BoinxTV lets you capture Skype, iChat for video interviews

06.04.2009
Boinx Software on Thursday announced the release of 1.2, a new version of its live video production software for Mac OS X. It costs $500; updates are free for registered users.

(Image Caption: BoinxTV turns your Mac into a live TV production studio.) BoinxTV turns the Mac into a live television production studio. Created jointly by Boinx Software and TheCodingMonkeys, BoinxTV helps users create video productions that can be captured to disk, streamed to the Internet or broadcast. It's suitable for studio shows, podcasts, sports events, concerts, sermons, lectures and seminars.

BoinxTV 1.2 adds a new Screen Source feature that lets you grab arbitrary screen regions and use them as sources in any layer. This can help users capture Skype or iChat video conversations, screencasts and opened documents directly from the screen. A new widescreen template has been added which takes advantage of new features in version 1.2.

Also new are additional and enhanced layers that can be combined and customized to create your own unique show design. "Twitter" displays a configurable Twitter feed in real-time; "News Crawl" sports a configurable transition and more display options; several text layers now can display configurable backgrounds and drop shadows; the "Sidebar" layer can display its contents inside a shape defined by a mask and overlay; "Computer Circuits" is a new 3D background layer featuring a rotating circuit board; a "Waving Flag" layer displays a waving flag (in the colors of G8 countries); and "world Time" shows the world map with patterns of day and night.

BoinxTV 1.2 also gains a "refined and improved" user interface, according to the developer. Jog Wheels are a new control element; images, movies, sound clips and compositions can be previewed via QuickLook in the Source repository; and Hotkey shortcuts can be defined for specific settings to trigger.

Improvements have also been made to chroma keying, and BoinxTV 1.2 adds support for Elgato's new Turbo.264 HD, a hardware-based H.264 video encoder.