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Working with video requires working with a good set of tools. These are some "can't live with-out" applications for Mac OS X

Media Mac Info (Can tell you everything you need to know about and audio or video file) http://mediainfo.massanti.com/

Perian (Adds extra video support for QuickTime) http://perian.org/

Any other small applications you find yourself using everyday?

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  • Another good vidro tool is JES Deinterlacer xs4all.nl/~jeschot/home.html More than just a great deinterlacer. The freeware offered on the site is amazing.
    – knumbers
    Commented Dec 20, 2010 at 17:05

8 Answers 8

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QT Sync for time code burn in. Quicktime Pro 7 for anything from merging audio+video to simple editing. MPEG Streamclip and every now and then - Dumpster - to hack directly into the header of QT movies that have problems such as wrong frame-rate tags and such and such.

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  • dumpster sounds useful, but I can't seem to find it with teh googles. have a link?
    – Rene
    Commented Dec 17, 2010 at 22:37
  • I think this might be it, Rene! idisk.me.com/jrwalker4-Public/Dumpster.dmg
    – Andy Lewis
    Commented Dec 17, 2010 at 22:53
  • If the commenting would let me, I'd just type "thx!" :)
    – Rene
    Commented Dec 19, 2010 at 17:10
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It's a simple one, but Quicktime Pro.

For the small projects, where it's not feasible to send back incorrectly exported quicktimes with an email that says "WRONG! DO IT AGAIN!".

Also good for converting to DV to play out firewire.

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  • StreamClip is also a handy free app for doing conversions squared5.com
    – user49
    Commented Dec 18, 2010 at 23:15
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My perspective is as a former video editor and motion graphics designer, so...

  • Apple Final Cut Pro (mostly for brute-force movie hacking)
  • Apple Compressor (format conversion)
  • Adobe After Effects (how I do conforms for frame aspect, pixel aspect, scaling, frame rates, and TC burn-in)
  • +1 on TextWrangler, but my personal fave is TextMate...but TW is free!
  • Agreed on the no-longer-Pro QT Player. Ugh. Used to be the Ultimate Secret Weapon. BUT, copying frames from QT Player is way cool.
  • iPhone and iPad for mobile display devices, with no machine noise, for foley sessions in guerilla production situations, via QT movie playback. iPad + SD 702 = mobile foley studio! :-p
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  • Yes! I hear you on the mobile foley studio - thats my exact setup when I dont have a quiet room - proof up the closet and slap it on the ipod!
    – C3Sound
    Commented Dec 18, 2010 at 14:52
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Quicktime 7 pro gets the most mileage. Quicktime X gets the most cursing.

I'll also throw in a vote for edicue/region groups/text edit. Invaluable for spotting IMO.

Compressor

shift+apple+4

Soundminer can do video import, which is fun but not always practical.

QT sync looks awesome. Trying it now...

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ffmpeg as a handy command line tool, the "swiss army knife" of converting formats, aspect ratios, codecs, sizes, etc. etc. .... for me the #1 video batch processor.

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  • The goto app for video conversion! So powerful, literally stands up against professional very expensive encoders.
    – Justin Huss
    Commented Dec 19, 2010 at 8:30
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Soundminer x2, but for the option to lock to your DAW (little button labeled chase bottom R corner, REWIRE only - it's a feature that lost when they went to V4 and they brought back recently). It's genius for cutting music to picture as you can see if the cue is going to work before you copy it into your session.

Excel for managing cue sheets and ADR lines.

Virtual Katy for dealing with mid project re-conforms ("Oh yeah, the picture was locked, but not final locked.")

Text Wrangler for clearing out the garbage left in the EDLs that causes Virtual Katy to wet the bed. I haven't had to do a reconform for a few years now (yay!) so maybe VK is better at handling wonky EDLs.

FCP 7, where OMF creation is now so simple, even a video editor can do it!

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One that get's a workout in my studio is VisualHub (sadly no longer continued). A really easy way to generate really quick and easy approval files (MP4, h264 etc, etc).

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I've just bought my first Mac and installed PT 9. Where do I go to get all the relevant codecs for video etc? I have imported a mp4 video, the sound works but the video doesn't appear, any ideas?

I've installed Perian am I missing something in PT?

Also I've heard that QT Pro 7 isn't compatible with the QT 10 player? Why don't things just work!

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  • @Adrian it might be more judicious to make this a seperate question as other people will be interested in the answer as well. In this thread, it sounds like a digression I believe, and it'll be harder to dig out in the future.
    – Justin Huss
    Commented Dec 19, 2010 at 17:44
  • @Justin I did wonder whether to create a question or not, I don't like to clog up the site :) I will add one now.
    – Adrian Millington
    Commented Dec 19, 2010 at 18:08

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