Notice from Site Administrator: Major Maintenance

Mac MacHouse






A few weeks ago, we performed a major fix on hundreds of QuickTime movies. Starting in several hours, we will perform another major fix on movie files. It should take a day or two. You may run into broken links, the QuickTime question mark or blank pages when accessing video tutorials, game play movies and others. We will work on the rest of the ScreenFlow video tutorials after finishing a fix. We apologize for your inconvenience.

Video Tutorial: Making Desktop Video with ScreenFlow – 03

Mac software Telestream ScreenFlow

Video Tutorial: Making Desktop Video with ScreenFlow – 03: Recording

As we defined our work area in the last video tutorial, we are now ready to record a desktop movie. It’s true that all we do in this video is to press Command + Shift + #2 twice. We will use the desktop movie we record here to make an Internet security documentation video.   Continue reading

Video Tutorial: Making Desktop Video with ScreenFlow – 02

Mac software Telestream ScreenFlow

Video Tutorial: Making Desktop Video with ScreenFlow – 02: Defining Work Area

We went over some features of ScreenFlow in the first video tutorial, which we introduced a few days ago. We are ready to capture some desktop action. Actually, we want to utilize only 1,200 x 900 pixels of desktop from the top right corner. So let’s define our work area so that we can tell where it is and where it is not while recording a desktop movie. We will use Adobe Fireworks CS3 to edit a graphic file. It is not necessary that you use Fireworks CS3. You can use any graphic editing application of your choice.   Continue reading

Video Tutorial: Making Desktop Video with ScreenFlow – 01

Mac software Telestream ScreenFlow

Video Tutorial: Making Desktop Video with ScreenFlow – 01: Quick Overview

A few days ago, we reviewed a relatively new screen-capture application developed by Telestream, a software developer who is well-known for its QuickTime component called Flip4Mac. Over the next several days, we will be releasing several video tutorials showing how to use ScreenFlow. This series is intended for those who have little knowledge about video editing and wish to learn how to use Final Cut Pro, Motion or Adobe After Effects in the near future.

The goal of this video tutorial series is to record a desktop movie and create something fancy a bit by cutting unnecessary frames, zooming up some areas, embedding music. After going through at least five video tutorials, you should be able to create the following sample video. (The introductory video is made mostly with Motion, and we won’t show you how we made it.) It’s one of more than 100 documentation videos concerning Internet security that we have created in the past.

Click on the button to watch a sample video. VTC

This screen-capture video is concerned with a PayPal phishing message circulated by an organized cyber criminal group about 24 hours. A phishing website is hosted at a server run by a Chinese university.   Continue reading

Mac Software Review: ScreenFlow 1.2.1

Mac software Telestream ScreenFlow
Mac software review

In the past two and a half years, we have tested and reviewed several screen-caputre applications. The most popular screen-capture application for Mac is Ambrosia‘s Snapz Pro X. It’s by far more popular than any other screen-capture software title for Mac. Despite its popularity, Snapz Pro X is no perfect at all.

Mac software Telestream ScreenFlow
Screenshot 01
  Mac software Telestream ScreenFlow
Screenshot 02

Let me quickly point out a couple of bad aspects of Snapz Pro X. If you use it (v. 2.1.2) under Leopard and enable Universal Access and turn on Zoom (Command + Option + #8), you may encounter a couple of undesirable side effects. One is a divided screen. After zooming in, if you scroll up or down on a web browser, Snapz Pro X may not be able to catch up with your action. (See Screenshot 01.) It is also true that two Mouse pointers will appear. The worst part is that Apple’s Final Cut Pro does not recognize the frame rates of Snapz Pro movies correctly. Screenshot 03 shows that I have a screen-capture video whose frame rate is close to 24. And Final Cut Pro says its frame rate is 10. (See Screenshot 04.) Ambrosia has been aware of this incompatibility issue since 2005 and has not been able fix it.

Mac software Telestream ScreenFlow
Screenshot 03
  Mac software Telestream ScreenFlow
Screenshot 04

So how about Telestream‘s ScreenFlow? Telestream is well-known for its Flip4Mac, a QuickTime component that enables Mac users to play Windows Media Player (WMV) movies with QuickTime. We have known ScreenFlow for probably one year or so. We couldn’t use it till last July because our old main machine had OS X 10.4 Tiger installed. And using ScreenFlow requires that you have Leopard installed on your machine. Anyway, I can tell you that ScreenFlow is the first and only screen-capture application for Mac that we know is better than Ambrosia’s Snapz Pro X.   Continue reading