I am sure most of you have seen the videos that I have begun to incorporate in my reviews; for those videos I used a video capture tool called Debut. For the longest time Debut has been my favorite video capture tool - it is simple to use and gets the job done. However recently I was introduced to a different software called BB FlashBack (thanks Junn). BB FlashBack is a professional video capture/screen recording tool like Debut; however I found BB FlashBack to be very nice and it is quickly replacing Debut as my video capture tool of choice. So I thought I should share the wealth :D
A little background before I delve into why I find BB FlashBack to be a very nice video capture tool: BB FlashBack comes in three versions - Express, Standard and Pro. Express is the free version, Standard costs $89 and Pro costs $225. True BB FlashBack Express is a bit stripped down when compared to Standard or Pro but it still has very nice features and is extremely easy to use. The version that is the topic of this post is Express.
So why exactly have I taken a liking to BB FlashBack Express? Because with BB FlashBack Express you can:
- Record a video by capturing the whole screen, choose a specific window or select a custom region with a rectangle tool (if you have multiple monitors BBFlashBack should detect them and allow you to choose which monitor to record).
- Record your webcam while recording your screen/specific window/custom region and embed the webcam recording into your video.
- Choose to either record sound from your microphone or sound from your speakers (the sound you would here from your speakers).
- Set a "mouse marker" so people viewing your video can follow your mouse and know when you click with your mouse.
- Temporarily hide your desktop icons (they return after you are done recording).
- Temporarily change your desktop wallpaper to a simple black (it changes back after you are done recording).
- Export your video as either a FLV, SWF or AVI video.
- Export only a specific range of frames.
- Upload your video directly onto YouTube.com, Blip.tv, Coggno.com, Revver.com, Viddler.com, an FTP server or a location on your LAN.
- Save an individual frame of a video as a BMP image file.
- Assign hotkey to start recording, stop recording, pause recording and a few other things.
Here is a quick video created by the developer to demonstrate how to record videos with BB FlashBack:
To view the video click above. If you have JavaScript disabled you will not be able to view the video by clicking above so instead click here.
The video is actually of BBFlashBack Professional so towards the end of the tutorial you will see it mention how you can "edit videos" with BBFlashBack. In Express the video editing features are disabled so ignore the part of the video that talks about video editing; everything before the part where the video editing is mentioned still applies though.
In Express after you record a video and open it in BBFlashBack Player you won't be able to edit a video but you can:
- View/playback the video.
- Export the video as FLV, SWF or AVI ("File" -> "Export").
- When exporting, you can choose to omit frames from your video. For example, if the last 20 frames of your video were garbage (i.e. not related to the content of your video), you can choose to omit the last 20 frames of your video when you export it.
- Upload the video onto YouTube.com, Blip.tv, Coggno.com, Revver.com, Viddler.com, an FTP server or a location on your LAN ("File" -> "Upload").
- Save an individual frame of a video as a BMP image file ("File" -> "Save Frame...").
- Enable/disable the mouse marker ("Effects" -> "Highlight cursor").
- If you set it to record your webcam you can move around the webcam recording (click + drag) or remove the webcam recording (double click on the webcam video).
Overall, all things considered, BBFlashBack Express is an excellent video capturing software. Yes it has a few annoyances such as
- Only being able to export as FLV, SWF or AVI videos (use FormatFactory if you need to convert the videos to any other format).
- Having to register to attain a license key (registration is free).
- By default (I can't remember telling it to do this) BB FlashBack Express is set to "send back anonymous statistics" to the developer. I turned it off (you can leave it on if you want but just be aware this is happening). You can turn it off by opening BB FlashBack Player, going to "Tools" -> "Player Options" -> "Update". Uncheck "Help us improve...".
But it is still a great free video capture tool. If you agree with me you can download B
BFlashBack Express from the following link:
Download BBFlashBack Express [Direct download link here]
***You do not have to enter your email in order to download BBFlashBack Express
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Andrew
It is a pity video editing feature is disabled in that free version, I was quite impressed while watching tutorial. Anyway gonna download and give it a go, and thanks man for the reveiw.
MCHAL
Try Demoforge! It’s also free and captures and produces “demo” movies much smaller and dynamic than Macromedia Flash! It can be found here:
http://demoforge.com/
All the best from bRaZiL
David Roper
Where has this program been all my life? (insert cute phrase here)
Seriously, this is the best piece of software for Free I have seen in a decade of looking. If one gets to use it much, it certainly would cause the other versions to be purchased.
Thanks so much, as usual. 6 stars today.
Ashraf
MCHAL,
How is Demoforge free? This is what I see on their website:
MCHAL
Hi, Ashraf:
I am so much sorry for this. I went back there and I see now it’s not anymore. However, I can tell for sure it used to be! Well, and the price is too high really… I posted it here because, although the captured animations cannot be edited as in BBFlash Back, they are impressively small!
Sorry for kind of being a bit off-topic, but, talking about small animes, have you ever heard about SCREAM? It’s an animation program that produces very tiny animes WITH SOUND and that are way smaller (I mean MUCH SMALLER indeed!) that those produced within the Macromedia Flash environment! Unfortunately, the program only run on Win95/8 machines and its dev is stopped. You can find it here if interested:
http://www.deelong.com/Scream/GetScream.htm (a pity really it’s not developed anymore – it could sure beat Macromedia Flash hands down if its dev had continued to these days)
Back to capture stuff. Certainly you’ve known about Wink already? If not, here it is where it’s available from: http://www.debugmode.com/wink/
Also, try this: http://mcdalmnit.googlepages.com/ZDSoftScreenRecorder.7z (DON’T PUBLISH THIS PARTICULAR download LINK, please!- it used to be free, but it seems it’s not anymore – IT OUTPUTS VERY SMALL PROPRIETARY CAPTURE STUFF, SMALLER THAN FLASH FILES!)
Again, sorry and my kind regards,
MCHAL
Jon
Lol. Maybe, MCHAL just read “FREE Download” and forgot to keep reading? Haha. Great job as always Ashraf!
jackson
I noticed you steal other ppl’s ideas (mine too), the make it
look like it was your idea. Not good.
Ashraf
Jackson,
First of all you can’t steal “knowledge” (knowledge such as knowing about a software product). Knowledge is a commodity freely available and spread via person to person.
Secondly, all my work is 100% original; however sometimes the source/inspiration for my article may be a third party in which case I always source/credit.
Thirdly, when did I “steal your idea”?
Hope that clears up any misconceptions.
AlexSJ
I have been using Democreator from Wondershare ever since it was first offered on GOTD, which is priced at $100. However after a recent re-format I don’t have it on all pc’s, so this freeby comes in handy. Thanks!
Rob
Can it save as other than SWF ?
or
(if the answer is only SWF)
Is there a free SWF player that could be used to play the files we create ?
Ashraf
@Rob: It can save as AVI or FLV also. As for SWF player try http://download.cnet.com/Flash-Movie-Player/3000-2139_4-10423716.html?tag=mncol.
Someguy
Thank you for this review. I recently reinstalled windows and I forget about this. Thank you again.
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Thamza
Greetings Ashraf. I have a TV Card/Tuner in my PC, and sometimes I want to record a short movie or soccer match playing on the TV, can this software get the job done? I tried WinAvi Video Capture which I got from here http://for-free-on-internet.com/2009/10/winavi-video-capture-a-permanent-giveaway-from-the-well-known-developer/. It does do the job except for that there is no sound during playback.