[Update: this feature was released in September and comes packaged with Snow Leopard]. One of the things that faculty often request when it comes to podcasting or creating multimedia materials for class is the ability to screen record. I’ve written about the various apps out there for screen recording before, but it looks like the future Quicktime X platform might change the game forever, and I’ve got to say I’m pretty excited about the potential. This may be sort of a geeky thing to get so jazzed about, but if you’ve worked with video across various platforms, have budgetary restrictions to deal with, and have tried to make the job of screen recording and distributing those to students for download a simple one, then you probably know exactly where I’m coming from! 
Right now, on Windows machines, the best answer for this task is Camtasia, which costs around $200 for a single user educational license. Although it is a powerful app, it’s pretty much overkill for most of our faculty’s needs and there is quite a bit of a learning curve involved with using it.
For the Mac, there is no one all-powerful app like Camtasia, but rather some smaller yet efficient (and cheaper) apps like Snapz Pro, ScreenFlow, and iShowU. What always made me scratch my head is why Quicktime Pro, made for both Windows and Mac and only costs $29, lets you record audio and video from a webcam, but doesn’t also allow also for screen recording. Surely it wouldn’t be a large step for Quicktime Pro to have this ability natively.
This morning while checking the Apple rumor-sphere, (via Apple Insider) I happily discovered that Quicktime X, which is being packaged with Apple’s next OS release, Snow Leopard, is scheduled to have this ability built-in:
I’m hopeful that this will also be available for Windows users. Apple has done a great job thus far supporting the Quicktime architecture across both platforms, and it would be a shame if this didn’t continue. Admittedly, my job would be significantly easier if all our faculty were Mac savvy, but this is not the case. (Our user rate is about 15-20% of faculty, 40-45% of students).
Anyone who works often with video knows how frustrating it is to work with Windows native .wmv files. Giving our faculty the ability to record their screens in .mov format for only $30 (if the prices stays the same) would solve a lot of problems and save a lot of money. In addition, we could have one standard across the university when it comes to recording, rather than supporting the 4 to 5 different software applications we have to support now.
We also use Podcast Producer running on an Xserve for all of our processing, compression, and publishing so faculty aren’t tied up with the lengthy post-production involved with working with video. Faculty can submit any video or audio file for processing that the free Quicktime Player will play (which of course includes any .mov file), and Podcast Producer will handle all of the post-production, publishing, and distribution for them. If Quicktime X allows for native screen recording, then faculty currently processing their own videos in order to export them from various screen recording programs they are locked in will be freed from that clunky, time-consuming task and can simply submit their files when they are finished recording them.
Am I asking too much here that Quicktime X will have the same set of features for Windows users as Mac users? Given that Apple has offered the same Quicktime Player and Quicktime Pro feature set to both Windows and Mac users, I don’t think I am. Then again there is the hardware and other technical elements that may play a part in a Windows user’s ability to do this with Quicktime X, but if Apple can make it happen, I sure hope that they do.
