Tag: capture

Giveaway: 1AVCapture Capture Audio Video

PCWinSoft brings you a unique time limited exciting offer to give away free licenses of 1AVCapture, the video and audio recorder and broadcaster software.

The price of 1AVCaptue is $59.95 the software allows you to capture images, record video with audio, record audio alone and it can record and broadcast any possible combination of audio video sources your PC has.

1AVCapture can record and broadcast from any audio video source combination including audio alone. 1AVCapture records audio to wav, wma and mp3, and it records video to avi and wmv.

If you can hear and/or see and hear something on your computer then you can record a high quality copy of it with 1AVCapture.

1AVCapture supports all Windows Media Encoder profiles including the newest Microsoft Express Encoder. So you can have full control over encoding properties and you an make tests quickly to the audio video compression choice.

Whatever 1AVCapture can capture it an also broadcast it so you an use it to broadcast your screen or your webcam and even include the embed code inside your web page on your web site.

1AVCapture is the ultimate audio video capture & broadcast solution. It will run on 2000/XP/2003/Media Center/Vista/Windows 7/Windows 8 and requires at least a 1.3gHz processor and 256MB of memory.

To receive your free copy of 1AVCapture simply register here: http://www.pcwinsoft.com/promotion/RGDot1AVCapture/registration.asp

March 18, 2013
Create Videos With Easy Screencast Recorder

DonationCoder’s NANY (New Apps for the New Year) 2013 is well under way, have a look at a roundup of programs created for the 2013 edition at http://www.donationcoder.com/forum/index.php?topic=33518.0 and consider joining the forum for access to discounts and giveaways too. Read below about one of this year’s entries, the Easy Screencast Recorder.

Easy Screencast Recorder (Version: 1.07.02) from DonationCoder is a simple yet powerful tool to record short videos. It can record the entire screen or specific regions whether they are pre-defined sizes or specific windows that it automatically discovers – and the user confirms by clicking the right Ctrl key.

The program comes with a preview window – which can be toggled on and off – to view the captured video. It also comes with a reasonable number of options and preferences that make it both easy and feature rich at the same time. The preferences include the global hotkey setting to start and stop video captures, F9 by default, and a place to see common region sizes and add one’s own if necessary.

Settings for frame rate, countdown before recording starts, maximum file size before recording is terminated are in the Capture Options. Audio Settings let the user choose the input source and recording format. In my case I was interested in capturing system sounds, a seemingly rarer feature compared to mic, CD or other input sources and ‘Audio Input Line: Stereo Mix’ does that. Video Settings comes with advice for which format to choose and the recommended ASF/WMV9 is accompanied by other choices like FLV, MKV, WebM, Mpeg and others. Most require installed codecs. There are additional options for compression mode and quality which are dependent on the file format chosen. One can also set or change the directory videos are saved in and set a file naming template. The Tweaks and Kludges tab of the options includes additional ‘power user’ options (see image below) and the Operations Log can be set to include debug info in case of problems.

After a video is done Easy Screencast Recorder can copy its path to the clipboard, open it in the default video player or perhaps use one of the other tools that one can add in its list of external tools.

Easy Screencast Recorder integrates automatically into Screenshot Captor. Question about it can be asked at http://www.donationcoder.com/forum/index.php?topic=32759.0

January 17, 2013
SnapCrab: Freeware Screen Capture

SnapCrab is a feature rich screenshot capture program. Other than the various capture options one can send screenshots directly to Twitter, Facebook or Evernote.

SnapCrab’s interface is a simple bar. Various capture options and program settings – the gear button – are accessed on the bar or by right clicking the program’s tray icon. From left to right the bar buttons are Capture window, Capture top level window, Capture whole desktop, Capture selected area, Post (to Twitter, Facebook or Evernote), Get color code under cursor (by default RGB and Hex values are copied to the clipboard but this can be changed) and Settings. The settings include back ground options such as transparency and fill color and others like inclusion of cursor and disabling hot keys. The hot keys are Alt+Print Screen for Capture Window and Print Screen for Capture whole desktop. Settings for all other actions such as Capture selected area, Post to Facebook, Save a capture in, Post image and tweet can be configured via Details –>Hotkey.

SnapCrab’s other settings, found by clicking Details, are configuring capture output location, (image) format, name, sound, timer, ‘capture the active monitor’ and automatic shrinking or resizing of the capture.

Captures can be named in various ways. SnapCrab comes with “SnapCrab_{title}_”yyyy”-“m”-“d”_”h”-“n”-“s”_No-“vv, “SnapCrab_”gge”-“m”-“d”(“ddd”)_”h”-“n”-“s”_No-“vv, “SnapCrab_”yy”-“m”-“d”_”h”-“n”-“s”_No-“vv, “SnapCrab_”yyyy”-“m”-“d”_”h”-“n”-“s”_No-“vv, “SnapCrab_”yyyy”-“mm”-“dd”_”hh”-“nn”-“ss”_No-“vvvv and “SnapCrab_No-“vvvv. These are listed as such with the quotes creating confusion. Most are likely obvious however v represent increments starting from 0 and gge is year.

The post to Twitter option requires authenticating from within the program. Facebook and Evernote also require authentication of course however SnapCrab opens a browser instance to prompt for details.

SnapCrab hot keys can be disabled and the program can remain open but hidden by unchecking the Use Hotkeys option. In this case the program’s tray icon turns gray. SnapCrab is brought to you by the developers behind the Sleipnir browser and runs on Windows XP and newer.

November 18, 2012
Screenshot Captor, For The Power User

Screenshot Captor (Version: 3.00.00 portable tested for this review) is a feature rich and advanced screenshot program. Its main advantage is that it can do a lot of screenshots with minimum effort. It has eight capture modes, accessible using either the Capture menu, right clicking its tray icon or with select keyboard shortcuts. These keys (Configurable via Edit—>Preferences—>Hot keys) are for Entire workspace (Alt+PrtScr), Current screen (PrtScr), Active window (Ctrl+PrtScr), Selected region (Shift+PrtScr), Fixed size region (Ctrl+Alt+PrtScr), Windows object or scrolling window (Ctrl+Shift+PrtScr), Repeat last and finally Screen grab of Screenshot Captor’s own window. Screenshot Captor also supports delay and inclusion of the cursor in the screenshots.

The program’s interface is divided into a thumbnail viewer on the left, (last) screenshot area in the middle and tools to the right (and more on top and bottom too). The tools include a slider to zoom in and out up from 0 to 1000%. Other tools include launching an external image editor, adding shapes, blurring regions, adding text, clipart, picture frame effects and many more. The filename area, at the bottom, has extra information such as the source of the captured image and a field to rename the image to something else if necessary.

When an image is captured a dialog window lets the user take immediate action on the image captured with options to discard the screenshot, keep it, print it, save it elsewhere, copy it or its file name to the clipboard and more (see image below.)

The Windows object or scrolling window capture mode presents a red box with keyboard shortcuts to either grab toolbars or section of windows and – this is where the advanced part comes in – have Screenshot Captor detect vertical regions, like in a long webpage, and try to capture it for you.

Browse the program menu to get a feel of everything else Screenshot Captor offers. File menu has an option to add an image file as an object to an existing screenshot. Edit menu has a magic wand selection mode option to grab areas of matching color for example. SendTo menu can be configured to email a screenshot or to upload it using ZUploader. SpecialFX has watermark, splice out, glow and other enhancement features. Objects can add caption and merge or flatten images. Tools has a color picker with RGB and hex values. After browsing the menus look at the program Preferences and see the multitude of options and features available.

Screenshot Captor is now available in a zip portable version in addition to its self extracting .exe version. It works on Windows 98 and newer. It is one program that can live up to the ‘power user’ phrase. Also see its DonationCoder forum thread.

February 6, 2012
CaptureIt Plus: Simple Screen Capture

CaptureIt Plus is a simple and small screen capture or screenshot program. It sits in the system tray and can do one of nine captures modes. It can be used using the mouse or the keyboard. Right click on the tray icon to access one of capture options or set keyboard shortcuts or hot keys to take screenshots using the keyboard.

The capture modes are Scheduled, Repeat Last Capture, Active Window, Window, Circle, Fixed Region, Free Form, Full Screen and Rectangle. The Scheduled option doesn’t have a keyboard hot key setting, when it is chosen a window prompts for a delay – “Schedule capture after X seconds” – with a choice of any one of the windows open at the time or just full screen.

CaptureIt Plus’ output settings can be configured to save to another folder instead of the default Documents\My Pictures\CaptureItPlus location. The format and quality can be tweaked too. The output file name can be changed and there is an option to include the cursor in the capture.

Sound notification is available. CaptureIt Plus can send captures to the clipboard, default email program, editor or printer with hot key settings available for the clipboard, email and printer options.

CaptureIt Plus is licensed under GNU GPL and has plugin support which should be in development. The To Do section on the author’s site mentions Window scrolling – to capture webpages longer than the screen – support to come.

January 29, 2012
RightNote: Powerful Notes Organizer

RightNote is a feature packed notes organizer that can take simple notes and do more like include workable Excel spreadsheets (in its professional version). A not so limited freeware version has been recently released that is missing only a few features.

I have decided to to post the complete review on the DonationCoder Mini-Reviews section at http://www.donationcoder.com/forum/index.php?topic=29681.0

RightNote is a notes manager and organizer, it is also one able to import existing text (File—>Import). Each database is represented as a notebook, each notebook is then divided into pages (horizontally tabbed) and each page has its own notes structure within a tree…

January 22, 2012
Freeware Shorts: Horizon33 (Screen Capture)

Horizon33 is an easy to use screen capture or screenshot program. It has useful capture and save options. Choose a combination of the options described below using the gear button to the left of the large capture button and then click the capture button itself to start taking screenshots.

There are six modes of capturing and Horizon33 can save the output in BMP, JPG, GIF or PNG formats. The capture options are full screen, active window, freehand, (configurable) fixed region, (selected) region and object. The output destination is also configurable. The options are save to file, save as, application (Microsoft Paint by default), clipboard, email, Microsoft Office (Word, PowerPoint or Excel) and upload to web (automatic saving to Imageshack). Multiple outputs is also an option with the capture ending up in more than one of the aforementioned destinations.

Additionally Horizon33 can automatically convert to grayscale, invert color, add watermark and resize too. Finally there is an option to include the cursor in the screenshot.

The program settings accessed via the top right button are divided into the following:

General for things like starting with Windows, delaying before capture, pressing X to close the application, staying always on top and others. Output to choose the default image format and destination for the multiple output operation. Effects has the options for color, resize and watermark. For example, here is the place to choose the file and position of the watermark or overlay image. Hotkeys lets the user assign keyboard shortcuts for any or all of the six capture options. File Name lets the user choose the output file name. Any combination of year to second is possible. A prefix and incremental numbering is available too. Dialogs includes JPG quality and fixed region options among others.

Horizon33 requires Windows XP and newer and is worth a download.

Note: In the image I used Horizon33 to capture this thread on the DonationCoder.com forum.

December 12, 2011
Freeware Shorts: SnapShot (Screen Capture)

SnapShot (Version: 1.0.4 as of this post) is a lightweight screen shot program or screen capture tool. It can take full screen, active window or rectangular area screen shots. By default it will only present a preview of the screenshot which the user can manually save. Using its preferences (Capture —> Preferences —> Save & Edit tab) auto save can be enabled with an option to not only choose the destination location but also a prefix for the file name. SnapShot is capable of saving files in BMP, GIF, JPG (JPEG), PCX, PNG, PSD or TIFF formats. Also from the same Preferences tab the output JPG quality can be configured. A path to an external image editor can be saved in the preferences for SnapShot to send or open the capture using it or optionally send the screen shot to the system clipboard.

SnapShot also features email and FTP to automatically send or upload a screen shot. Use the Edit menu to configure the email SMTP server and even choose the subject and text of the email and separately the FTP details.

SnapShot supports multiple monitors and supports setting a delay for taking screen shots. It should run on all Windows versions dating back to Windows 98.

November 20, 2011
Capture View: Freeware Screenshots Software

Capture View is a capture or screenshot taking program that looks slightly different than others of its kind. When opened the program looks like a transparent window opening to whatever is behind it, be it the desktop wallpaper or other open window. Capture View has several capture settings or methods and one of those is what is seen through the aforementioned interface. By moving or stretching Capture View’s own window the screenshot area can be adjusted.

To take other kinds of screenshots like the usual whole screen, individual window or others Capture View’s Type menu must be used. The same menu includes settings for automatically adding transparency, backgrounds, color invert and other effects to the captured screenshot. Delayed captures are also configurable here. The Alt+Q keys or the Capture button are two methods to take the screenshot itself.

Any thing captured, even if not yet saved, can be viewed using the Thumb Strip (accessed via the icon to the right of the small red square). Screenshots must be saved before the program is closed because captures are initially stored in a temp folder and are not automatically saved. The default image format can be changed from *.png to *.jpg, *.tiff or others. After a screenshot is captured one can resize it to preset sizes like wallpaper or any other arbitrary size – using the what the program calls a box to hover over the capture and keep only what the box sees – by right clicking on it inside the Capture View window or using the Crop menu.

Capture View does not have the most intuitive of work flows but does the job and with a few extras. The Description page on the program author’s site has a lengthy explanation of the more unusual features of Capture View.

February 17, 2011
Shotty: All In One Screenshots Freeware

Shotty strives to be an all in one screenshots program. It takes screenshots of whole screens, specified regions and windows. It has basic features to edit the captured shots and a few options for places to upload them too.

Left clicking the tray icon of Shotty presents you with capture options for the whole screen, region or specific window (for Windows Vista and 7 a high quality, aero enhanced option is given as well). After the capture a basic editor with a Microsoft paint like interface features things like cropping and adding text, highlights and shapes. A blur or diffuser can hide sensitive parts of the screenshot as well.

Further efficiency can be gained by using the default, but configurable, Ctrl + PrintScreen hotkeys in place of clicking the tray icon for the capture.

Finally the image can be saved or uploaded to one of the chosen locations online, Shotty in turn provides a window with the address of the uploaded image.

Right clicking Shotty’s tray icon exposes its other features:

The upload location can be chosen from one of Images.Devs-On.net (Shotty’s own hosting), ImageShack.us, DirectUpload.net, Imgur.com and UploadScreenshot.com.

The aforementioned hotkeys can be configured and assigned to save, copy or instant upload instead of the opening the capture or image editor.

A history of screenshots taken using Shotty can also be seen.

The optional delay – to take the screenshot – can be changed here as well.

Shotty requires the .Net Framework 2.0 and should run on Windows 2000 and newer versions.

February 13, 2011