If you work exclusively on a Mac, you may not be familiar with TechSmith, one of the software vendors at MacWorld 2008. TechSmith makes products centered around screen capture and live audio / video capture.

TechSmith recently tested the response of Mac OS X users to its style of products with The Jing Project (http://www.jingproject.com/), which is still ongoing. The Jing Project released a small (8 MB) free program for both Windows and Mac OS X, the program is used to take screen captures and live audio video captures, much like TechSmith’s commercial software does. However, the Jing software is limited to PNG output for screen captures, and (basically non editable) SWF output for audio / video captures. The files can then be shared at TechSmith’s file sharing site, http://www.screencast.com.

TechSmith seems to be pleased with the response to Jing on Mac OS X thus far. Its press release states: “You talked. We listened. Every time we go to a show, people ask: ‘When are you coming out with Mac software?’ The answer is, as soon as possible! The Jing Project dipped a toe in the water. Now we’re jumping in with both feet. It’s still too early for release dates or beta builds-we’re just getting started. But that’s good for you...it means you can help shape the future of TechSmith Mac products. So please keep talking...we’re listening!” If you’d like to comment, you can do so via TechSmith’s suggestion web page: http://www.techsmith.com/company/contact/productfeedback.asp.

Although screen capture is something you can already do on both a Mac and Windows computer, TechSmith’s SnagIt screen capture program for Windows (and hopefully soon for Mac) has several advantages. SnagIt can capture scrolling windows, menus (including cascading menus), short videos, non editable text (such as a My Computer window, which it converts to editable text), and the images, audio, and video from websites.

Camtasia Studio for Windows (and again, hopefully soon for Mac) is TechSmith’s flagship product, it captures live audio and video, stores the audio and video using any codec available on your computer, and provides an editor for fine tuning your capture. You can also add pan and zoom effects, create title clips, embed closed captioning, embed Flash hotspots, quizzes, and surveys, and even export your video as a Podcast.

A lot of cross platform users, myself included, are hoping to see TechSmith’s products ported to OSX in the near future. You can add yourself to the Mac Update mailing list by visiting http://www.techsmith.com/macdevelopment.asp