Snow Leopard to offer screen recording via QuickTime X Player
With the introduction of Snow Leopard, QuickTime Player will assume more of a utilitarian role, with screen recording features reportedly joining the software's exiting repertoire of basic audio and video capture capabilities.
People familiar with the latest betas of Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard have been reporting over the past several weeks the addition of a 'Screen recording' option in the File menu of the new Quick Time X Player due to ship with the OS overhaul later this summer.
Similar in many ways to a feature long offered by Ambrosia Software through its Snapz Pro X utility, the option will allow users to capture in motion video their Mac's screen -- essentially video screenshots.
Such a feature will be particularly useful for software developers and educators, as it will simplify the process of creating video tutorials, software demonstrations, and anything else best captured in live motion as opposed to still shots.
When selecting the screen recording option under recent pre-release distributions of Snow Leopard, a recording interface prompts the user to begin a video capture then disappears. A small footprint controller in the upper-right hand side of the Mac OS X menubar can be used to end the video capture.
While its unclear if the feature is fully functional in build 10A335 released Thursday, it wasn't in earlier builds, often creating an empty .mov file, those familiar with the software say.
An artist's mockup of the minimal QuickTime X Player window interface with the "trim" tools overlay.
QuickTime X -- along with the minimal-interfaced QuickTime X Player (renditions) -- leverages media technology pioneered by Apple for the iPhone OS. When it makes its debut on the Mac with Snow Leopard, it'll offer optimize support for modern audio and video formats resulting in extremely efficient media playback, the company has said.
People familiar with the latest betas of Mac OS X 10.6 Snow Leopard have been reporting over the past several weeks the addition of a 'Screen recording' option in the File menu of the new Quick Time X Player due to ship with the OS overhaul later this summer.
Similar in many ways to a feature long offered by Ambrosia Software through its Snapz Pro X utility, the option will allow users to capture in motion video their Mac's screen -- essentially video screenshots.
Such a feature will be particularly useful for software developers and educators, as it will simplify the process of creating video tutorials, software demonstrations, and anything else best captured in live motion as opposed to still shots.
When selecting the screen recording option under recent pre-release distributions of Snow Leopard, a recording interface prompts the user to begin a video capture then disappears. A small footprint controller in the upper-right hand side of the Mac OS X menubar can be used to end the video capture.
While its unclear if the feature is fully functional in build 10A335 released Thursday, it wasn't in earlier builds, often creating an empty .mov file, those familiar with the software say.
An artist's mockup of the minimal QuickTime X Player window interface with the "trim" tools overlay.
QuickTime X -- along with the minimal-interfaced QuickTime X Player (renditions) -- leverages media technology pioneered by Apple for the iPhone OS. When it makes its debut on the Mac with Snow Leopard, it'll offer optimize support for modern audio and video formats resulting in extremely efficient media playback, the company has said.
Comments
Having said that I would really appreciate this functionality.
This will just lead to widespread copyright infringement.
no it wont. the ability to screen capture has been around for a while. this will hurt snapz pro sales, and thats about it.
This will just lead to widespread copyright infringement.
I'm not so sure about that. The removal of DRM off iTS music isn't creating any new copyright infringement as the audio could be had elsewhere and probably in better quality for free. I think the same goes for screen recording. There are already programs that do screen recording but popping in a DVD movie and recording your screen is by far one of the least efficent ways to copy video. Google already caches images and you can already drag-n-drop images or take a screen shoot of an image with OS X so I don't see what else there would be to infringe upon with built-in screen recording.
This will just lead to widespread copyright infringement.
Comments like this (and and the narrow minds that generate them) are what stifle growth. If people want to pirate, they'll pirate. It is ALL already available. Besides you can already screen capture if you really want to. If you are afraid that giving the end user more and more features that are easier and easier to use will just end up in copyright infringement, don't make any content to which you could be subject to such a loss.
Does it strike anyone else that QuickTime Player would be the application you use to record video?
Having said that I would really appreciate this functionality.
The QuickTime and iTunes team have long made retarded decisions. Instead of spinning this stuff off into other apps the QT team insists on bloating the QuickTime Player with recording features.
This feature should be in Grab.app...but NOOOOOOOOOOO, Apple's QuickTime team insists on muddling the waters by making users use two different apps for screen captures.
Seriously, Apple, where's the logic? It kills me to see parts of OS X so brilliantly designed and other parts so neglected.
Sounds good, but I have a feeling that this is going to be heavily locked down to keep people from removing DRM from videos. Just as you can't take screenshots with DVD player open, I bet this won't let you record video when iTunes is playing a video.
I agree with you
Does anybody know if recording through either Quicktime. Photo Booth or iMovie using the isight camera you can view in full screen mode while you record? Most view boxes for these Apps I find are very small. Does iMovie 09 have this feature? I can only view full screen on playback. Thanks.
no it wont. the ability to screen capture has been around for a while. this will hurt snapz pro sales, and thats about it.
Well, not only snapz but other programs such as LiteSwitch X (tabbing), Lil Snitch (apple now included blocking thing), and other countless programs I cannot remember.
Snapz Pro X always gets mentioned, but I find ScreenFlow to be an excellent and lightweight recording app that harnesses the power of CoreAnimation to record you screen, audio, webcam, and even your keyboard input with powerful and simple editing tools included....
Screen flow shows promise. But I can't use it for annotated screencasts, even after trying a few workarounds. I couldn't find a way to make it pause playback of the recording at a given point either, to provide time for emphasizing something.
It's a great idea, but even with its new text features it falls short of what I'm looking for.
Sounds good, but I have a feeling that this is going to be heavily locked down to keep people from removing DRM from videos. Just as you can't take screenshots with DVD player open, I bet this won't let you record video when iTunes is playing a video.
Actually, you can take screen shots of DVDs using Grab.app if you play them using VLC.
Not that I would ever advocate anything that would deprive the motion picture studios of their rightful licensing fees or anything...
The QuickTime and iTunes team have long made retarded decisions. Instead of spinning this stuff off into other apps the QT team insists on bloating the QuickTime Player with recording features.
This feature should be in Grab.app...but NOOOOOOOOOOO, Apple's QuickTime team insists on muddling the waters by making users use two different apps for screen captures.
Seriously, Apple, where's the logic? It kills me to see parts of OS X so brilliantly designed and other parts so neglected.
Seriously, what's stopping you from working at Apple and sitting in on engineering meetings to shape the direction of the software? Your comment is a joke when you understand this "Service" won't "bloat" the software.
We've long passed the "hey I can record my desktop" and now people need special features to deliver polished programs.
Screen flow shows promise. But I can't use it for annotated screencasts, even after trying a few workarounds. I couldn't find a way to make it pause playback of the recording at a given point either, to provide time for emphasizing something.
It's a great idea, but even with its new text features it falls short of what I'm looking for.
Have you tried iShowU?
For a while it was a battle between the WMP format and Quicktime and particularly in browsers neither were that great so people turned to flash and that took over internet video as it could be easily styled and could always look perfect on any site. Then came iTunes and Apples chance to get people to adopt quicktime formats, but they don't let anyone else use fairplay so the rest of the industry goes to MS as its the only choice and there fine letting people use their digital rights management. Now at least MS put support for the WMP format in Silverlight to compete with Flash along with digital rights management so its no supprise that 2 of the major tv networks in the UK have decided to go with that for there online services.
Apple could have made Quicktime great but they never make it great and easy for developers and thus they keep missing out.
Apple could have made Quicktime great but they never make it great and easy for developers and thus they keep missing out.
I think you mean Quicktime Player. Quicktime is the bedrock API behind Apple's media efforts over the last decade and a half so regardless of whether someone enjoys using the player they are benefiting from Quicktime in ways they don't even realize.
Have you tried iShowU?
I'm pretty sure I tried every screencasting tool there was at the time I started my site. The lack of annotation tools forced me into a home-brew method. I don't think iShowU supports annotation, they add them in afterwards with iMovie. I actually might take a look at that. I think I did before though.
I like the way I do it because I can annotate and highlight at the same time. Still, making a decent screencast is a painful process. And there are few voices I want to listen to while watching one, including my own !