Pocket PC - Screen Capture Software

I’ve been looking into screen capture software for the Pocket PC because I’m going to have to bit the bullet and write some help guides for a workshop I’m running. Well the world is full of them … and a big thank you to Graham at the Handheld Learning Forum (http://www.handheldlearning.co.uk) for a few pointers ;-)

In the end I’ve decided to use Vidya Smart Solutions - http://www.vidyasmart.com/ - which will cost about US$10.00. I’m going for a commercial option as opposed to a freeware version due to the option to save as a JPEG, allow multiple / automated captures to create animations / flash movies etc., Also, given the relatively small outlay it will be interesting to see about how the software develops over time, and I tend to think once you’ve bought it tends to focus the mind.

Well, the outcome is … it is very easy to use, and does a good job in terms of capture, transfer to the PC, inclusion in Word / PDFs and printing.

In terms of settings I went for the following (note you need to access Capture > preferences for the settings).

• Capture button – it lets you select from any of the hard buttons.
• Capture indication – I opted for the message box as opposed to the sound because it gave more control.
• Filename prefix – it is important to set this to an appropriate name so you can identify the images later. It will then add a numerical sequence afterwards. I suppose that it would be logical to use the prefix of the guide number, or the software you are capturing.
• Format – bitmap, I decided that this would be better quality given how the image will be finally used, i.e., capture at the highest quality / lowest compression in the first instance. In terms of file size they are small, i.e., a bitmap screen capture was about 225K
• Folder – yes, set up a new folder, otherwise it’s find the file time ;-)

The next stage is the time consuming part … write the guides ;-(

links: digg this    del.icio.us    technorati    reddit