[image title=”blocks_image_2_1″ size=”medium” id=”430″ align=”left” linkto=”[site_url]/wp-content/uploads/2008/09/blocks_image_2_1.png” ]Over the years at fxguide and simply in my professional life, I really enjoyed seeking out information and educating myself about visual effects and motion graphics design. I guess that’s one of the things about being so into what one does for a living — finding that kind of research fun.

But I have to say, the scope of things I track has broadened considerably in the years since we started fxphd. While I’m still doing production in vfx and graphics, I’ve added a whole new range of subjects related to the web and desktop to my daily bookmarks folder. How to make a site more Google friendly, php programming, web site design, technology behind torrents, and more. One example is screen capture software…..

I now get interested when I see new products such as iShowUHD Pro, a new version of Shiny White Box’s screen capture software, which was recently released. We put out hours of material a week at fxphd, and I handle making sure it all goes smoothly for our profs located around the world — we simply can’t be using software that is buggy or dodgy. It looks to be a response to Screenflow, which on first glance is a very cool screen capture app for OSX — but for our purposes it fell apart under heavy CPU use. When we’re recording classes in After Effects, Nuke, or other apps — we obviously can’t use a program that doesn’t work when doing renders.

I actually had a great conversation at IBC with the folks from Telestream about Screenflow. They recently purchased the program from Vara Software — and are the folks who bring us Flip 4 Mac (a must have) and are really interested in making it better…maybe I’ll give it a second shot when I have a chance.