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WHY COMPARE? ------------ This comparison expresses my thoughts as I look at Cameraman compared to Snapz Pro 2. I'm sure it is quite biased, but I've tried to stick to the facts in most cases, with occasional commentary. I've also focused mainly on the various options that the programs offer; this certainly isn't a definitive comparison, and I will be adding to it as more points come to light. If you aren't familiar with the Cameraman interface, here's a movie of Cameraman 3.0.1 (340K). Camerman 3.0.1 can be found at: http://www.mwg.com/tools/cameraman_page_mac.htm THE COMPARISON -------------- -- Cameraman 3 comes in 3 parts -- an Extension that goes in your System Folder, an application that you use to configure your capture settings, and a movie editor (QuickEdit) for editing movies. Snapz Pro 2 comes simply as a Control Panel that goes in your system folder -- most of the settings are also configurable on the fly, when it is more convenient to access them. Snapz Pro 2 does NOT have a movie editing program, which is an advantage Cameraman offers (although you can just use the QuickTime Movie Player to edit movies, too) -- Both Snapz Pro 2 and Cameraman 3 allow you to specify the frame rate to record movies at. Snapz Pro 2 offers more options in the popup menu for FPS, but Cameraman offers a text box where you can enter in the exact FPS you desire (a plus in Cameraman's favor) -- Both Snapz Pro 2 and Cameraman offer fixed, smooth pan, and follow the cursor camera modes -- Cameraman's interface for picking what part of the screen to capture is positively wretched -- a series of text boxes where you type in the coordinates of what you want to capture. A "framer" tool is offered also, but this seems to be an afterthought, and you still have to set it up ahead of time. Snapz Pro 2 by contrast lets you capture a window, menu, screen, or freeform selection on the fly, with the click of a mouse button -- Cameraman offers "hot keys" for Start, Stop, Pause, and Capture -- Snapz Pro 2 has just one key, which is nice in its simplicity, but it does lack a pause option for movie recording. -- Both programs let you choose where to store captured movies. Snapz Pro 2 also offers quick access to them via the Apple menu, organization of your movies/screen captures via the Send To popup menu, and allows you to choose what disk to use as a "scratch disk" while recording movies -- Both programs can record sound input via a mic, and can generate fake event/key click sounds. Snapz Pro 2 can also record the audio your computer outputs (such as the music and sound effects from a game), an important features Cameraman 3 lacks -- Cameraman lets you choose which monitor to record movies on. This is a hack to get the program to work with multiple monitors. Snapz Pro 2 suffers from no such restrictions, and as such, you can record from any monitor you want, or even make movies that span more than one monitor simultaneously -- Both programs offer the ability to capture the cursor during movie capture, however, Cameraman's implementation simply does not work on some machines/OS versions -- Snapz Pro 2's cursor capturing "just works" -- Cameraman has an "Advanced Installation" checkbox that deserves particular mention. In a nutshell, if Cameraman doesn't work for you, you're supposed to check this rather ambiguous checkbox. What it does is it causes Cameraman to patch more (unsafe) system routines in a last-ditch attempt to get it to work. This option can sometimes make it work when it would normally not, but generally it just results in Cameraman crashing more than it usually does. Snapz Pro 2 has no such tricks to distract you with -- Both programs allow you to specify what compressor settings to use for a video track, but Snapz Pro 2 allows you to do this on the fly -- Snapz Pro 2 allows you to compress either the audio track and/or the mic sound track with any compressor settings you choose -- Cameraman does not -- Snapz Pro 2 allows you to change the color palette of your movies on the fly, to 256 colors, thousands, millions, grayscale, Windows(r) palette, etc. Cameraman offers no such feature -- Snapz Pro 2 can save still images in .pict, .gif, .jpg, .png, and .tiff formats. Cameraman offers only .pict, and doesn't capture images in situations where Snapz Pro 2 can (games for instance) -- Snapz Pro 2 can automatically trim and crop selected areas on the screen for capture; Cameraman cannot do things like automatically trim a menu that is pulled down -- Cameraman offers a "small screen emulation" mode, which Snapz Pro 2 does not. However with multiscan monitors, this option is less useful than it was years ago, and it also doesn't work on some machines/OS versions -- Even in beta form, Snapz Pro 2 crashes far less often than Cameraman's 3.0.1 release version does -- Snapz Pro 2 has a few bugs in it still, but then again, it has just entered beta testing. Cameraman 3 has no such excuse -- The artwork in Cameraman is pretty cool -- Camerman 3 costs $69.95. Snapz Pro 2 costs $40, and is actively supported -- Overall, I think Cameraman is showing its age with a convoluted interface, out-dated featureset, the fact that many of the features that are present work only sporadically, and the program is prone to crashing. I do very much like their movie editing package, and would like to offer something similar with Snapz Pro 2 in the future ..... If you have any comments, please feel free to email me (I'd love to hear your experiences with Cameraman, both positive and negative): andrew@AmbrosiaSW.com +--------------------------+-----------------------------------+ | Andrew Welch | Ambrosia Software, Inc. | | Thaumaturgist | http://www.AmbrosiaSW.com/ | +--------------------------+-----------------------------------+