The following free video tutorial shows the basic functions of VLC Media Player. More specifically, it shows

This video tutorial is virtually no different from the one we released about 14 months ago except that this version contains audio commentary. Continue reading →

The following free video tutorial shows the basic technique of editing a video clip with QuickTime Pro. First, we set In/Out markers to crop some unnecessary frames. Second, the current aspect ratio is set to 4:3. And we want to change it to 16:9 by putting the actual video in a letterbox. Continue reading →

Using MPEG Streamclip for Mac #03: Multiplexing

So how do we use Squared 5’s MPEG Streamclip to multiplex audio and video tracks into an independent MPEG file? In the last tutorial, we demuxed an MPEG-2 file and ended up with M2V and AIFF. That’s where we start off in this tutorial. We converted an MP3 music file of a Mariah Carey’s song into AC3 with Apple’s Soundtrack Pro 2 beforehand. And we are going to replace the original audio track with this AC3 file, using MPEG Streamclip’s muxing function.   Continue reading →

Using MPEG Streamclip for Mac #02: Compression and Demultiplexing

In the second video tutorial of the MPEG Streamclip series, we focus our attention to application’s export and demuxing functions. And this is a good opportunity for us to discuss basic characteristics of some of QuickTime components. So we spend several minutes explaining basic characteristics of some of popular QuickTime compressors.

Furthermore, we also explain briefly how the MPEG-4 compression works. We will answer the following questions:

Meanwhile, if you have MPEG files to edit, it is essential that you know how to demux video files. Why? By demuxing an MPEG file into audio and video streams, you can deal with them separately. And Final Cut Pro 6 recognizes M2V files. So you don’t have to convert MPEG-2 files into DV any more. If the video clip contains AC3 audio, you can just take AC3 and convert it into AIFF or whatever QuickTime or Final Cut Pro can decode. Then you can read them separately or mux the original track and a new audio file into an independent MPEG-2 file if you want. (Watch “Using MPEG Streamclip for Mac #03” for MPEG Streamclip’s muxing function.)

Keywords: DV, DVCPRO – NTSC, Save As, MOV, AVI, MP4, Export to QuickTime, Sorenson Video 3 Compressor, H.264, Apple Cinepak, HDV, Apple Intermediate Codec, Apple Photo – JPEG, Apple MPEG 4 Compressor, Apple PNG, Multipass, B-Frames, Quality, Quantizer, Uncompressed, MPEG-4 AAC, MPEG Layer 2, Demux to M2V and AIFF, Demux to M2V, Demux to AC3   Continue reading →

Using MPEG Streamclip for Mac #01: Basic Functions

Over the next few days, we will be releasing a total of at least 3 video tutorials involving Squared 5’s MPEG Streamclip. The goal is to show how video compression works under the Mac OS in general. The first tutorial of this short series shows some of the basic functions of MPEG Streamclip. The second tutorial shows how to use it to re-compress video files and also to demultiplex MPEG files. The third tutorial will be a short one showing how to use MPEG Streamclip to multiplex audio and video streams into an MPEG-2 file.

This video tutorial in particular shows how to cut and trims frames. And we spend some time showing which multimedia formats (AVI, DV, FLV, MOV, MKV, MP4, MPEG, Video_TS, VOB) MPEG Streamclip supports and of course how to read Flash files (FLVs) with it.   Continue reading →