MacOnMacs: Recording Your Video iChats

I just did the first of a series of MacOnMac interviews (more on this in a future post) via iSight tonight, so I thought I'd share how you can easily record your Video iChats.

My first attempts were using SnapzPro X, which, although it's a great program for still and movie screen captures, simply wasn't functional for recording a video iChat. It seemed like there was just too much processing going on, and it was impossible to get high quality sound and video even after fooling around with the settings for a while.

I then turned to eCamm's ConferenceRecorder ($14.95US, but there's a free trial). eCamm has a lot of great software and this is no exception. At the highest quality settings, I recorded an 8 minute 2-way video chat with an end file size of less than 50MB and the results were impressive. Conference Recorder captured the audio and video pretty much as I experienced it in the chat, and did so with just the push of a button. Although I'm not crazy about the faux-VCR interface, the functionality is all there. You can specify Image Size, Frame Rate, Video Quality, and Audio Quality in the settings, and it can also record Audio Only if you're looking to save an audio chat. It even lets you record yourself in your "preview" window, in case you want a simple way to capture video directly from your iSight (or other USB web cam using eCamm's iChatUSBCam, which I have yet to try - BTW, QuickTime Pro also gives video capture functionality by selecting File->New Movie Recording).

If you want to record your video iChats, I would look no further than Conference Recorder - great quality and well worth the $15 price tag!