simply come from the app no longer being in your browser, things like not having to wait for pages to load and being able to have the video continue to play while you search the bowels of the menu system. So if you are an avid TV viewer and frequent Hulu.com regularly or just want the convenience of a desktop app, you can pick up Hulu Desktop for Windows and Mac at Hulu.com/Labs.

If you don’t have a remote, Hulu Desktop also allows control via keyboard and mouse. Another great feature is the ability to link it into your Hulu account, allowing you to access your que, subscriptions, and viewing history as well as change settings such as closed captioning and video quality.

Unfortunately the app requires an Intel Core Duo processor (at least 2.0 GHz), at least 2 GB RAM, and at least a 2 Mbps internet connection, so this leaves out some Mac users. During the beta period, Hulu plans to “plan to gather and incorporate user feedback to improve the service.” I think this desktop app is a great step forward for Hulu and with their willingness to incorporate user feedback, this app has a lot of potential. Hulu Desktop can be found on the Hulu Labs website. Look for a review soon!

If the latest rumor making it’s rounds on the internet is true, YouTube uploading has just been made idiot-proof.  Apple Insider is reporting that, in addition to a host of new features, OSX 10.6 (better known as Snow Leopard) will allow YouTube uploading from Quicktime.  Apple has yet to confirm or deny the rumor, so we’ll have to treat this one with a real wait-and-see approach.

If true, this won’t be the first time Apple and YouTube have worked hand in hand.  Apple has previously played nice with the video sharing giant when it came to providing direct access to their content via AppleTV.  Similar arrangements were made in time for the launch of the iPhone.

Apple Insider has further gone on to claim that, in addition to the uploading of supported file formats via the new Quicktime, you’ll be able to export files to iTunes as well.  Expect to see fully-functional ways to convert and export videos for use on AppleTV and the iPod.  Here’s to hoping these changes actually materialize — they may be enough to send Mac-exclusive video converting giant VisualHub to an early grave.

No official word on Snow Leopard’s release yet, but analysts are predicting we’ll see it by the end of summer.

The first new feature is the customization of mouse clicks–You can now show users your mouse clicks. There is a new Mouse tab where you can customize the size, color, duration and strength of your mouse clicks. You can even display the button name for the click. This means, if you click the left mouse button, it says, ‘Left’ where you clicked as well as showing the animation. You can visualize all these styles without having to create a video in the Mouse Actions Preview box at the bottom.

The second major feature added was optimized export workflows to easily export videos to a few places. All you do is right-click on a video, and you will see a list of 3 pre-defined exporters. So now, you can export for the iPhone just by clicking that and then clicking okay.

Screenium by Synium retails for $29 and you can download a free trial from their site. If you would like more in-depth info about it, you can look at our Face off of screen-capturing apps.

How does it work?

Simply put, doubleTwist is constantly updated with drivers and software designed to work with all of the latest gadgets and gear that stores all of your digital media assets.  Because of this, doubleTwist makes it as easy as plugging in your device, and dragging and dropping in your media files to and from your devices.

The Interface

DoubleTwist’s interface makes up a good part of it’s feature list.  DoubleTwist takes after a longtime design principal commonly found in iTunes and iPhoto.  In the right section of the window, you’ll find a sidebar filled with a list of sources where you’ll find your media content.  The sidebar is divided into four sections:  DoubleTwist “aka sharing information with doubleTwists’s own sharing service”, Library “used to access the media on your computer’s hard drive”, Devices “used to access your digital device’s content”, and Friends “which also works with DoubleTwist’s own sharing service”.

The right side of the app is where you view and interact with your content.  This side of the app changes based on what you have selected in the sidebar.  When viewing the “My Feed” section, you get at consecutive list filled with notifications.  Inside of these notifications are thumbnails of pictures, movies, and music which you can view at anytime.

When looking at any of the the Library sections, the right area of the app shows a simple browser interface designed for the one purpose of finding your media, and dragging it onto your device.

Which brings us to the Device section.  Clicking on the device itself shows a progress bar depicting how much storage space you have available.

PSP and Video!

One thing everyone always gripes about is video conversion.  Well gripe no more because doubleTwist automatically converts your video for you no matter what device you are using.  This is a big plus for PSP users.  Just drag in the video, and doubleTwist does the rest.  Thumbnail and all!

Sharing Online

Besides integrating with your digital devices, DoubleTwist also integrates with FaceBook, Flickr, and YouTube allowing you to share your captured media online.

DoubleTwist also has a sharing service built in.  This allows you to easily share your media with all of your friends.  When you receive a photo, video, or audio file, doubleTwist will automatically update your feed.

Final Thoughts

DoubleTwist is still very new, meaning the compatible device list is a little sparse however, because doubleTwist is an ongoing project, the developers are hard at work making more and more devices compatible.

In terms of performance, doubleTwist does not disappoint.  Depending on how much memory you have as well as the speed of your Intel processor, the time it takes to transfer and convert video will vary, however testing on a 2nd gen aluminum iMac I found that doubleTwist is quite fast and will not disappoint.

DoubleTwist is available for the Mac (Leopard only) and PC at http://www.doubletwist.com/ for the unbeatable price of free.

For those of you know don’t know of Boxee, it’s free media center software compatible with OS X, Ubuntu Linux, and (with a hack) the AppleTV. Boxee pulls music, photos TV shows, and movies from your own hard drive, as well as a number of streaming web services. Boxee works a lot like Front Row or the AppleTV, but with significantly extended functionality. Boxee has the ability to stream video from providers like CBS, CNN, YouTube, MTV, Netflix, Comedy Central, The WB, myspacetv, and up until recently Hulu.

The Hulu streaming implemented by Boxee was actually quite clever. Boxee was able to embed Hulu videos into their software while still keeping the Hulu advertisements in place. This seemed like a win-win for Hulu and Boxee users. Users who were tired of having to sit in front of their computer to watch Hulu content could now enjoy it on their HDTV through their AppleTV. Hulu gained hundreds of thousands of streams from Boxee users, and their ads were still played.

According to the blog post Hulu’s content providers asked Hulu to pull the Boxee streaming. This seems like yet again another short-sighted decision by the entertainment industry. What they don’t seem to realize is that users who are savvy enough to hack their AppleTV with Boxee will be able to hook up their laptop or MacMini to their HDTV without breaking a sweat. Hulu is arguably the largest legal TV streaming site on the web. With content from FOX, NBC, Sci-Fi, FX, The WB and much more, this is only going to hurt the entertainment industry. Hulu is one of the most popular ways to stream TV shows legally on the web. When content providers continue to remove and restrict legal ways to access content on the web, many users turn to illegal methods of getting content.

To add to a fantastic week for Boxee users, Apple released an update to the AppleTV that broke the Boxee hack (and seemingly added no additional functionality). As if Boxee wasn’t having a rough enough time, Hulu has yet again blocked the Boxee users from getting at their videos. Hulu has blocked the Boxee browser from calling the public RSS feeds. As pointed out by Boxee CEO Avner Ronan on the company blog Boxee’s browser “…is no different in how it accesses this content than Internet Explorer, Firefox, Flock, Opera or any of the other browsers out there.”

Media companies generally don’t fight so hard to keep users from using their service, it’s unfortunate that Hulu didn’t advocate for themselves a little bit more in meetings with their content providers.

For Boxee users worried about the fate of one of the applications most touted features: easy web video streaming shouldn’t worry. Ronan adds this note to users in his post:

To our users: if you choose to use boxee as your media browser to view legal and publicly available content on the internet, we will do everything we can to ensure that you can access it, no matter what the source.

If you’re a Boxee user having a rough few weeks from this Hulu ordeal you can comment on Hulu’s blog here. ]]> http://macapper.com/2009/03/11/news-boxee-loses-hulu/feed/ 1 http://macapper.com/2009/03/10/stomp-review-advanced-video-converting/ http://macapper.com/2009/03/10/stomp-review-advanced-video-converting/#comments Tue, 10 Mar 2009 10:00:35 +0000 Joe Turner http://macapper.com/?p=7275 A while ago, we talked about Techspansion closing its doors. As you may know, Techspansion was the maker of a great audio and great video converter. We also talked about many alternatives to VisualHub and AudialHub (their products). One we did not talk about, is shinywhitebox’s Stomp. That is what I will talk about today.

Stomp’s main purpose is to convert your videos to a large variety of formats. It comes built-in with 20 presets, but you can change the conversion settings as you wish. To change the settings for the audio or video, just click the Settings… button by the relevant label. You will then be prompted with a window that gives you many conversion options. You can also choose to leave the video or audio untouched or delete it altogether from the movie. Of course, you can also change the size and crop the video too. When you have chosen all the options you need, all you have to do is click the Process button in the lower right-hand-corner. However, unlike an app like Handbrake, you cannot click on an item in the list, and change conversion settings for just that clip. You must change it for them all, convert, and then do it again for different options.

Stomp’s other main feature is Filters. You can add from a list of many filters and apply them to your video during the conversion. There are 12 categories of filters and many within each one. They include standard filters you may see in an app like Pixelmator except for video. You can add as many as you want, and change the blend mode of each one. Of course, the more you add, the longer it will take. To add a filter, simply click on the [+] button in the Filters panel. Once you have added one, you will see the properties for the filter below the button. You can either delete a filter by clicking the [-] button, or you can just turn it off if you want to keep it, but want to preview your video without it. Stomp’s filters allow you to easily add many filters to your video without professional software.

One very nice (but not necessary) feature added to Stomp is performance control. In the Performance tab of Stomp>Preferences…, you can specify how many concurrent tasks to run, and whether to give other apps priority. This is great if you want to play Call of Duty 4 while converting your episodes of Lost (legally downloaded of course).

shinywhitebox’s Stomp retails for $29.95 and you can download a free trial from their site. It makes it very easy to convert videos and add filters, but the only thing it has over an app like Handbrake is it’s Filters. If you do not need filters, then I suggest you go with Handbrake, because it’s free and works just fine. But, Stomp does provide a nice interface and a few advanced features that you will not find in Handbrake.

Up until this point, I have been fairly disappointed with all of the Netflix applications that have hit the App Store.  Going into this review, there was one main question that stood out, “Does this application allow the user to fully, yet easily, manage all of the essential Netflix features on the run?”

Starting up PocketFlix instantly brings you to an online verification page for linking your application to Netflix.  Once you sign in, you are ready to go.  The navigation is a bit different when compared to a typical iPhone applications (no bottom bar navigation), but it seems to work well for the app.  One minor annoyance that was immediately noticed was the fact that the “loading” circle in the top right kept spinning during the entire time that I had the application open, which was awhile.

You are then brought to the main menu, which is pictured above.  As you can see, it allows you to enter nearly every feature of Netflix that you would want to.  Search, Most Popular, DVD Queue, Recommendations, At Home, and Rental History are all listed.  The question was, does each of these function to the fullest ability?  The short answer is, yes, they all delivered.

The search worked as expected.  You simply enter in a movie title and PocketFlix will return the best matches, just as if you would have searched on Netflix itself.  It displays each title with a movie poster, cast information, genre, rating, and Netflix rating.  The only complaint I have about the search function is that there is no “load more” feature at the bottom.  Doing a search for something generic like “baseball” brings up only about 20 movies and you can not load more onto a new page.

The Most Popular menu brings up listings for the Top DVDs overall, Top ‘Instant Watched’, Top New, and then it separates the top watched 25 movies in each genre, which is a really handy feature.  However, there were some issues with the loading of the separate genre categories.  They were stuck on “downloading” for a long time and none of them loaded until I relaunched the application, and then it happened very slowly.  However, the main top lists such as Top DVDs and Top ‘Instant Watch’ loaded with no problem.

The Queue menu is the most important feature for any Netflix user and this seems to be the strong point for PocketFlix.  The queue displays just like the search results, but has an edit feature which allows you to reorder your queue or delete movies off of it.  It also allows you to tap on a green arrow which will put that movie on the top of your queue.  Everything ran very smoothly when changing the queue around and it was instantly reflected in the Netflix queue online.  As a side note, the ‘Instant Queue’ menu works exactly like the normal queue menu.

Next was the recommendations menu section.  This feature works just like the online version, separating each recommendation into certain genres.  When each genre is clicked on, it displays just like the search results.  When you click on the movie, it shows you the poster, quick synopsis, rating, cast, Netflix rating with the ability to rate it yourself, and the option to add it to your queue.

Lastly, PocketFlix will display which movies you currently have at home and will also show you your past rental history.

In conclusion, PocketFlix really impressed when it comes to covering all of Netflix’s available features in one application.  Nearly every Netflix feature seems to appear in this application (besides rating movies for new recommendations and no “friends” feature) which makes it a very powerful tool for any Netflix user.  The application never crashed while it was being put through the review and everything seems to flow very smoothly, besides the minor downloading lag in the Most Popular section even when on WiFi.  After testing nearly all the Netflix managers in the App Store, PocketFlix comes as highly recommended from MacApper for any Netflix user, as it seems to currently be the best option out there.

You can visit PocketFlix’s Google Code page here and you can download it in Apple’s Application Store for $1.99.

As Sling Media’s new iPhone dedicated page suggests, the application should now be right around the corner and it will become the first TV streaming application for the iPhone.  Also featured on the site is a nice teaser video, which shows exactly how the application is going to look and run on the iPhone.  It features smooth slide out menus which allow you to control your favorite stations, browse the guide, program your DVR, and pretty much everything else you can do on your TV.

The applications price has not yet been announced but it would be nice if it was free for current users, as it will be a useless application for anyone who has not bought a Slingbox.

You can sign up to be contacted over email when the application launches at this link.

Come January 8, 2009 Boxee will open those floodgates and everyone will have open access to try out Boxee.  Well by everyone they mean only Mac and Ubuntu user’s.  Their closed alpha testing stage generated over 150,000 sign ups, obviously a much larger number than they were ever expecting.  We have been active in testing Boxee since it was announced and things are coming along nicely…for something that’s still in its infancy.

So for those of you who are completely lost as to what Boxee is here you go: Boxee builds upon the widely popular XBMC (Xbox Media Center) by taking the normal media center functions and extending them to online video streaming.  Along with that they have built a social network within the app in which friends can rate and recommend things to watch, amongst other abilities as well.

The most enticing feature of Boxee is it’s ability to stream content from sites like Hulu and Comedy Central, to name a couple.  This is extremely nice as Hulu alone contains thousands of full TV shows and movies.  All this can now be streamed right to your big screen TV which is nice and convenient, granted the quality is only so so.  This can be done from any OSX 10.4 or 10.5 computer, AppleTV, or Ubuntu system. Unfortunately the online video content is only available to people in the US.

Now keep in mind that Boxee is still in the very early stages of development and does have many bugs.  Also some functions of the software are not very intuitive on how to set up, namely the setting up of a networked hard drive that contains your media files.  When Boxee does become open to the public it will still retain it’s Alpha status, but hopefully a beta will follow quickly.

Boxee can be downloaded at the official site.

I must say, when comparing the new version of HandBrake to any of the other apps we mentioned before, it is the clear winner. First of all, it’s completely free. In fact, it’s also open-source, so you can even download the Cocoa source and edit it freely (for your own use). Second, it supports DVDs, which none of the other apps I mentioned did. Third, it gives you the largest amount of options for your conversion. HandBrake comes with some great built-in presets, but if you feel the need, you can customize the numerous fields it gives you. Fifth, it is supported on all platforms. So, if you are using a Windows or Linux machine somewhere, you can still use HandBrake! And the last, but definitely not worst, reason: HandBrake is still in beta! You think it’s great now, well just wait until 1.0 is released!

Screenflick ($20)

The point of Screenflick seems to be making screen-capturing easy. All you have to do to create a recording is set a size, set some audio and keyboard settings, and then hit record. It does all of the encoding after you record, so your processor is not running hot during the recording, but you have to wait a while after. When you are done recording, you can choose how to encode the video, and (if you want audio) how to encode that, too. What Screenflick doesn’t have in features, it makes up for in performance and simplicity.

Another thing that Screenflick offers is a library of recordings. Instead of creating a recording, and then just saving when it’s done, all of your videos are stored in a folder at full quality, allowing you to export as many times as you would like. You can also enable things like showing mouse clicks and keyboard actions.

Grade: B

Séquence ($29)

The purpose of Séquence seems to be the ability to just open it up and get going. But yet, this does take away from its feature set. Séquence does allow you to draw before and during a screen-recording. So instead of having options to show keyboard shortcuts or mouse clicks, you can point things out with a drawing. Nice concept, and it does work, but this is really one of only two special features in Séquence. The other special feature is the ability to record from an iSight or other Webcam at the same time as your screen so you can put yourself in the video without having to record twice.

Séquence gives you barely any audio and video export options (comparatively), and there is no library. But, for what it’s worth, you can also take screen-snapshots in it, too (with the drawing tool). I think that for someone who likes ease-of-use and doesn’t care about export options, Séquence is right, but I’m personally not willing to give up nice features for this.

Grade: C

Screenium ($29)

Screenium may not be the easiest to use, but it’s not lacking at all in features. Its first major feature is its vast audio support. You can choose from many audio sources that you might not even know about. The second is that it has a library, so you can export later and record at a lossless format. The third is its Webcam support. Like Séquence, you can attach a Webcam (or use a built-in iSight) and have your face in your video. But, not only can you just record it, you can also have it flipped vertically and horizontally. The next one (I lost count!) is called HotText. With this you can create a keyboard shortcut that will display a nice little transparent window to show text for a certain duration. You can place it in 9 different positions, and have it displayed for anywhere from 1 to 120 seconds. The last notable feature in Screenium is its Single window recording. Some apps say they do single window recording, but they really just record the area where the window started. Screenium actually follows the window! Granted, if you move it, it gets a bit jagged, but it is still really nice to have.

I must say that you cannot go wrong with Screenium. It has many of the features in more expensive screen-capturing apps, and more. And what’s better, it was just released, meaning it will only get much better!

Grade: A-

iShowU HD & HD Pro ($29.95 & $59.95)

iShowU has been out for a while, and just recently has shinywhitebox released the HD and HD Pro versions. The main reason you would want to use iShowU HD is for real-time recording and features. It has many formats (not as many as others) to record to, and you can even upload directly to services like YouTube. iShowU HD contains a library, but not one with lossless files — they are just the files in their lossy format. Like many of the others, you can record from your iSight. iShowU does do single-window recording, but it is not nearly as good as Screenium’s. It just expects that the window stays still. Because of its real-time recording, HD Pro can be processor intensive, so it has a mode called Low-CPU mode. This just records the changes from the last frame, and then puts it together at the end. I have noticed a huge difference on my MacBook when using this mode, so it does work. One thing that I just don’t get is why there is no option for non-real-time recording, if we really don’t need it fast. A nice little feature that iShowU HD has is the ability to preview what your video will look like in the main window. However, it can be a processor hog.

The differences between HD and HD Pro are the Low-CPU mode, watermarking, audio mixing, key recording, and compatibility with Final Cut. Some of these features should be in HD, but HD is cheap enough that it doesn’t matter that much. Overall, iShowU HD looks very polished, and works well.

Grade: B+

ScreenFlow ($99)

You cannot really talk about Mac screen-capturing without talking about ScreenFlow. ScreenFlow makes it easy to create a screen-capturing session (just the click of a button), but also gives you many post-production tools. Like most of the others, ScreenFlow supports iSights. One neat feature is support for multiple video sources. You can click the Add Media button, and then you can use other videos too. The nice thing about ScreenFlow is everything that you do to your video is post-production. You don’t have to worry about anything beforehand. It really gives you a miniature studio to edit your video, all in one application.

In most ways, ScreenFlow has the biggest feature set, but it comes at a price — it is almost double any of the others. If you do screencasts professionally, or for something important, you may find it worth it, but I don’t think it’s the app for the average user.

Grade: B+

I hope this has given you a good idea of the good screen-capturing apps out there. In case you didn’t read it, my favorite is Screenium, but they are all good apps — you really can’t go too wrong. If there are any apps that you think were left out, or should be added, just tell us.

What a better way to get your iPhone or Touch video then through a free streaming application. This app is know as Joost and it comes from the guys at Joost.com. Joost is one of the heavy hitters in the world of online video, alongside greats such as Hulu and Youtube. They feature content from Comedy Central, CNN, Adult Swim, and claim to have over 46,000 TV shows.

The interface is very simple, with only “Joost Picks”, Popular, Browse, Search, and More located at the bottom. The Browse panel is fairly intuitive, but only focuses on the category of video; it doesn’t get down to the nitty gritty of allowing you to sort by TV series or even channel. On the other hand, the Search panel is very accurate, but often turns up some videos you may not be looking for. Videos themselves load up in a few seconds, but the magic lies in the fact that, in all the videos I tested, not once did they stop due to buffering, something that the YouTube app rarely achieves. The quality of the videos themselves is also very impressive, with only the slightest of compression artifacts noticeable in high-motion scenes.

Video quality and selection was top notch, but I found fast-forwarding and rewinding the videos very difficult, and sometimes I couldn’t even accomplish that. The most unfortunate problem with this application is that it only works on WiFi. Reading through Joost’s app launch post, I did see that they are working on possibly running off the 3G network, although I would think buffering would be much more visible.

All in all this is a top-notch app that rivals the YouTube app, and even trumps it in terms of content. Currently, the Joost app is available for free on the iTunes App Store and I would highly recommend you seek it out.

RipIt is a paid app, unlike most of its competitors. HandBrake does an amazing job converting any type of video to many formats, and MacTheRipper does a fairly good job of ripping DVDs. Both of these apps give you so many features that it can be daunting for some people. What RipIt provides is a good-looking and easy-to-use interface, at the cost of a lot of advanced features and ripping to multiple formats. So, before you even decide to try RipIt, ask yourself if you are willing to give up these features. If you’re not, then HandBrake and MacTheRipper are perfectly fine DVD rippers — especially HandBrake.

The point of RipIt is to be simple and to work well, and it does both of these beautifully. If you have a DVD inserted into your computer, when you open RipIt, there will be two buttons on the window: Rip and Eject. Press Rip if you want to rip the DVD, and Eject if you want to eject the DVD. If you click on Rip, then you just have to sit back and relax until RipIt is done ripping your DVD. It even tells you the percent that has been ripped and the time remaining! Once it’s done, there will be a .dvdmedia file in your Movies folder. A .dvdmedia file is a DVD Player (the Mac’s DVD player app) file. If you double-click it, it will open in DVD Player. You now have a file that requires no disk to be present, thus saving you much battery and clutter. RipIt works as simply as that!

RipIt also has a number of preferences that make it even easier to rip DVDs. In Preferences > General, you can choose where to rip to, what to do when the rip is complete, and you can even tell RipIt to start ripping as soon as a disk is inserted! In Preferences > Appearance, you can enable or disable animation (of the disk on the screen), and choose what badges to display in the Dock (like Percent Complete and Time Remaining). And finally, there is the Network pane. This allows you to use something called DiskIndent. This is a database of ripped DVDs (so other users can know if a certain DVD can be ripped). Don’t worry! It sends your data anonymously! If you use it, you will be helping others rip DVDs too.

Although it is possible to rip commercial DVDs, and DVDs not owned by you, we at MacApper do not condone circumventing copy-protection of DVDs using RipIt. So please, only use it on disks that you personally own. RipIt retails for $18.99, and you can download a free trial from their site too. It is by far the best ripping program that I have used to date, so if you rip DVDs, want to conserve battery, simplify entertainment on the go, or organize your movie collection, you should definitely try it out.

If you are a Windows user who is reading this blog, then I have some great news for you; ScreenSteps is not only a Mac app, but a Windows application as well! Everything I talk about should be available in the Windows version.

When you first open ScreenSteps, your library will be blank; you have to add a new lesson. To do this, click on the New toolbar item. You will now see an Untitled Lesson label at the top of the main pane of the window. You can now either add a new step, or capture a new step. If you just click on the New Step toolbar item, a new step will be added. There will be a little camera icon under where it says Add Title. When you click on this, you will be allowed to capture an image for that step. If you want to do that whole process in one step, just click on the Capture toolbar item, and you will be prompted to capture part of your screen. It will then create a new step with that image as the image. If you want to replace the current picture for a step, just click on the camera icon next to the current picture. The capture tool that ScreenSteps brings up is just the built-in capture tool to Mac OS X, so if you press Space, it will switch to window selection mode, and if you press Space again, it will switch back.

One of the best tools in ScreenSteps is Annotations. It allows you to add things like lines, ovals, and rectangles to your images. This can help even more with guides, by pointing out the important part of the image. To use these tools, just click on an image (in a step) and a new set of toolbar items will appear. Select, Crop, Line, Rectangle, Oval, and Sequence. The Select tool allows you to select annotations that have already been made. The Crop tool allows you to crop the image. The Line tool allows you to add lines with arrows. The Rectangle tool allows you to add rectangles. The Oval tool allows you to add ovals. The Sequence tool allows you to add numbered circles to make a sequence of where the reader should look. With the Line, Oval, Rectangle, and Sequence tools, if you click on the Inspect toolbar item, you can change things like opacity, arrows, color, and line size. The annotation tools are great for showing things even more in-depth.

The point of ScreenSteps is not for you to make a guide, and then just leave it; the point is to give the guide to others. ScreenSteps does a great job at this as well. When you have finished a guide or manual, you can export it in a few ways: PDF, HTML, ScreenSteps Live, Blog/Web, or Package. The first two are self explanatory; it just exports to that format. The third one, however, is much cooler than either of the first two. ScreenSteps Live is a service much like Skitch (in a way). You can upload a lesson, but no one can see it unless you allow them to. It is a great way to share documentation for free, without having to deal with a server or email. It is by far the fastest way (in ScreenSteps) to get documentation from one person to another. The Blog/Web allows you to post the documentation to a blog or Web site (big surprise!). Exporting to a Package exports to a ScreenSteps format that can be imported into someone else’s library. It is for when you need to give someone the raw file so they can edit the actual documentation. ScreenSteps has many great tools for exporting to any format you could want.

ScreenSteps retails for $39.95 for the standard version and $59.95 for the pro version. It is a great way to share guides, documentation, instructions, or anything with anybody! You can download a free trial from their site. I highly suggest you try it no matter who you are, because at some point in your life, you have to tell somebody how to do something; you don’t want to be caught off guard.

FilmRedux (You Must Have the Developer Tools Installed to Use This

FilmRedux is actually VisualHub. When Techspansion closed, they made VisualHub open-source with a new name, FilmRedux. If you have used VisualHub before, then you will get used to this very easily. And don’t worry, there are many very talented programmers dedicated to this project. To download this, you must use SVN. SVN (or Subversion) is a tool that is used by developers to share their code amongst themselves. Many projects like Adium, Handbrake and Transmission are open-source and use SVN. To download it using SVN, open the Terminal (/Applications/Utilities/Terminal.app) and type, “svn co https://transcoderredux.svn.sourceforge.net/svnroot/transcoderredux FilmRedux”. Once it is done, navigate to ~/FilmRedux/FilmRedux and open FilmRedux.xcodeproj. Then, just click on the Build and Go toolbar icon in Xcode and you’re off!

QuickTime Pro

QuickTime Pro is the Pro Version of QuickTime. It allows you to export to many formats, with a clean and simple interface (as expected). I would consider this the top-of-the-line of video and audio converting. But, with QuickTime Pro, there are even more things that you can do (that could never be done in VisualHub). You can add Chapter Markers, and control audio and video tracks without having to convert the video file at all (not for chapter markers though). QuickTime Pro is $29.99 (around the same price as VisualHub was) and there is no free trial available, but, it is by a very trusted company.

ffmpegX

ffmpegXuses ffmpeg, just like VisualHub and AudialHub. ffmpeg is a preferred (by developers) audio and video codec. This application has all the same functionalities as VisualHub and AudialHub combined. It gives you a lot of options, so, if you just want a simple program to convert your audio and video, I suggest that you don’t use it. It retails for $15.00, and you can download a free trial from their site.

TubiTunes

TubiTunes is by far my favorite of the apps I am talking about. It is by ManyTricks, a great company, and has a great interface. Some think that it only downloads YouTube videos, but that is just false; if you frag-and-drop a video file onto it, it will give you options for converting it. It uses QuickTime to convert your files (and yet, it costs less than QuickTime Pro), and does a great job of it. Of course, it also allows you to download and convert YouTube videos at ease. If you are looking at a tool that will compare to VisualHub, I highly suggest TubiTunes for is price, and ease-of-use. It only costs about $6.33 (€4.95)! What a deal!

Although it is very sad that Techspansion had to shut its doors, it also gave us a great opportunity to show you some great competitors (well, not anymore). As said, overall, TubiTunes is the winner. I do, however, suggest that you try them all out, and see which one works for you.

iShowU HD and HD Pro still have the same basis as iShowU: real time screen capturing. This means that there is no need to encode your move after it has been made, because it is being encoded in real time. This is a feature that, in my opinion, moves iShowU ahead of most other screen capturing apps. It also has the usual system audio and microphone recording, pausing, and mouse following.

One of the simplest ‘duh’ features that was added in HD and HD pro is custom backgrounds. Instead of having to use another app to cover everything on your desktop, and change to a simple wallpaper, you can just do it right in the app. In the advanced pane, just choose an image under the ‘Custom background’ field, and that will be set as your desktop every time it opens. If you want to have no icons on your desktop, just uncheck ‘Show icons on desktop’. Of course, when you quit, your icons will be displayed and your background will be set back to your original one.

Another feature that has been added in most other screen capturing apps already is iSight and webcam support. If you want to be in your video along with your computer, you just click the Camera toolbar item, and a box will appear with your iSight. You can move, resize and adjust settings of this box, too. To adjust the settings, change the items in the Quick Properties HUD that popped up. When you are finished editing it, just click elsewhere on the screen.

One amazing feature for those of us with slow computers, though only available with HD Pro, is the Low CPU usage mode. When I say amazing, I really mean it. This mode uses about 1/3 the amount of CPU that regular mode uses! To enable it, just hit the checkbox labeled ‘Start in Low CPU mode’, and when you record, this mode will be enabled. The only downside to it is the fact that iShowU will have to compress the video afterwards, so it won’t end up being real-time capturing.

There are a few other nice improvements that are worth mentioning. You can now upload directly to a service like YouTube, by just right-clicking on a video in the bottom of the window, and clicking Upload > YouTube. Right now it only supports YouTube, but the folks at shinywhitebox have released an API, so users can make uploaders for others and release them to the public.

Another improvement is its ability to record fullscreen apps. Before, if you opened a game that went fullscreen, you would have to worry about the capture area, resolution, etc. But now, you don’t. As soon as you open up a fullscreen app, it automatically adjusts all the settings for you! How’s that for service!

shinywhitebox’s iShowU HD Pro retails for $59.95, and HD retails for only $29.95. For a screen capturing app, that is pretty cheap. It also has many features that other screen capturing apps don’t have, so I suggest that you give it a try.

When you first open DVDRemaster Pro, you have to choose a source. DVDRemaster Pro comes with an application called FairMount, that allows you to mount DVDs like Disk Images.

Once you have chosen a source, you must decide what mode you are going to burn in. There are three modes in DVDRemaster Pro: Remaster, Export and Extract.

Remaster lets you re-compress the DVD onto your hard drive, that can simply be stored, or later re-burned. You can choose to re-compress the entire DVD, or just the main feature. First you have to select a Recompression Module, and you can choose a target size to try and keep the file size under.

Export is the mode that I expect most people to use this application for. You can choose from 7 formats to export for, including iPod, Apple TV, MP4 and Quicktime. There are a number of presets included in DVDRemaster Pro for this mode, and you can easily create your own in the “Configure” dialog. Once you have chosen your format and preset, you can go through the files on the disc and choose which files you want to export. You can also have the result automatically imported into iTunes once it is done, and choose whether you want the subtitles of a particular file.

Finally, DVDRemaster’s third mode is Extract. Extract lets you take the raw stream off the DVD for use in another application, such as VLC.

In the end, DVDRemaster produced great results, and made it easy to get files quickily from DVD to iPod. It took DVDRemaster Pro 5 minutes, 59 seconds to rip a 26 minute episode of FRIENDS, where it took Handbrake 18 minutes, 24 seconds to rip the same episode, at the same settings. This test was in no way scientific, but rather just a quick test to compare burn times.

DVDRemaster Pro is a little on the expensive side at $49.99 ($39.99 for standard version) when there are tools like Hanbrake available, but it depends on whether you are willing to pay for the convenience of time.

Just remember that you should not rip DVDs that you do not have ownership of. If I understand correctly, it is illegal in the US to rip a DVD if you circumvent the encryption or protection in the process. Please correct me if I am wrong.

Feed Streamclip a raw MPEG video — like the one from my Sony Cyber-shot camera that iMovie is so picky about — and quickly export into a variety of formats. You can output to an iFriendly QuickTime video, a DV, an AVI, an MPEG-4 or a variety of other formats. Like QuickTime Pro, you can even export just the audio or even a single still image frame.

I’m a sucker for simple apps that do one job, and do it really well. While its icon and interface may incite painful memories of Windows 98 software, you won’t have to look at it for very long. And perhaps best of all, MPEG Streamclip is free — a big surprise considering these types of lifeline apps always seem to strive on nickle-and-diming the consumer. If you do video editing with a variety of formats, developer Squared 5’s app may just get you out of a jam one day.

The first time you open Sequence you are greeted by a welcome box. The box displays the main features and lets you change the settings. Sequence has two main uses. Screenshots and screencasts. It also has something I have never seen in screen recording software. The ability to paint right on the screen. You can paint before the screenshot or screencast. But you can even paint during a recording. You can choose the size and color of the brush stroke. Screen shots are very easy to take. Just align the box around the area of interest and click the scissors icon. A snap will go off and then a window to name and save the screenshot appears. For screen shots you can set it for fullscreen, free selection, or fixed size.

Screencasting is also very easy. You select the area and click the record button. If you click the plus button you can view even more features. You can change it to fullscreen, free selection, or fixed size like in screenshots. You can also turn on the microphone and iSight on your computer. When you click the iSight button a small window will appear displaying your camera. You can drag this anywhere you want.

Sequence has many other features. Under options in the menu bar you can choose from many different destinations. This will automatically send your photo to the chosen place like iPhoto, email, even iChat! You can also upload your file to your MobileMe iDisk or your personal website.

Sequence is missing a few features that some other screen recorders have but it is still a great screen recorder. It is very easy to use and only costs $19. You can try out a demo and purchase Sequence at the app4mac website.

Once you’ve recorded yourself ranting about politics, playing the guitar or trying out your standup comedy routine, your video will show up in a list of others you’ve recorded or added to the Vidnik library by dragging it onto the app. After it’s recorded, just set its title, description, category and tags, and click upload to have it blasted to your YouTube account. Vidnik offers very basic video editing features like cutting and deleting sections of a clip. You can also take videos recorded using the software to another post-production app like iMovie or Final Cut Pro, but that somewhat defeats the purpose of taping in Vidnik.

Vidnik is freeware, but it’s still in the early stages of development. I’ve experienced a considerable amount of lag in playback during recording, and many people have reported a discrepancy between the sound and picture timing when uploading to YouTube. However, Osters says he is actively working to fix these issues and improve the software. Vidnik’s simplicity has a lot of potential to become the standard for Mac users who regularly produce YouTube content. Give Vidnik a download, and you could already be on your way to becoming a YouTube celebrity.

When you open PulpMotion Advanced you are greeted by a simple start page with 3 main options: New, Open, and Open Recent. After selecting New you can select from one of the many themes, but you can always change your theme whenever you want. The top half of the theme window is for choosing the theme and the bottom half is for choosing a variation. Now the main window opens. The main window has a slick black design. On the right is the media browser but with the 3 buttons under it it can also be for options and for choosing a different theme. The bottom of the window displays music, text, and photos in the slideshow; just drag media there to add it. Finally, the slideshow plays in the main middle section. Now on to options. By clicking the button with the gear on it you can change the media browser to Composition Settings. This is where you can change every little detail about your slideshow. Once you have gone over the many options it’s time to add pictures.

Adding pictures is very simple. Just find the images you want and drag them straight to the media bar. You can select as many pictures as you want. Once you have your pictures added you can add a voiceover with a microphone and change the name. To change the name just double click the name under the image and type in what you want. You can also pick out special parts of an image and have it zoom in on those and then out onto the whole picture. Just go back to the composition settings and click the button in the top-right next to the star. Then choose the image you want to change and click Open Editor. Once the editor is open you can select different “zones of interest” and it will zoom in on those and then go to the full image. You can always change the time of certain images by clicking the clock icon next to the title. You can change the time of all of them in Options.

Adding music is just as easy. Just drag a selected song from the media browser to the bottom. It will display the percentage of the song that is covered by the pictures and you can edit some options by double clicking the song. Once you have finally finished your slideshow just check over the settings one more time to make sure everything is perfect and then hit Play. You can then click File-Export to export it to many different sources like an iPod, AppleTV, iLife, Mail, and even as a screensaver. When you export your slideshow you can choose all of the options including looping, quality, and motion blur.

Overall PulpMotion Advanced is a great application, with many new features compared to the standard PulpMotion. There is still one small problem where some angled lines can be jagged, but all the slideshows and themes look amazing. In the end I’m sure that PulpMotion Advanced will help you share your pictures and stories in a very impressive way. You can download a demo and purchase PulpMotion Advanced at the Aquafadas website. PulpMotion Advanced costs $129 or you can upgrade from standard PulpMotion for $85.

VideoDrive can stick just about any video into iTunes without the hour-long re-encoding process. Any video that can be played in QuickTime (and that’s pretty much anything, thanks to MacApper’s handy “Play Almost Any Video File On Your Mac” guide) can be added to your iTunes library within seconds. The application can even fill in metadata and cover art automatically using online databases to retrieve the information.

Simply select video files from VideoDrive’s interface, or drag a file onto the app’s dock icon, and the software goes to work. For iTunes-compatible codecs like MP4, M4V and MOV, VideoDrive fills in the movie type (movie or TV show), description, genre, year and art, and adds it to your library. For those pesky AVIs, VideoDrive quickly builds a small MOV video container that is placed in iTunes, linking to the original video file. Once linked, you can feel free to rename or move the original AVI file, and thanks to the wonders of OS X, iTunes will have no problems finding it. However, you must keep the original on your hard drive in order for iTunes to access the movie.

In reality, everything about VideoDrive can be accomplished manually: creating movie containers in QuickTime, filling in metadata, finding album artwork and adding to iTunes (with a nice little Growl notification when everything is done). Even its re-encoding feature hands the file off to QuickTime to do the heavy lifting. But the all-in-one convenience may be worth the price tag for some.

While VideoDrive does save a ton of time by doing just about everything for you (and even provides a nifty option to add processed videos to a playlist), it doesn’t do anything flawlessly. It’s good at pulling all the relevant information from IMDB to properly label a movie based only on the file’s title (and some of the ones I tested were pretty messy). When it comes to TV shows, though, it seems to have more trouble. Episode titles have to be filled in manually, and date info is rarely accurate. But even with these shortcomings, it saves a decent chunk of time, leaving you having to just fill in a few things later.

Cover art fetching is one of VideoDrive’s most attractive features. While iTunes features built-in album art fetching for music, I’m left scouring the Web to find images for my videos. It’s really a shame that this feature comes up short. VideoDrive grabs a few relevant images from Amazon, allowing you to flip through and choose the best one, however the picture quality is usually very poor. The low quality film posters don’t do the beauty of CoverFlow justice, forcing me back on my journey through Google for decent quality covers and dragging them onto the VideoDrive window.

“In some cases, the cover art is not of great quality,” says the lead developer for Aroona Software. “We are currently looking to additional/alternative sources for covers (e.g., Get Video Artwork) that offer better quality, but no decisions have been made. However, adding new sources can happen quite rapidly.” A nifty feature confirmed for version 1.5, which will be available Thursday, is the ability to add metadata and cover art to videos already imported into iTunes using VideoDrive, the developer says. Hopefully they also fix the irritating bug that opens QuickTime whenever I quit VideoDrive.

While I like the idea behind VideoDrive, I’ll be sticking to iSquint for conversion (an app that is in many ways a better encoder than Apple’s QuickTime), and manually fill in my tags and art. I keep all my media on my MacBook’s internal hard drive, and it’s no mystery that notebook computers don’t have unlimited storage space. Converting videos in H.264 can shave off anywhere from a quarter to half the file size with little quality reduction, and so I’ll try to save space any way I can. Sure, this way takes much longer, but you get a smaller, more compatible file in the end.

With VideoDrive, incompatible videos that were processed with the container method can only be played in iTunes, Front Row and QuickTime and cannot be transferred to an iPod, iPhone or Apple TV. But if hard drive space isn’t a problem, and if you only plan to watch the movies on your Mac, VideoDrive is a great option for anyone who downloads a lot of videos and wants to get them into iTunes in practically no time.

Aroona Software has given MacApper three licenses to give to our readers! If you want to enter the giveaway, comment on this review with a feature you would like to see implemented in VideoDrive. The giveaway will end on May 7th. And remember, if you don’t win, VideoDrive costs $14.99.

The first thing you will notice about Screencast is that it has a simple, yet elegant, interface. There are only three sections: Screen, Audio and Keyboard & Mouse. This is much different from some other Screencasting apps because it is so simple. Some people might also call this a weakness because it doesn’t have all the features of some Screencasting apps, but for most people you don’t need all those features. Screenflick also has a few preferences, too.

The Screen pane is very simple; there are only a few options. You can have either a fixed recording zone or a set size that follows the mouse. If you choose the first one, when you start to record it will ask you for the area that you want to record. If you choose the latter one, you don’t need to set a size. The “Show Camera Bounds” option is great if you want to see what is being recorded so you can make sure that you are capturing everything that you want. You can also choose the capture rate. The higher the number, the bigger the size and quality. The lower the number, the smaller the size and quality. It is nice for a Screencasting app to have only a few options for the screen recording so you don’t have to configure like a million things. But this can also be a problem; some people want more options, like zooming or window highlighting. Screencast gives you the basic features that you need.

The Audio pane also has only a few options. You can choose to record system audio and record microphone audio. For recording microphone audio, it lets you choose the input you want to use. I cannot think of any other audio features that you would need, so the feature-set for audio is perfect. Not too many features, not too few — it gives you all you need.

The Keyboard & Mouse pane gives you a lot of options. You can choose to show or hide the mouse, show mouse clicks and show keyboard shortcuts. You can customize the length and color of the mouse clicks, but there are more options for showing shortcuts. Again, you can choose the duration and background, but you can also choose font size, position and what shortcuts not to show. When you are recording, after you have done the shortcut, it displays it on the screen; it would be nice if it showed them as you typed them in, but then there couldn’t be exceptions. It would also be cool to show text that is typed in, but that is not needed.

The Preference pane just has a few options for pre-recording setup and the menu-bar. You can show the size or the length of the recording. If you want a recording to be a certain size, this really helps, because it is right in the menu bar. But, if you are recording the whole screen, you probably don’t want your viewers to see this, so you can just turn it off.

After you have recorded a Screencast with Screenflick, you get the normal compression options for any Screencasting tool. You can choose an audio compressor and a video compressor and the dimensions. These are all the compression options needed to compress a Screencast.

Screenflick, by the Araelium Group, may not have all the features of some other tools, but it is a lot cheaper at only $29! Compare that to Screenflow, which is $99. I think Screenflick is more than worth the $29, even with only simple options. If you are looking for a simple-to-use Screencasting tool, Screenflick is perfect, because it has all that yo need to record a great Screencast, but it doesn’t have so many features that you can’t figure out how to do anything.

Stomp has two main features : re-encoding and effects.

The first feature allows you to re-encode a video in a different format. The application includes a lot of different presets from Apple TV to YouTube, but you can also choose your own settings for both video and audio, and even create your own presets.

The second main feature of this application is the addition of effects, known as filters in Stomp. Indeed, you can add different effects to your video such as blur, starshine, bump distortion… But what’s even better is that you can apply several effects to one video. Also, all the effects are customizable and they’re also previewable so that you know what the final result will look like.

Stomp is very easy to use; its one-window interface is very easy to understand and you can get started in one minute. Just select the filters you want to apply to your video, choose the encoding preset and click the process button. The progress bar will show you the status of the conversion.

Stomp features several other tools that are very handy if you edit videos. For example, you can crop a video – you just have to select the area you want to keep and Stomp will crop it. You can also resize a video or change the FPS rate.

Another nice feature is the Growl integration that notifies you when one of your processes is done, so that you don’t have to check every 3 minutes to see if your movie is compressed or if you still have to wait 45 seconds.

Finally, one of my favorite functions is the batch editing that allows you to apply the same modifications to a list of video.

You can download Stomp from Shinywhitebox, and it costs $29.95, or $22.16 if you have a license of iShowU.

Shinywhitebox has agreed to give away 1 license of Stomp. To enter the giveaway, just leave a comment on how would Stomp be useful to you.

iStopmotion2 is an impressive piece of software from the get go. A lá iLife, iStopMotion has the user name their new project for auto-saving purposes. In version one, users who didn’t initially save their work would lose entire projects in the event of a software crash. Boinx decided to be safe and not sorry. This new workflow is a failsafe that is nice to have in clutch moments. Either way, I’ve used iStopMotion2 for a couple of projects and it has been nothing but stable.

MacApper reviewed iStopMotion (version 1) in April of last year and this new version has an extensive list of new features. There are three “flavors” of iStopMotion2 available for purchase: Home ($49), Express($99) and Pro ($499). For a nice overview on features, go check out Boinx Software’s Flavor Comparison Chart.

Working with iStopMotion2 is self explanatory. I get excited about powerful software that allows the user to simply learn by doing, and this software gets me going. Starting with the timeline, you’ll see each second divided into frame slices. In this case, I’ve started my project with a 15 FPS frame rate. By moving my mouse over the time line, each frame is magnified for easy reference. There were times in my film-making when I noticed my finger in the frame 5 frames too late. I was able to eyeball the culprit frame, remove it, and duplicate the previous frame to smooth things over.

There’s a reason software costs money: ridiculously powerful features. iStopMotion2 delivers at each price point, and most of these features can be accessed by the main window.

The Recording pane allows the user to choose a video input. The Home and Express versions can handle Digital Video, built-in iSight, or Digital Stills from a connected camera source. The Pro version can Stop Motion in HD, but the user needs to invest in some extra hardware. The recording pane can handle changes in aspect ratio and formatting, contrast/saturation and orientation, Single Frame or Continuous recording mode, and time lapse settings depending on which version of iStopMotion you purchase.

The View pane allows the user to control a host of features. My favorite features in this pane are Onion Skinning and Rotoscope. Onion Skinning ghosts a user defined set of past frames over the current frame. It allows, using DV or iSight input, for setting the frame before you input the still. Rotoscope/Lip Sync, only available in Express and Pro versions, lets you use superimposed video as a reference point for your still frame animation so your claymation zombie can accurately mouth the words to Thriller.

You can use the Compositing pane to add foreground and/or backgound to your composition. iStopMotion can eliminate single color backgrounds and insert imported digital sets for a professional touch.

iStopMotion2 is a welcomed contribution from Boinx Software. The interface is user friendly, and the features are powerful. It’s enough to give me a new hobby, and my wife knows I don’t need another one of those. I suggest that you make movies in public places. It’s a good way to talk to people, and if you’re like me you need friends. Gumby usually comes up in every conversation and someone may just call you a genius. iStopMotion2 makes being a genius easy.

I did a quick stop motion animation to kick off our giveaway of 3 licenses for iStopMotion2 Home.

To enter the giveaway, download the demo from Boinx Software and create your own short stop motion monstrosity. Upload your iStopMotion2 video to the video hosting site of your choice and post the link as a comment. Three qualified entries will be chosen at random on midnight EST on April 8th. Break out the Play-Doh and have a blast!

If you have seen the teaser page and have been wondering what this app is all about, today is your lucky day. I have had a chance to play around with the beta, and the developers have sent us a short video demoing the premise behind Misu.

As you can see from the video, Misu is an application for transferring music from one iPod to another. If you have ever tried to do this yourself, you know how much of a pain it can be. Misu changes this by making it as simple as connecting your iPods, and clicking “Transfer Music.”

Misu is currently in private beta, and will hopefully be available to the general public soon.