Snapz Pro X 2.0

soulseek · #1 February 4th, 2004, 01:18 PM

i downloaded this app yesterday.
i have been really impressed. and not by its capture-to-image capabilities.
i mostly use mac os X's capture, its quite good and convenient.

but what i love about the new Snapz Pro X is its capture-to-video.
the video output is very smooth, quite fast to make. and i find it very convenient.
especially when i wanna explain somethin to my brother across the internet, its just easier to capture it on screen that sit there and explain through iChat (now if i had iSight.) it would be easier... :P

mindbend · #2 February 4th, 2004, 09:01 PM

This app is phenomenal. Prior to this version, if you wanted to capture audio from your Mac's built-in audio bus, you had to route it via analog cable from your headphone out back into your audio input. This was very silly.

With Snapz 2 that is no longer the case. Also, frame rates are higher, quality is great, the options are plenty, it's super easy to use, it's got a fun interface and classic Ambrosia fun-ness.

Although I haven't used any PC equivs, many people are saying this is the best motion screen cap tool in existence. I believe them.

The reason I started looking into motion screen caps tools was to overcome Flash's inability to export to QuickTime properly for complicated Flash files (with scripting, interactivity, certain nesting components, etc.). For the last year I had literally been pointing a video camera at my screen, recording that to tape and then capturing the tape into the computer, processing that and then showing it to the client. Why? So I could scrub the QT movie for review purposes, which is not doable in the Flash files we created.

Granted, if I had used my brain I would have caught on to Snapz before now, but at least it's all well that ends well. This app is the bomb if you need that type of thing.

Zammy-Sam · #3 February 5th, 2004, 03:08 AM

Hmmmm, I was wondering if you can capture some parts of DVDs too?!
I love to create some funny videos now and then. Sometimes I want to include a special scene from a movie in there but for this I had to rip the whole DVD first to get a mov or avi file so I can cut off around 99% of it just for that short scene... Really waste of time since ripping a dvd takes ages. Now, would it be possible to capture those scenes (including sound) from a DVD? That would be very interesting.

Ricky · #4 February 5th, 2004, 01:09 PM

In early demos of Snapz Pro X 2's functionality, they demonstrated the ability to capture from a DVD. This was back when Jaguar is out, so maybe Apple has done something to prevent this in Panther.

Capturing video has improved leaps and bounds over what we had before. It would peg at 100% CPU time for a 10 FPS capture on my iMac G4 800 before, and now it can do 30 FPS and hover around 50% CPU time total. Incredible.

I'm very tempted to buy the program, but the price is pretty steep... I need RAM a lot more.

kcwookie · #5 February 8th, 2004, 10:56 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zammy-Sam

Hmmmm, I was wondering if you can capture some parts of DVDs too?!
I love to create some funny videos now and then. Sometimes I want to include a special scene from a movie in there but for this I had to rip the whole DVD first to get a mov or avi file so I can cut off around 99% of it just for that short scene... Really waste of time since ripping a dvd takes ages. Now, would it be possible to capture those scenes (including sound) from a DVD? That would be very interesting.

I had problems when I did it. I got some audio degreadation difficulty getting a rip that wasn't jerky.

I would like some suggestions.

I was using a 12" PB with 640mg Ram and a superdrive.

KCWookie

Zammy-Sam · #6 February 9th, 2004, 02:42 AM

Hmmm, how busy does your system get once you play back dvd? What if you don't let it run on fullscreen? (Not that I tried it and it worked fine, but this would be my first thing I would check)

kcwookie · #7 February 9th, 2004, 10:30 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zammy-Sam

Hmmm, how busy does your system get once you play back dvd? What if you don't let it run on fullscreen? (Not that I tried it and it worked fine, but this would be my first thing I would check)

I tried running the video in it's own window and even resized it to a smaller size. Neither worked correctly. It might be the speed of the superdrive. Any other ideas?

kcwookie

Zammy-Sam · #8 February 9th, 2004, 03:05 PM

I don't think it has something to do with your superdrive speed. Playing back regular DVDs works fine, if I got you right. Once you try to use Snapz it seems to slow down too much. Should be disc issue or processor. I would run Activity Monitor and see how much your system suffers under DVD playback.