Screencasts have become a prime factor when showcasing new applications, creating tutorials, recording gameplay, and so much more. And, as new hardware comes out, these screen recording apps need to stay on top of their game. That includes taking full advantage of Apple’s new Macbook Pro with Retina display.
While there are many screen recording apps to choose from (including QuickTime, which comes preinstalled on OS X), today we will cover Screenflick 2. Screenflick 2 has been updated with a number of new features including support for Retina displays. All these features plus Screenflick’s ease of use make it a sweet addition to anyones toolset.
The Recording
All hands on deck.
When it comes to screen recording, you can rest assured that you will have one of the best and easiest experiences with Screenflick. Screenflick is a slimmed-down, easy-to-use app that gets you recording within five seconds of launching it. When you’re ready to record, all you need to do is tweak some settings, and then hit record. A huge countdown will start and once the time is up, start making some magic happen.
Before hitting that record button, though, the settings that you can change allow you to pick the recording location, capture rate (up to 60 FPS, which is great for recording video game gameplay), scaling, and system or microphone audio. These options are extremely easy to understand, so even if you have limited knowledge, you can jump right in.
The New Features
Yup, Retina display ready.
The simplicity of Screenflick is perhaps its biggest asset, but don’t let that fool you. You see, Screenflick is powerful, very powerful. The features it had prior to the update were great, but now with the new features, you get even more bang for your buck — and that is a lot of bang for just 30 bucks. So, lets check out some of the new features.
Live Scaling – Say you want to record every inch of your screen, but you don’t want the video to be at that resolution, you can record in full screen and once you’re done just export it at a lower resolution. Good feature if you don’t want to lower your computer’s resolution before recording — saves space and time as well.
Time-Lapse Movies – Time-lapse is exquisite. If you are an artist, photoshop master, or an illustrator guru, you can showcase your many hours of work in just a few minutes. This can be extremely useful for artist who want to show off their skills, or use their time-lapsed videos on their portfolio.
Some of the cool version one features.
Recording Preview, Screen Camera Mode, Pause & Resume, and Export Presets – These are some of the features that while new, they don’t offer an “oh that’s cool” factor. Take Pause & Resume for example. This feature should be in every screen recording application. Why would anyone get excited about a feature an app should of had back in version one. Export Presets suffers from the same illness, and so does Screen Camera Modes. The one feature that seems out of place is Recording Preview. While, yes, it offers a preview of how your keyboard and mouse options will look like, it really just sits there teasing you about the fact that you can’t trim down the video or edit it in any way.
Mountain Lion and Retina Display Support – Perhaps one of the biggest features for this app going forward is the Retina display support. The app is also integrated with Notification Center, albeit not a very hot feature, but it is nice to see some support for Notification Center.
The Verdict
Click here to see gameplay in 720p.
Whether or not you get Screenflick 2 is gonna depend heavily on how you want your workflow to be. If you want a one-stop screen capture app with all the bells and whistles, this app is probably not for you since it lacks the ability to edit your videos (as well as a few other features). But, Screenflick 2 is a sublime experience that gives you a great end result. If you already have a tool to edit movies with (like, say, Quicktime…), you probably won’t mind the lack of an editor within Screenflick. It is a tough one no doubt, but as whole, Screenflick 2 does give you a bang for your buck.
As always, leave your comments below, and let us know what is your favorite screen capture application — perhaps it’s that one app you already have installed called Quicktime, or maybe it’s a free web app? Let us know and keep and eye out to see more apps getting updated with Retina display and Mountain Lion support.