Tip 1: Introduction to iShowU V6

In this article:

1. Lets record something!
2. The main window(s)
3. Selecting what to record
4. The canvas (and why it's important)
   
   

This intro covers your first steps in iShowU V6.

We begin by making a quick recording of the whole screen (just to see it in action) and then take you through a few quick concepts.

1. Record something, now!

Out of the box, iShowU V6 will show it's simple interface. Scroll down a little ways for a picture of that.

1. Press the big red button! (start a recording)
2. Wait for the countdown, count to 10, and then goto the Menu bar (where's there is a timer showing), and choose "Stop recording" (or press CMD-Shift-2)

Congratulations! you've made your first screen recording.

You've recorded the full screen, at 60fps, using HEVC, to a movie file!

By default, these can be found in your home folder, Movies, iShowU V6.

Or; click the "recent recordings" button on the top right (looks like a series of horizontal lines)

2. The main window(s)

iShowU V6 has two UI's. They are called simple and pro.

• Simple: gives you a simpler UI, where everything is on one page. The idea is you tell iShowU what you want (microphone, app audio, what to record) and just hit "go" (the big red button).
• Pro: Full control. Exposes layers, lets you compose whatever you like. 

Both interfaces use the same recording engine underneath. You're just looking at a different "skin" on top of it all.

If all you need is simple screen or area recording, then simple mode is perfectly fine. You can always come back later to pro mode as you get more familiar with the software.

3. Selecting what to record

You recorded the screen in the first step.

Lets record an area, instead.

1. Click the 'crop' button
   
2. Now choose some area on the screen. I'm going to record just the "caramel sauce" area from the browser (click + drag / reposition, the selection rectangle)
3. Notice how the app now tells you what the area is (735x954).

Now, when you press record, you'll get just the area you selected.

Lets recap what crop has done:

1. Capturing from the full screen (see: Display to Record)
2. Select an area of your choice
3. Set the canvas size to 1456x1908 (2x the size of the selected area, because it's a retina display)

4. The canvas (and why it's important)

This brings us to the canvas, which is a new idea in iShowU V6.  

The canvas is an important idea to get your head around in V6, so re-read/listen to this a couple of times to make sure it's stuck in your head!

All previous iShowU products output a video which was of size "whatever you selected".  If you selected an area, say, 780x450, then that was the size of the video that was output.

V6 is different: It has a canvas onto which whatever is captured is painted.  That canvas has a size (normally the size of the display being captured). 

1. That size is the size of the output movie
2. That size has nothing to do with the size of what you're capturing.

Note: in simple mode, iShowU takes care to change the canvas for you, so the details are mostly transparent.

So: why does it exist? "it doesn't seem to be helping me" I hear you cry.  It exists so that layer based capture makes sense.   With layer based capture, you could have a screen, with a camera, and a logo (see the above orange pic of me).  Where do you paint all these things?  the answer: onto a canvas.

In the picture above, I've a canvas of a screen, with a logo positioned on the bottom left, and my camera shot on the bottom right. 

There'll be an entire tutorial on this later - but right now, all you need to be aware of is this:

• The output video size is set by the size of the canvas, not the size of the thing/area your recording
• In simple mode (crop) - the canvas gets set to the exact size of your crop area