I upgraded to Mac screencasting tool Screenflow 2.0. If you're going to upgrade or buy it anew, use coupon code CPN4942505165 (thanx RetailMeNot!) to save $10. So for the $29 – $10 = $19 upgrade cost I paid, I feel it's fair, and here's why:
Summary
Some cool new stuff. But lots of missed opportunities to be awesome.
What's sad?
It may be a major point revision, but it feels more like a .5 upgrade which it accurately reflects, because there's not enough heavyweight features to make you refresh your workflow in an amazing way.
A number of basic features which would've heavily benefited from polish are unchanged. For example, a new YouTube upload has been added which I haven't tried yet, and that's a cool idea because I often upload to YT. But, when trying to upload to YT with a clip longer than 10 minutes, it pops up an error saying I can't, despite the fact some older accounts can. A minority, perhaps, but worth consideration. It shouldn't assume.
Furthermore, there's still no option to save custom presets, which is a huge disappointment for me, as I make several different types of videos ranging from recording company meetings where smooth motion isn't a requirement, to kinetic video tutorials where fidelity matters. I'd rather not have to hand-type my settings every time I want to change; I suggested this months ago and received acknowledgment but I'm sad it's still not in there. Meanwhile, other tools like iShowU HD do have it.
Furtherfurthermore, there's a new Ducking audio feature which seems promising at first glance, but I couldn't get Ducking to work elegantly. It's just too darn uppity about background hiss and noise and keeps the audio ducked instead of letting go when it needs to. I should be able to set a sensitivity threshold. So, not a well-implemented thing.
The Effects still lack one of the most basic of all, a decent limiter (!). Asked before. A limiter is, in some ways, the equivalent to an audio recorder what an airbag is to a car. The screencast app that comes closest to this is Camtasia for Windows' dynamic adjustment — the Mac version has no such thing. Strange I see so many tips for getting better audio in screencasts, yet not more attention paid to boosting the loudness of your voice sans clipping. Heck, GarageBand has a limiter. Apple knows where it's at. My reasonable dream would be said aforementioned limiter + noise gate and reduction. I can achieve this with my sophisticated plugin chain in other apps like Ableton Live and Sony Vegas, but most people won't bother, they want a simple way, and this is why a limiter for the laypeople is worth implementing.
Also thumbs-down, adjusting transitions feels really fiddly. Why can't I right-click and specify a transition be exactly 1 second? Why doesn't the Transitions Inspector, of all things, let me set that? And why aren't the previews in the TI animated? The transitions do look quite nice. But they're too basic and without essential parameters — for instance, page curl always happens from the top-left corner, which is going to be tough for someone making a book-like presentation. I don't expect a full NLE, but these are fundamental. Guess I'm spoiled by my NewBlueFX.
There's still no intuitive way to setup clip templates, which makes it a pain to apply text styles from one document onto another. There's a "Paste clips" which works somewhat towards the solution within a project, but I'd prefer a dropdown I can select batches of settings from. It'd be highly practical to have more template support overall: I'm tired of manually setting "Pointer Zoom" to 200% with "Click Effect" to "Radar" for one project after another.
Still no way to import one project's media into another without this un-Mac-like workaround? A letdown and obvious opportunity to improve. File > Add Additional Recording almost sounds like it does that, but no, like the older version, it means make a new screen recording, not bring in an existing one. Insert > Choose can't do it, either.
Despite what appeared to be extensive community beta testing, I'm surprised a number of weird, obvious bugs made it through. For instance, the "?" help button in Preferences is broken, leading to "Help Viewer cannot open this content." It's also possible to leave the Transitions Inspector in a stuck state where no document is open. I asked too late to be a beta tester, otherwise I would've gladly helped. 
What's glad!
New editing features stand out. I already made use of speeding a clip up, and putting in still pictures — at last! — is good. (Screenflow has this weird dichotomy of doing some basic things incredibly right, and neglecting others.)
Some little UI touches are really pleasant, like showing the length of a clip in seconds when you drag its edges and redesigning the canvas to not be so damned fiddly about being dragged around. (That was a horrible usability flaw in 1.5.x, because I had to keep undoing all those unwanted moves.) And, the Hide Desktop command is a subtle gem. Also, there's a clip context menu which is a smart notion — but unlike Camtasia Mac, you can't simply right-click the canvas and crop with a single click. Screenflow 2.0 retains the old "Snap to Front Window" which requires four-edge dragging each time. Sigh.
Being able to apply Saturation, Brightness, and Contrast is highly useful, especially for webcam clips. But in addition to Saturation, a Vibrance mode like Photoshop which affects skin tones less — where you can tweak it up and you don't turn into a carrot-person — would be extremely practical.
{ 9 comments… read them below or add one }
I upgraded to 2.0 a out three hours after you mentioned that promo code. It said it was expired. I used a 10% off coupon instead which is easily found (don't have it to hand). It seems they didn't intend the $10 coupon to be used for the upgrade and noticed it being used.
^ Thanks Anthony, sucks to hear that; the 10% is listed on http://www.retailmenot.com/view/flip4mac.com . What are your experiences with Screenflow 2.0 so far?
I'm coming from the vantage of a more demanding power user because I've used Screenflow 1.x extensively.
Now I'm back on the Mac I can confirm the coupon I used is indeed the one you linked to there: IBC2009 for 10% off. Not as good as $10 off but better than nothing.
I'm certainly no power user but in my brief play yesterday I agree it feels like a 0.5 update. I don't think the upgrade fee was too unreasonable though. $30 fee for a video app isn't too bad. Had it been $50 I'd feel a bit cheated so they were wise to realise the extras offered over v1.0 isnt worth that much.
I like the 3d transitions. Took me a while to figure out how to get them to work. But as I said I'm a novice. To test it out I split a clip, overlapped them slightly, added an end transition to the first and a start transition to the second (both using the same transition effect). I wonder if there's a short hand way of doing this where you only select the transition effect once.
In your review you mentioned the Transitions Inspector doesnt have animated previews. It does on mine. If I hover my cursor over one and leave it there for a couple of seconds it shows a sample animation. It's not a live preview though, so if that's what you meant then yea that would have been nice.
My main request for 2.0 was better text. Less fiddly lower thirds, that kinda thing. Maybe even a scrolling credits feature too. I asked them and they acknowledged it but it seems it didnt make it into 2.0.
Oh and one other minor thing, unless I'm missing something, is if I Detach Audio it would be nice to be able to merge the video/audio back together again.
Thanks for the review.
Thanx for your experiences! I should've clarified — yes, I was referring to the Transitions Inspector showing your actual footage, live. (Prerendered A/B, like Sony Vegas does, is better than nothing, but still feels primitive.) I don't know what underlying graphics tech is used, but I've seen impressive realtime previews via OpenGL in other Mac apps like Kinemac.
Rob @ Macworld also wants a better titler. Screencast tools like this fall into an intriguing space between basic capture-and-edit like QuickTime X's built-in and full-fledged NLEs, so I wouldn't want to see a clutterage of post-production features, but more of the basics should be acknowledged.
Awesoomedood says: "My reasonable dream would be said aforementioned limiter + noise gate and reduction."
The one really important 'feature' you left-out that is incredibly lacking in most applications that can and do include audio recording is: "compressor."
The compressor is the absolutely most important of all of those tools (in my own opinion) – I can deal with some clipping. I can deal with a little hiss (provided the predominant sound is loud enough.) But what I can't stand are recordings where the volume level is so radical where you just can't hear a thing unless you turn it up, then in a moment another part of the audio wake's-up the entire block.
Okay for movies and some genres and types of music, but as a rule a compressor is a must-have.
I always compress all my sound (sound design or portions of video) down to a -12db base with a -6db peak and a valley of -14 maximum, even though Final Cut Studio has a default clipping level set to +10, I drop it to zero for a cleaner interface benchmark I don't have to watch so carefully (the VU meters). This set-up keeps things nice and level and still allow the human ear to recognize that subtle nuance of audio volume differences.
Muahahahah!
Oh and I plunked the $30 for the ScreenFlow upgrade also. I mean… it's $30. LOL
@Ari Oh yeah, I partially left that out because I know Camtasia Windows already has a fine compressor. You make a very compelling case. Heck, Screenflow, just give us AU & VST plugins! That's not too much to ask for entry-level editing, if the likes of Audio Hijack is anything to go by.
Here's one thing not mentioned in your review. And it's the biggest reason I updated to version 2.0. The "pause recording" feature. It's fantastic. Saves me a tremendous amount of otherwise tedious editing. I can record, then stop and think what I want to do next, then continue the recording, etc. etc. Shows up in ScreenFlow as one continuous recording file. For me, this feature alone is well worth the 30 bucks.
(By the way, none of the discount coupons on "RetailMeNot!" worked.)
@Don King You have a delightful name. Thanx for calling that out.
Anyone have an updated coupon code for Screenflow?