Using Silverback To Screencast // writing
I’ve had a copy of Silverback sat on my hard disk for a while, but given I’m concentrating on my own project and a few very small design jobs for local companies with limited budgets, I haven’t really had cause to use it.
However, recently I needed to show a client how to use the administration section of a website but I’m currently in the wrong country so not able to nip round and do a show and tell.
I could use Skype but the quality can be really patchy. Its the same situation with iChat Screen Sharing (and the client is on windows of course!). So a little 10 minute screencast… although I have a copy of Snapz Pro X (thank you MacHeist 2) the multitude of options and curious UI bothered me as I just wanted to get it done fast.
Enter the gorilla with the clipboard. I basically had to open the app, click three times and I was recording. I did my quick presentation and clicked stop. Hit export and ‘boom’ I’m done. Quick. Simple. Brilliant.
The inbuilt usability tools also provides useful feedback for the viewer, for example your clicks appear on screen and the personal touch of having your face in one of the corners shouldn’t be underestimated!
My only negative feedback is that exporting takes quite a long time, which is obvious when you think about how large the resolution of the average screen is. I know they’re improving rendering speed for the next version (via GetSatisfaction) but I’d really like to set a filmable area, such as you see in other screen capture applications. I wouldn’t want to be dealing with long videos on any high resolution screens, but then that’s true of all screen capturing!
The file exported is a standard quicktime file, so I ran it through visual hub to at an ‘AppleTV’ setting to shrink the file size to 30MB from 600MB for my 8:30 video. Using a different default export format might be another little tweak that could be worthwhile.
Despite these little things Silverback is an absolute belter of an application, and I’ll be plonking down my cash the next time I need to do some user testing. Perhaps sooner if I need another quick screencast. So next time you’re making video: think of Silverback – it’s not just for usability testing.
Disclosure I once had Bangers & Mash with Andy Budd (amongst others at @media 2007) but this has in no way affected my impartial judgement that Silverback is pretty terrific.