ScreenFlow is here! And as you’ll see from the following review of it, I’m quite pleased that it has finally arrived.

It’s from Vara Software (who also make the awesome teleprompter-style software I use called VideoCue 2) and is an incredible, breathtaking work of genius that is going to make my daily screencasts less of a chore, and more pleasurable than they have been for a long time.

It’s release comes as a huge sigh of relief and wave of elation for Mac screencasters everywhere, me amongst their number.

Tried The Alternatives

Having battled with the horror of SnapzProX, found temporary solace and then abject misery in the frame dropping antics of iShowU, with it’s delightful blinking cursor “feature”.

Then switching to Screenflick (formerly Screencast) only to get frustrated with its constant crashing, tiresome interface and slooooow start-up procedure, I find myself in a rapture of delight having discovered today the majesty of ScreenFlow.

Essential Purchase

If I sound breathless, it’s because I am. I just shelled out the $99 price tag faster than it took me to finish watching the demo screencast.

Why? I mean, isn’t that pricey?

Trust me, if you screencast every single day of your life, on a mac, under the glitches of Leopard (sorry pre-upgrade people, this is a Leopard only app), you will be jumping for joy when you see what’s on offer here.

What Mac Screencasters Have Been Waiting For

Those cool zoom and pan features in Camtasia? Check.

Executed in a far better way in a beautiful interface? Check.

Time line editing that doesn’t totally suck – oh yes.

Call outs, mouseposé style highlighting and OmniDazzle style zooming of a portion of your screen? On screen keyboard commands? Naturally.

Amazing, no-drop frame, crystal clear, HD quality visuals.

This is the kind of thing that is going to hugely reduce my screencasting workflow. No more hand keyframing those zooms and pans in Final Cut or Motion… No more having to have to perform simple editing in a different app (yes, I might still do some of the fancier stuff in FCP/Premiere, but you get the idea).

No more creating fancy reflections by copying the video source and using masking, blur, rotation etc. because fancy reflections come as standard here.

Stand Out Features

Other stand out features include highlighting of the cursor, or the foreground window; awesome full screen presentations from Keynote, with our without picture in picture video (from your isight or the cam of your choice). I can even bring in media from other sources and mix it in.

Output using a range of presets OR full quicktime support for your custom specs.

Basically, short of titling and all the fancy motion graphics wizardry I do, this is a complete package, and it rocks, rocks, rocks.

If you make screencasts, want to make screencasts, and want a powerhouse piece of kit for a measly $99, ScreenFlow is it.

A Real game Changer

Trust me when I say that this is a game changer. I know people that use FCP for doing the tasks that this thing will do alone. The only thing missing here is titling, but smart folk will use something like Keynote to sort that out. Am I going to stop using FCP, Premiere, After Effects etc?

No, because a lot of my work now is much more motion graphics based. But if I were just making regular screencasts, this would be more than enough for the entire workflow, and I don’t doubt that it will be saving me a whole lot of time.

Software companies, would-be video podcasters, trainers, educators and a lot more folk besides are going to find a lot of use for this.

And, and… It even has built in screencast tutorials for the different features. Talk about eating your own dog food.

Expect an in-depth review when I get a day off, but basically, just go, now, and buy this.

TechSmith had better come up with something very special when they release Camtasia at the end of the year in it’s all new mac format, because this one is going to be hard to trump.

Disclaimer

If you’re wondering, this is not a paid post and I have no affiliation with Vara at all. Merely a song of joy and delight at what I’ve been waiting for this last 18 months or so doing this full time for a living.

Originally written by Michael Pick, a professional screencaster, web video maker and blogger. Some Rights Reserved.

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