Video Formats (Jing Pro Only)

Note: Jing Pro is no longer available for purchase. Learn more. Snagit now creates video in the MPEG-4 format. 

Jing Pro allows you to create MPEG-4 (also often referred to as MP4) videos in addition to SWF videos. Jing can only capture video in SWF format. What's the difference?

Here are the basics:

SWF is really good at a few things: It captures with pixel perfect precision, it works great when viewed on the Web, and it's royalty-free. But there are some disadvantages and this is where MPEG-4 comes in.

MPEG-4 is much better than SWF at capturing high-motion content. It's also editable. TechSmith's Camtasia Studio is one of the few programs that can edit Jing-produced SWFs. The MPEG-4 format can be edited in Camtasia Studio, iMovie, and many other editors. MPEG-4 is more flexible in terms of how users can view the video. Like SWF, MPEG-4 works great on the Web but it also plays in QuickTime and many other players. Finally, Jing's MPEG-4 format achieves real-time encoding using some powerful compression technology (H.264) that usually achieves a much smaller (file size) video than SWF.

In summary then, MP4 is better because:

• It's better at capturing motion.
• It's generally editable in third-party applications.
• It's usually a smaller file size.
• It's a standard video format--works on any number of sites that support video.
• It's playable outside of a web browser. In other words, people can just double-click the file and generally have a great experience. Double-clicking a SWF file is generally unsuccessful because it requires a browser to play it.

Learn more and see some examples.