In the name of fairness, I want to say that I am mainly soliciting the opinions of Snapz Pro X users, but welcome staff comments as well.

Background:

I own iShowU and SnapnDrag Pro / EasyCrop Pro

Question:

Why should I buy Snapz Pro X (with and/or without the video capture option)?

Details:

I have received suggestions from my colleagues to get Snapz. I have also googled and read as much as I could about Snapz. I even tried it out for a day. I have also ran across quite a few people who feel a little remorseful about buying it, but still think it is the best thing out there. So without starting a war, what exactly is better about Snapz for screenshots? video? Even though I own the software listed above, I would still buy Snapz if I'm convinced that it has value added functionality. So what about?

Thanks

I bought it to capture motion video that can't be caught any other way but through screen capture and it works perfect for me, other than the audio gets out of sync, but I think that's because of my encoding settings. I haven't tried the programs you've mentioned that may be comparable, but Snapz does a great job. I haven't found a different program that does capture as good as Snapz Pro X 2.0.

There are some UI things that can be improved on, and features that a lot of people are asking the developers to implement on the message boards. If you randomly sift through some of the threads, you'll see them.

Sorry I couldn't be more helpful. This board is kinda slow so good luck getting some responses!

Adam,

Thanks for your feedback. When you say that you didn't find another program that does capture as good as Snapz, were you referring to quality? I did some side by side tests and they pretty much looked the same. In fact, I thought the Snapz was just a tiny bit less sharp but it was insignificant. (or didn't exist)

I'm mainly considering the version without video capture.

Are you glad you bought Snapz or was it a case of nothing else out there? Just curious.

Thanks again and hopefully others will reply

Yes I'm glad to have bought "Snapz Pro X 2.0." It works great. I did think it was kinda high in price, but the sting quickly left after I was able to get exactly what I wanted from a capture product.

As for quality, yes the quality. Like I said, I haven't been able to "find" other programs that will do what I was looking for. They're probably out there, I just didn't find them. When I found Snapz, nothing I had yet seen did what I wanted (Windows side as well as Mac). Give me some links, and I'll try some other products if they have trials, and make some comparisons myself and get back to you.

The price is kinda high ($60). Doesn't Snapz use Quicktime Pro elements to encode? If so, it would be nice to bundle a Quicktime Pro license with the purchase of Snapz's motion capture feature.

I don't get paying for a program, to simply capture the screen (stills). I suppose it will come in handy in the future, but I just need a good motion video capture.

I'm not sure it would be appropriate to post links to competitive products nor do I think the developers of Snapz would appreciate it. Re-read my original post and you will find what I currently using.

However, I'm not above owning both products. It is not a one or the other situation for me. Obviously, I'm thinking bout purchasing Snapz or I wouldn't be here.

I'm curious as to what the Ambrosia people have to say as well.

Currently one of the only differences I have seen is the ability to do shadows.

Finally, anyone here use Mousepose? Can Snapz do just a window or selection when Mousepose is used?

Thanks

I just downloaded and tried ishowu on a test file, then used snapz prox to do it, and there is no comparison. The system bogs down. I'm getting less than 15 fps with ishowu, and the performance hit also affects other processes that are running.

Snapz Pro X does not do this. And from what I can see, ishowu is encoding as it records. I couldn't acheive what I want no matter what. If you've got some ishowu tweaks and suggestions to get this recording at full 30fps, an area of 600x340, please give them to me.

I don't have the foggiest idea how Snapz stores the capture, but the fact that it encodes it after the recording is finished, most prodiminantly would explain why it can record at 30fps. Granted, it takes a while to encode the resulting video, but the quality is way superior to ishowu, that is for certain.

Snapz's captures are smooth and perfect.

Can't confirm this. Depending on the codec you use you can get smooth video out of iShowU. Usually the Apple Intermediate Codec gives you the smoothest results. I am recording 25fps in 720p resolution quite often it works like a charm. Check out my website (see signature) to see the results. Some have been produced with SnapZ, some with iShowU. See if you can match the movies to the apps.

Ok, it's kind of unfair, since they all have been edited in Final Cut Pro. However, it proves that iShowU is on par in terms of productivity. And it has the big advantage of not having to render the recorded movies after recording.

Take care,
Christian

However, it proves that iShowU is on par in terms of productivity. And it has the big advantage of not having to render the recorded movies after recording.
===

On par in terms of productivity? Not being able to record a video a full speed with ishowu, when I can with Snapz, is on par?
Whatever...

Just because you can do it with a certain codec, through trial and error, doesn't make it comparable. You show me an MPEG-4 movie captured with ishowu at full 30 fps, and compare that to Snapz, and then it will be safe to say it is "On Par." Be reasonable, here.

Obviously not everybody who needs to capture motion is gonna need to do it at 30 fps or faster. So ishowu and other mediocre apps might be sufficient, but saying it is on par with Snapz is a huge stretch! That's like saying a moped is on par with a Harley since they can both go 25 mph sufficiently for your needs.

I am in a similar situation: I would like to pay 20 bucks and not 70 but I have had the same experience as Adam. I am getting smooth video with the Snapz demo and a very choppy couple of frames per second tops (!) with the iShowU demo.
It'll have to ShowMe something better than that or I'll have to put down the cash!

deadeyejack: Might as well get it paid for.
Nothing is going to come close to Snapz Pro X.
Especially after the universal version was released,
this program is amazing on my Macbook Pro.
I would recommend Snapz Pro X ANY day!
A marvelous product.

No joke here: I save about $18 per tank of gas
on my Mazda 6-cyl truck, by simply driving 55 mph
instead of 65-70. So I can make up the difference
having to spend the $60 for Snapz in about three
fill ups, or in my case, about a week and a half!

Now you tell me. Is going 70mph for a week and
a half more valuable than Snapz Pro X? Hardly man!

Just keeping it real. That's all...

IShowU and Snapz are useful for different situations..

One of them hits the proc like crazy, and the other hits the HD..

(Snapz Raw capture was always rough on my old laptop with its slower drive, likewise iShowU was always rough because my proc sucks..)

Now I'm on a brand new MBP, and both Snapz and iShowU *fly*..

Snapz barely takes any CPU, but my HD definitely gets busy.. iShowU takes maybe 20% on each proc for a decent full-screen (1920x1200 display!) monitor at 12fps.. Will do 40 fps taking up 40% on each proc.. But I get my file all ready to go, and generally for a smaller file, so I wasn't hitting the HD too badly.

I'm interested to see what Ambrosia has said they have coming down the pipe, but for the moment, I am mostly using iShowU, as I think my proc is less likely to fail than my HD....

May your screencaps not fail

xel wrote: "Snapz barely takes any CPU, but my HD definitely gets busy.. iShowU takes maybe 20% on each proc for a decent full-screen (1920x1200 display!) monitor at 12fps.. Will do 40 fps taking up 40% on each proc.. But I get my file all ready to go, and generally for a smaller file, so I wasn't hitting the HD too badly."
===

This isn't as helpful as it could have been. What codec are you using? The same for both apps? You say ishowu takes maybe 20% on each proc for a 1920x1200 area(!!!)(The capture area is that big???) at 12 fps, and 40 fps at 40%? I couldn't get that with ishowu at 600x360 at even 12 fps with MPEG-4.

That being said I bought SnapZ Pro mainly because it uses Quicktime codecs for exporting. That allowed me to use the Techsmith Ensharpen codec. Not cheap ($150) but it produces extremely small mov file sizes with very good quality (they claim lossless). A 1024x768 30-second screen video with low motion content will be about 1 MB.

SnapZ Pro itself works fine as a screen video capture utility. No complaints. However, I never could find any decent movie editors at a reasonable price in the Mac world, so I export these files to Win and create the final movies using Camtasia.

So just an update...

I have been using SnapZ (without the video) on a daily basis for several months now and can answer some of my own questions.

First, Snapz has a lot of little features that you may not appreciate until you have taken several hundred screenshots. Things like showing the enlarged pixel window when doing selection captures, showing the X,Y coordinates, and the height an width of the selection. It also allows for turning off the cursor and many other things. It works fine with Mousepose as well.

So the bottom line is that I am convinced that Snapz is a professional tool and am glad that a colleague twisted my arm a little to use it. I cannot imagine doing all that I have done with the other screen capture tool I bought. I'm sold.

Now, that Skitch and Jing are on the scene, it would be nice if Snapz added some of the markup functionality in the next major release. In particular, I would love to have a privacy smudge feature. Skitch and Jing look great for the casual user but in my opinion are not suitable for the professional user who does screenshots on a daily basis.

I'll probably upgrade my Snapz to be video capable at some point just so I have it at my fingertips if I want to use it.

Well I have been bitten by "PRO" software so many times I was thinking , "Right! More marketing hype."

After wasting most of the 15 days of unencumbered testing for reasons out of my control, I was suprised when I did get to make a movie. Missed my Shuttle Launch deadline, 18:36 EDT or 5 minutes from now. And the customer service is real, not kidding. Thanks SC guy.

I think one must spring for the complete package (70 USD) because that is where the magic is.

bye now, time to watch NASATV in Real Player.

-duddits

I had made a professional (dvd) recording of a series of solo violin works, and I needed to send some of the files over the internet to a colleague... Enter Snapz - I recorded straight from Apple's DVD Player, and set the sound capture to "Mac Audio" (system sound) I could compress sound seperately from the video - nice; because I wanted the sound to stay high quality. I ended up doing the final compression to .mp4 in QuickTime Pro, but given the options in Snapz I could easily have compressed it there too.

The catch was, because I have a five-year-old computer, I could only record the screen at "half size". (Full screen caused the capture to be choppy). Because I wanted a reduced size/quality capture of the DVD in question, this worked out perfectly. If I had a newer computer/cpu, I''m sure I could have upped the screen size...

The controls were simple, and the program did exactly what I wanted it to do. Snapz FTW! Thanks Ambrosia

~Doc