Have a look at the Snapz Pro 2 product page if you'd like specifics on what this new version of Snapz Pro offers.
You may also want to read my comparison between Snapz Pro 2 and Cameraman 3.0.1
.....
COMPRESSION SCHEME
------------------
You can now read about Snapz Pro 2's compression scheme, should you wish
to know some of the "behind the scenes" details.
Here's an example of the "high-tech" research done here at Ambrosia
Labs. This screenshot is from a sketch on a pad of paper for the 'rVid'
custom file format -- I began sketching this out when I realized that
I'd have to 'roll my own' for just about every aspect of the movie
recording (QuickTime was unavailable to use at the times I needed it).
I find a pad of paper and a pen to be my best design tools:
http://www.AmbrosiaSW.com/sketch.jpg
I thought this might amuse a few people -- I found it as I was cleaning
my office out a bit. This JPEG will self-destruct in 5 seconds.
.....
DEMONSTRATION MOVIES
--------------------
Snapz Pro 2 allows you to view information and statistics about your
movie before it is saved into QuickTime format, and even recommends a
compressor that might be suitable for the movie in question:
http://www.AmbrosiaSW.com/movieinfo.gif
Here are some movies I've created that show off some of Snapz Pro 2's
features. Feel free to do with them as you will.
Mic recording video
url: http://www.AmbrosiaSW.com/micrec.mov
fps: 5
size: 328K
video: Graphics, Best quality
audio: Qualcomm PureVoice (for both audio and mic tracks)
(Here's a little movie demonstrating Snapz Pro 2's ability to record
from the PlainTalk mic, and overdub both that sound track and the Mac's
audio sound track onto a movie)
Res switching video
url: http://www.AmbrosiaSW.com/resswitch.mov
fps: 5
size: 155K
video: Graphics, Best quality
audio: none
(This movie shows off Snapz Pro 2's ability to continue recording
through resolution switches. Notice that the capture area is properly
moved to the left when the resolution is switched lower, and is then
even moved back to the initial position when the resolution is switched
higher)
Custom CLUT video
url: http://www.AmbrosiaSW.com/customclut.mov
fps: 10
size: 239K
video: Graphics, Best quality
audio: none
(In this movie, the game -- Ferazel's Wand, an upcoming Ambrosia title
-- has set the monitor to a custom color table -- this shows that Snapz
Pro 2 properly uses that color table, and that the resulting movie is in
256 color mode, with optimized CLUT intact)
Scaling up video
url: http://www.AmbrosiaSW.com/scaleup.mov
fps: 5
size: 17K
video: Graphics, Medium quality
audio: none
(Snapz Pro 2 can automatically scale the movies you make so they are
larger in size, up to 400% larger -- good for focus shots)
Scaling down video
url: http://www.AmbrosiaSW.com/scaledown.mov
fps: 5
size: 38K
video: Graphics, Medium quality
audio: none
(Snapz Pro 2 can automatically scale the movies you make so they are
smaller in size, down to 10% of the original size -- good for gestalt,
overview shots)
Dither to greyscale video
url: http://www.AmbrosiaSW.com/grayscale.mov
fps: 5
size: 51K
video: Graphics, Medium quality
audio: none
(This movie shows off Snapz Pro 2's palette abilities. My monitor was
set to Thousands, but I had Snapz Pro 2 record the movie in 256 grays)
Dither to system palette video
url: http://www.AmbrosiaSW.com/dither.mov
fps: 5
size: 248K
video: Graphics, Medium quality
audio: none
(In this movie, my screen was set to Thousands, and this picture is a
photo-realistic JPEG image. I had Snapz Pro 2 set to dither the movie
to the System Palette in 256 colors -- it did so, on the fly)
Multiple monitors video
url: http://www.AmbrosiaSW.com/a_tale_of_two_monitors.mov
fps: 10
size: 180K
video: Animation, Medium quality
audio: none
(Snapz Pro 2 can record video across multiple monitors, no questions asked)
Multiple monitors panning video
url: http://www.AmbrosiaSW.com/two_mon_crew.mov
fps: 10
size: 7mb
video: Animation, Highest quality
audio: none
(This is a very cool video of me panning the video recording from one
monitor to another, and back again, while dragging a file. A bit large
in size, but worth the download if you have the time/connection to
spare)
Cursor capture video
url: http://www.AmbrosiaSW.com/cursor.mov
fps: 5
size: 88K
video: video, low quality
audio: 11kHz, 8 bit, 3:1 MACE compression
(This little movie shows off Snapz Pro's ability to capture the cursor
during movie capture, including cursor changes, not drawing it when the
cursor is hidden or obscured, and proper handling of hardware cursors)
Key/mouse sounds video
url: http://www.AmbrosiaSW.com/zounds.mov
fps: 5
size: 83K
video: video, low quality
audio: 11kHz, 8 bit, 3:1 MACE compression
(Another small movie that shows off Snapz Pro's "interface sounds"
feature -- simulated keystrokes and mouse clicks can be automatically
put in your movies, should you so desire)
Nanosaur video
url: http://www.AmbrosiaSW.com/nano.mov
fps: 10
size: 3.2mb
video: sorenson, low quality
audio: 11kHz, 8 bit, 3:1 MACE compression
(A cool little 10fps recording of the game "Nanosaur". Demonstrates
Snapz Pro's ability to invoke inside of games that use Input Sprocket,
and capture accurate audio & video while action-intensive games are
playing)
Panning video
url: http://www.AmbrosiaSW.com/panning.mov
fps: 10
size: 1.7mb
video: video, low quality
audio: 11kHz, 8 bit, 3:1 MACE compression
(This medium-sized movie shows off Snapz Pro's nifty "panning camera"
feature, which smoothly follows the cursor around the screen)
Color depth/resolution switching video
url: http://www.AmbrosiaSW.com/initgdevice.mov
fps: 10
size: 256K
video: video, high quality
audio: none
(This movie demonstrates that Snapz Pro can keep recording movies even
while you change your monitor's bit depth and/or resolution)
Launching/quitting application video
url: http://www.AmbrosiaSW.com/launchquit.mov
fps: 10
size: 3.5mb
video: video, low quality
audio: none
(In this movie, we launch "Mars Rising", play the game a bit, then quit
it. This shows that Snapz Pro can record even through application
launches/quitting)
Mars Rising video
url: http://www.AmbrosiaSW.com/mr.mov
fps: 10
size: 1.2mb
video: sorenson, medium quality
audio: 11kHz, 8 bit, 3:1 MACE compression
(A recording of me (badly) playing our game Mars rising, and shows off
Snapz Pro's ability to invoke inside of games that use Input Sprocket,
and capture accurate audio & video while action-intensive games are
playing)
.....
NEW TO THIS VERSION
-------------------
(bug fixes/changes since the initial b3 release)
-- BUG FIX: the "Snapz Pro 2.0.0 notes.text" file has the proper release
date in it
-- BUG FIX: The documentation is now complete, and includes the text
from the finished PR
-- BUG FIX: The Ambrosia Products FAQ has been updated to include Snapz
Pro 2
-- BUG FIX: The installer now makes an alias to the Snapz Pro control
panel (which should ease the "Where did the program get installed"
question we get often) and places it in the Snapz Pro 2.0.0 Ä folder
-- BUG FIX: Added a 1 second timeout to the infinite loop that a tester
reported dropping into
-- BUG FIX: Added 'dlgx' resources so that our dialogs look pretty even
under the Appearance Mangler^H^H^H^Hager
-- BUG FIX: I went over the default settings, and turned off "Record Mac
Audio" and "Play click sounds" by default, and set the default sound
compression options (for both the Audio and Microphone tracks) to MACE
3:1, 22kHz, mono, 8 bit. The user can of course set these to whatever
they want, they simply are off by default
-- BUG FIX: The Movie Info... dialog box no longer displays "NoneNone"
on one line if you have no audio and no microphone track
-- BUG FIX: Fixed a bug that could cause the "click sounds" to be played
even if you weren't recording audio
.....
STILL LEFT TO DO
----------------
(all known issues to be validated/fixed during beta testing)
++ KNOWN ISSUE: If you are using a sound card of any kind, Snapz Pro 2
may not be able to capture your audio. We need to know the details of
your environment so we can attempt to fix this; we may have to send you
a test app. We realistically may have to ship with this bug in the
program, and obtain a sound card from a manufacturer to debug this one
.....
HINTS FOR USING SNAPZ PRO
-------------------------
FRAME SELECTION TOOL
The new Frame Selection tool has some cool modifier key shortcuts and
hidden features:
CONTROL -- displays the selection coordinates
OPTION -- snapz everything to an 8x8 grid
ARROW KEYS -- nudges the selection
SHIFT-ARROW KEYS -- allows you to resize the selection
COMMAND -- if you hold this key down and click inside
of the selection, the selection will "shrinkwrap"
around the image undernearth. The "slip color"
is the color at the upper-left corner of the Frame
Selection rectangle.
PICKING A VOLUME FOR THE SCREEN SNAPZ FOLDER
If you want Snapz Pro to save its movies to a volume other than your
startup disk, here's how you can accomplish that:
1) Create the folder you want Snapz Pro to save movies/images, on the
volume where you want them saved.
2) Make an alias to that folder, and rename the alias "Screen Snapz"
(exactly, no quotes).
3) Open up your System Folder; trash the "Screen Snapz" folder,
then copy your alias into the System Folder.
Snapz Pro will now save in the aliased folder (although temporary 'rVid'
and 'rSnd' files will still be saved on the startup volume).
GETTING SMOOTH VIDEO CAPTURE
If you try to capture a 800x600 movie in Thousands of colors, your
machine is likely to grind to a halt. Most Macs can't even display a
movie in that size, let alone record it. Here are some hints for
getting smoother video recording:
-- Areas with plain backgrounds (white or other solid colors) will
compress better than complicated colorful backgrounds; they should also
record a bit quicker
-- Try setting your monitor to 256 colors -- having your monitor set to
Thousands means recording 2x the information as 256 color mode, and
Millions means 3x the information needs to be saved
-- Try making the capture area a bit smaller
-- Try setting the FPS a bit lower
-- Try to minimize disk access; any time the underlying application has
to access the disk, Snapz Pro has to wait before it can write out video
frames
-- Quit some other programs; each program you have running uses up a bit
of your computer's resources
-- Using a Fixed camera will get you better capture rates (and smaller
files) than using either the Smooth Pan or Follow Cursor cameras,
because less information changes between frames
-- Turn Audio Capturing (and Mic capturing) off if you don't need it --
there is overheard capturing the audio to disk as well, and Snapz Pro
will be able to get better video capture performance without having to
record audio at the same time
-- Set your Movie scratch disk to your fastest available disk (perhaps
even a RAM disk, if you have the memory to spare)
-- Unmount any AppleShare volumes you have mounted
-- Turn FileSharing off
-- Disconnect from the Internet. PPP connections use up a good amount
of CPU horsepower that could be used to make for a smoother video
capture
-- Similarly, turning off networking completely (both AppleTalk and
TCP/IP) by disabling the OpenTransport extensions and rebooting will
eliminate the overhead of those networking stacks, which can result in
smoother video recording
By tweaking the settings, you should be able to arrive at a combination
that allows you to record a movie decently while still being able to
control the underlying application.
.....
OBTAINING THE CURRENT PRE-RELEASE VERSION
-----------------------------------------
(dunno why you'd bother, the real version is released alread :)
*** This is confidential information, you'll be hurting us rather than
helping us if you give it out ***
SnapzPro2.0.0fc1 is now available in the /beta directory of our anonymous
ftp site as:
SnapzPro2.0.0fc1.sea.bin
So the complete URL is:
ftp://ftp.AmbrosiaSW.com/beta/SnapzPro2.0.0fc1.sea.bin
This file is a MacBinary II encoded self-extracting archive, encrypted
with the password:
chowhound
Please grab this file as soon as possible, and begin testing it. This
version does NOT include any documentation; you can use the old Snapz
Pro 1.1.1 documentation for much of it. This is available with the
complete Snapz Pro 1.1.1 package at http://www.SnapzPro.com/
If you are not on the official Snapz Pro beta mailing list, please
report any bugs to:
andrew@AmbrosiaSW.com
+--------------------------+-----------------------------------+
| Andrew Welch | Ambrosia Software, Inc. |
| Thaumaturgist | http://www.AmbrosiaSW.com/ |
+--------------------------+-----------------------------------+