QuickTime is much more than a player Of video. It is also used to edit video. Its reason for being is to accompany the operating system of your Mac since it made its first appearance in the 90’s with System 6. Since then, QuickTime has gone through several stages. And now it acts as playerformat converter, video editor and you can even record the screen of your Mac, iPhone and/or iPad.
Currently, QuickTime has the usual functions in a media player. To begin with, admit the common formats, such as MP3, AVI, MP4, MOV, WAV and many others, except MKV or OGG. In addition, it allows you to control playback, speed up or slow down a video, advance image by image or know the technical information of a video. But QuickTime is so much more.
So whether or not you use QuickTime or even if you use VLC Media Player, we propose a review of the featured features of the Apple media player. One way to avoid having to install third-party applications for something that QuickTime can do, which comes installed by default.
Record your Mac screen
One of the most powerful innovations QuickTime introduced years ago was the ability to make recording functions. That is, in addition to playing video, you can create it directly. First of all, you can record audio and/or video directly from QuickTime. You can use your Mac’s built-in microphone, camera, or external microphones or cameras to do this. If you want to record audio and/or video with QuickTime, just go to Archive or use keyboard shortcuts Option + Command + N (to record video) or Shift + Command + N (to record audio).
But there is another novelty. You can also record your Mac screen. Also from File > New Screen Recording or with the keyboard shortcut Control + Command + N. You will then see an intermediate screen that allows you to customize the recording. You can record your entire screen, just an open window, or a custom screen snippet.
You can also decide where to save the videos with recordings, if you want a countdown before starting the recording (none, 5 seconds or 10 seconds), if you will also record the microphone audio, and finally if you want to include the mouse cursor.
Record your iPhone
Related to the previous function of QuickTime, the latest version allows interact with your iPhone or iPad to record a video of what you’re doing. And then you can edit that video. A way to record yourself playing on your device or using a mobile app. You just need to connect your iPhone or iPad to Mac via USB cable and open QuickTime.
Once connected by cable, in QuickTime we are going to File > New Video Recording. By default, the video source chosen is the built-in camera on your Mac. But from the Options drop-down menu we are going to make several changes. In Camera we will mark the iPhone or iPad that we have connected. In Microphone we can do the same or use another microphone. It will depend on what audio you want to capture. Finally, we can choose two recording qualities: high and maximum. Both offer H.264 video. The difference is in the audio quality.
Otherwise, recording works by clicking on the Red button. You can pause and/or stop the recording at any time. And, when finished, you can save a video of what was recorded from File > Save.
edit a video
In addition to being a video player and recording the screen of your devices, QuickTime acts as video editor. It does not offer as much diversity of functions as final cut either Premierebut it is used to perform the usual editing tasks without installing additional applications.
With QuickTime you can split a video across multiple videos or clips, remove video fragments, reorder those fragments, combine multiple clips, extract audio and/or video, and finally rotate or flip a video. Come on, not bad for a “simple” player.
To view clips or excerpts from a video, simply open a video in QuickTime and then go to View > Show Clips or with the shortcut Command + E. Thus, you will see a timeline with thumbnails of the video. You can place the playback cursor where you want and apply the scissors. From Edit > Split Clip or with the shortcut Command + Y.
With these cuts you can divide the video into fragments. With the mouse or trackpad you can drag and drop the fragments in the desired order or delete them directly with the key Erase. If what you want is shorten the video removing the beginning or the end, you can do it from Edit > Clip (or with the keys Command + T). A yellow selector or crop handle will appear that you can make larger or smaller by dragging the sides.
If you want to combine clips from multiple videos, open them at the same time in QuickTime and activate the option show clips (Command + E). Then you can cut, delete and/or select specific fragments or clips. Once selected, we do a classic copy and paste. Command + C to copy the original clip and, in the destination video, we place the playhead where we want and press Command + V to stick it.
Plus functions useful for edit video with quicktime. When opening a video, from Edition we can remove the video or audio from a file so we can keep the rest. To add audio and/or video we will need an external application. Finally, for rotate or flip videoswe activate the function show clips (Command + E) and then in Editionwe select rotate left (Shift + Command + L), rotate right (Shift + Command + R), flip horizontal (Shift + Command + H), or flip vertical (Shift + Command + V).
Create a video with multiple images
In addition to editing video, with QuickTime you can also create a video from a selection of pictures. An easy-to-make slideshow that will bring your vacation photos to life. Then you can upload the video to your social networks or share it privately. Plus, it’s an alternative to PowerPoint presentations or the macOS Preview presentation.
To create the video from a sequence of images, we open QuickTime and go to File > Open Image Sequence. You can select the content of a folder or a selection of specific images. then you can customize the presentation.
First, the Resolution. This way you will give a homogeneous size to all the photographs or images. Later frame rate to see more or less images per second. Finally, the output format, to choose from three, depending on compatibility (H.264), compression (HEVC) or quality (ProRes).
Beyond editing a video, let’s say you have a video and you want to share a picture of the same. From QuickTime, this task is as simple as play the video and place the cursor where the image we want is located. The next step is simply to press the copy keys, Command + C. We already have the image saved.
now we will go to Preview and we will create a new document from the Clipboard. You will find this option in Archive or with the keys Command + N. Satisfied with the image? You can now save it. Or if not, choose another image and capture it again. Fast and easy.