Super Capture

good
key review info
application features
  • Record the entire screen or parts of it
  • (2 more, see all...)

Computer technology has evolved a lot. In the past, we could take pictures of our entire desktop only. Nowadays, we can take pictures of any part of the desktop, of any application. With the DVD madness around, softwares allow us to extract the frames and save them on our HDD. It was only a matter of time until the video capturing was available. And it came soon.

This is not a novelty, but I remember when I watched all sorts of tutorials and their makers had recorded the mouse moves on the screen, included sound and all sorts of cool stuff (it seemed cool to me then, now it is only natural to watch video tutorials).

Sound and video are like fish and water and I cannot imagine it other way. Video without sound is so lame that no matter how interesting it would be I could not watch more than a few minutes.

Super Screen Recorder is a software designed for screen and sound recording. ZeallSoft is the developer and the price they are asking is $39.95. The trial period offered is seven days, which in my opinion is more then enough to test the applications. The only restriction imposed by the producer is the two-minute recording time.

The interface is nice looking and very easy to use. In fact, after all the settings have been made you can give up the main window and work with the program only by using the shortcuts. First of all, the user has to specify the area that s/he needs "caught on camera". This can be the entire screen of your monitor, only a region of the screen or just a fixed region. In the latter case you will have to specify the length and width of the area.

As I said before, after configuring all the options you can use the shortcuts for handling the software. General Options is not as important as the Audio and Video ones, but it will help you configure the software. Thus, you can set the application to play the AVI file after the recording process stops, minimize it to system tray on start record, hide the flashing rectangle during recording or set the recording thread priority.

Video Options box will let you choose among the available compressors, which are nothing more than the AVI encoders. Some of them are configurable (Cinepak, Intel Indeo, Microsoft Video 1 or Microsoft WMV 9), while others are not (IntelIYUV codec). A slider will let you choose the quality of the resulting video. You must be aware than increasing the values in the Video Options box will result in a larger output file, but also in a better quality of the video.

Framerates are adjustable and the user can set the time of frames capturing in milliseconds and also the playback rate (the higher the value, the smoother the playback and the larger the file). Time Lapse at the bottom of the window is used for setting the software to record a frame after a longer period of time (up to one minute); but the playback will be at the regular 20fps.

In Audio Options window, as expected, you will be able to make the necessary settings for the audio part of your movie. In order to capture audio as well as video, the user will have to check the record audio box in Audio Options window. Next is just a matter of making the right settings: choosing the audio capture device and the recording format (between 11.025 kHz and 44.1 kHz both stereo and mono). The compressed format also plays a major role in the output audio quality and my recommendation is to use the Windows native PCM format as it is the file format I obtained the best audio results with.

I must admit that Audio settings gave me the biggest trouble when I tested the software. But I managed to pull through and the results were pretty good; not what I expected, but good. Interleaving was the greatest trouble of all as I could not obtain a normal playback rate. I fiddled and fiddled until I got the optimum result.

At the beginning I thought that the compression of the resulting .avi file will take forever, but the software proved me wrong and did it very fast. Between you and me, the duration of the recording was not too large, so it would have been a major downside of the software if it took too much time with the compression.

The Cursor Options are additional in a way, but as useful in some cases as the Audio and Video options. You can set the software to show or hide the cursor and even change it with a custom one provided with the OS or from a personal file on the computer. Also, you can highlight the cursor and give it any color you want from the color palette available.

The Good

Very easy to use and the resulting video is great. After making all the general settings, for the audio and video recording you can use the keyboard shortcuts in order to start recording, pause or stop it.

The Bad

Interleaving is a real bitch. I spent a lot of time trying to make the audio recording sound good. We all know that no matter the frame capturing interval we use, during playback all the pictures will look like a movie. When it comes to audio the capturing has to be accurate. Well, after all the struggle, I managed to make the audio sound human.

The Truth

The video part of the application works fine, and so it should. The audio part is the one with problems and the user may have some problems. But with a little patience and a little sweat you will manage to pull through.

Here are some snapshots of the application in action:

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user interface 5
features 4
ease of use 4
pricing / value 4


final rating 3
Editor's review
good
 
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