This is easily the best screen capture utility I have used for recording full motion video. I have been looking for a good free product for a long time, but I have given up. I’m assuming that the developmental and licensing requirements are too great not to charge. So, I’ve given up and started looking for alternatives.
BB FlashBack is not a cheap software, with a price tag nearing $200, but the functionality and ease of use are amazing. In the limited time that I have used the software, I have been able to record basic screen actions, record high-quality audio, and even record high quality video of a video. I have been extremely happy with all of these, although the audio and video when recording video isn’t perfectly synchronize. I have found this to be true with many conversion softwares as well.
Some of the most useful functions that are of note here are: auto-resolution adjustment, export in mutliple formats, and cursor-guided cropping. The auto-resolution adjustment feature is really cool. It will automatically change your screen resolution to a particular setting. Why is this important? This is important because people often make the mistake of recording at a higher resolution and then have to shrink the video to go onto the Web. When this happens the quality of the video decreases significantly and it makes text nearly impossible to read.
Exporting in multiple formats is important for anyone wanting to use video for multiple uses and delivered via various means. BB Flashback enables you to export to .AVI, .WMV, Flash, .EXE, and PowerPoint. While these are not extensive, they are useful export options. I find it a little frustrating that they don’t offer a Quicktime format such as .MOV.
The cursor-guided cropping is probably the coolest feature that I came across. This enables you to crop the outputted file to a particular size, only seeing a set area around the cursor. This is of great importance when making videos for the Web. Not only can you reduce the filesize with this method, but you can also better format it for services like Google Video and YouTube, which resize your videos to a smaller resolution. This makes for a much higher quality video and can also focus attention on important actions better than a video of an entire screen or even window.
The price is likely going to keep me away from the full version, but I can’t say that I’m not tempted to shell out the dough.