Powtoon is an online video creation platform for making engaging short videos and presentations, from the company of the same name in London.
$89
per month
ScreenFlow
Score 8.0 out of 10
N/A
Telestream in Nevada City offers ScreenFlow, a video editing and screen recording application for Mac boasting a range of editing tools, graphics and effects, and easy video sharing.
Powtoon is a very capable suite of tools that help a developer create training videos that look way better than they should. I've used it to create fun, attention-getting commercials for new topics, I've used it to enhance what would otherwise be boring step-by-step tutorials, and I've used it to create all manner of "Explainer videos" for all kinds of topics - this is where it EXCELS! In my opinion, its biggest limitations are limits on imported video (max of 90 seconds), which mean that you have to do a lot of extra work to break up and import anything of substantive length. And because it presents your personal library of imported images and audio ONLY sequentially, it's VERY LIMITED in the re-usability of those assets - it's way faster to just import a new instance of an image and audio than to try to find it in your library.
When training others to use a software application, I find this is amazingly helpful to accomplish using screenflow. The application allows me to video what I am doing in the application while explaining it in details. There are other uses of course, one that I found was to capture myself talking through students' research papers/thesis and explain where changes need to be made. Of course, MS Word has the tracking changes option and a professor can go through sentence by sentence - the downfall of this is that students #1 - do not always understand what is being suggested as we all cut back on words when typed out versus spoken. #2 - students do not always read the added comments thoroughly. Viewers watch the video and listen to a voice quicker than reading remarks. The viewing and voice, in my opinion, are the greatest part of the end product provided to viewers. This tool can assist anyone's work that trains others...be it industry or educational fields.
Screenflow easily records your desktop video and/or audio, with functionality that works even across multi-monitor setups.
The program has really incredible features for basic cutting and editing of the capture within screenflow once it is done.
The program has an impressive amount of options for expecting different formats of video and audio. I'm most impressed by the lossless audio and uncompressed video formats that give the best possible quality for importing into video projects.
Comparing it to Vyond, it is more time consuming to make videos. The timeline could be easier to understand.
They recently started upcharging to use some scenes. This has made updating some of my videos challenging as the scenes that were included as part of my plan are now an upgrade to use.
They don't have a voice over option. I have actually taken some of the videos out of the platform over to Vyond to add voiceover.
Some items they have introduced, like turning a powerpoint into a video really don't work.
Be able to open working projects in other editing software like Premiere. In cases that editors want that flexibility or someone doesn't have access to ScreenFlow but needs to work on projects that use it
Only available for Macs. Some of our teachers have PC and prefer to work on that or used to it. Only reason we switched to another screen recording application
I have never needed the support feature. As I mentioned, everything was intuitive to me however I have taught myself Adobe, Final Cut and iMovie so most of these programs became intuitive.
It works well and fits into my workflow. The tools are much easier and straightforward to work with. Other video editing tools like Adobe Premier or Final Cut Pro are simply too complicated for this type of task.
Powtoon has the advantage over traditional video editing software in terms of the library of characters and elements that can be easily dragged and dropped onto the canvas. Powtoon is easier to use and has a more intuitive user interface than Vyond.
We looked at things like Loom and all those other screen recorders, but Screenflow is just so much more powerful. It can do everything we want it to and more, even things like Chroma Key (green screen), text on video, transitions, all that. It's a pretty great software for making videos.
We don't have to spend money on traveling to a location to do an actual live shoot.
I'm spending less time on hand animating videos.
We used these to create teaser videos for our professional development offerings. I believe because of the captivating graphics, we had a lot more people driven to our site.
