Balesio ALLCapture 2

Introduction
About ALLCapture 2
Download and Installation
Using ALLCapture 2
Pricing and Support
Conclusion

Introduction

Capture of onscreen activity is a growing phenomenon, what with the burgeoning of video sharing sites like YouTube. No longer is it only the techies who record onscreen activities to make training sessions. Now anyone can create and distribute these captured videos.

Our review product: ALLCapture 2 makes recording and output of such videos even easier.

About ALLCapture 2

ALLCapture 2 is from Balesio, a company based in Germany that also creates PPTMinimizer, Turbodemo, etc. You can learn more about these products, and download a trial version of ALLCapture 2 here.

ALLCapture 2 is the newest version, the older version was reviewed here.

The new features are:

• Memory Space: The new Memory Manager allows for hours of video capturing by storing on the hard drive or other storage media.
• Audio/Sound: Audio recording can be done directly from the sound card or a microphone, with better recording quality. Sound can also be easily recorded to the video during playback. Background music can be added, edited or removed directly in ALLCapture 2.
• Recording: A revamped interface and timeline and improved frame logic for memory saving video capture.
• Editing: Use more monitors
• Customize the AllCapture editor.
• Multiple Languages: The application is now available in English, French and German.

My contact at Balesio for this review was Sophia Taoutaou. Thank you, Sophia.

Download and Installation

Download the installer, run the setup routine, and follow the instructions. You'll end up with a ALLCapture 2 program group in your Windows Start menu (see Figure 1 below).

Figure 1: ALLCapture 2 Start menu Group

Using ALLCapture 2

Follow this steps to use ALLCapture 2:

1. Launch the application you wish to capture.
2. Go to your Windows Start menu and choose All Programs 2 | ALLCapture 2 (see Figure 1 above).
3. This opens ALLCapture 2 interface as shown in Figure 2.
4. 
   Figure 2: ALLCapture 2 Interface
5. Click on the New Project button as shown in Figure 2, above.
4. This opens Recording Options dialog box, as shown in Figure 3.
5. 
   Figure 3: Recording Options
6. Here you can adjust recording properties like capture dimensions, frame rate, sound quality, mouse, limits, etc. Make changes/selection as required, and click OK to save the settings.
5. Depending upon the dimensions you have selected, the captured area is then previewed inside a red rectangle, as shown in Figure 4. Adjust the dimensions further if required and click Record button within the red rectangle. ALLCapture 2 will now record the content and the activities of the screen within the red rectangle.
6. 
   Figure 4: Capturing onscreen activity
7. Click on the icon in the system tray to end the capture session.
6. The recorded content will appear within the ALLCapture 2 program, ready for editing or generating to an output format (see Figure 5).
7. 
   Figure 5: ALLCapture 2 editing environment
7. Once done with the edits, save the project and and export using the File | Export option, as shown in Figure 7.
8. 
   Figure 7: Export options
9. Export options available are:
10. SWF (.swf): Macromedia Flash file.
    EXE (.exe): Executable Demo
    ASF: Windows Media Player Format
    MPEG: for DVD, SVCD, VCD.

Pricing and Support

ALLCapture 2 costs $129 for a single user license, and is available as a multiple user license product as well.

Support is through email, online FAQ, phone, and web tutorials.

Conclusion

For what it does, ALLCapture is an efficient platform that enables you to record, edit, and output captured onscreen activities. Support is good and the product is often updated.