UPDATE 01/26/2009: TechSmith technical support suggested that the problem had to do with my Mac running at Thousands, rather than Millions, of colors. I made the change and sure enough, Jing is working smooth. In fact, since I’m running Quicktime 7.5.5, the MP4 export is working great. I’m back in business with Jing Pro!! Many thanks to the TechSmith folks since I was working under a deadline for a work project!!

Read related entry on 01/27/2009

OLD ENTRY:
This image shown above appears when recording on Mac OS X Tiger, Quicktime 7.6 Pro, fully updated, running the latest version of Jing and registered for Pro version.

When I read that the TechSmith folks had finally gotten around to enabling MP4 exporting of screen captures, I was thrilled. I tried recording several video walkthroughs, and success! So, I paid my $14.95 for a year of Jing Pro.

Now that I’m attending the TASA MidWinters’ Conference, I sat down on a Sunday evening to record some video walkthroughs for a brand new community blog at work. Unfortunately, it doesn’t matter whether I record to SWF or MP4, I simply get a black box (like the one above). Audio records flawlessly but video is non-existent. I’ve adjusted my settings on Jing Pro to record to SWF, as suggested in this video and reflected in a screenshot of my settings below, but no luck….

Apparently, I’m not the only one but that doesn’t ease the pain…

I’m starting to think I better go back to iShowU or maybe the $69 Snapz Pro. Disappointed.

Any ideas? In the meantime, I’ve submitted my question to Technical support:

The reference number for your question is ‘090125-000044’.You should receive a response by email from our support department within the next business day

Update (later the same evening): I’ve completely removed Quicktime 7.6 from my Mac OS X Tiger install and I’m re-installing 7.3 using this link (49.3 megs). I’m hoping that will enable me to get things done. Found the link here in this forum.

Update #2 (even later that night): To install the Quicktime 7.3, I had to use a program called Pacifist. Here’s what success looks like on the QT 7.3 install:

Although the Quicktime 7.3 installer balked at installation, with Pacifist, I was able to force the install. Great! Here’s a little about the program:

Pacifist 2.5.2 is a shareware application that opens Mac OS X .pkg package files, .dmg disk images, and .zip, .tar, .tar.gz, .tar.bz2, and .xar file archives and allows you to extract individual files and folders out of them. This is useful, for instance, if an application which is installed by the operating system becomes damaged and needs to be reinstalled without the hassle of reinstalling all of Mac OS X. Pacifist is also able to verify existing installations and find missing or altered files*, and Pacifist can also examine the kernel extensions installed in your system to let you see what installer installed them, and whether the installer was made by Apple or a third-party.

Pacifist is compatible with Mac OS X 10.3 or higher, including Mac OS X 10.5 “Leopard”. It is also compiled as a Universal Binary for maximum performance on both PowerPC and Intel-based Macs.

The only question that remains is, will Jing Pro work?

Update #3: And the answer is, “No.” It requires 7.55 version of Quicktime. Sigh. So, I’m downloading Quicktime 7.5.5 for OS X Tiger. Let’s see what happens after that finally comes down.

Nope, now Jing runs but still back to square 1. Forget it until Apple fixes the Quicktime issue or Jing figures out how to adjust to the Quicktime issue. What a waste.

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Everything posted on Miguel Guhlin’s blogs/wikis are his personal opinion and do not necessarily represent the views of his employer(s) or its clients. Read Full Disclosure