If you regularly use iMovie or some other application to capture audio or video, or were wondering how to do it on the cheap, then you’ll love this handy little tip.
Video Capture with Quicktime Player
All you’ll need is a copy of Quicktime Pro 7 or later, or the latest version of Quicktime Player in Mac OS X 10.6 (Snow Leopard), and a Mac with an iSight camera, or a connected video camera or microphone.
Let’s assume you want to capture video from your MacBook’s iSight camera. You can capture the video directly through the Quicktime Player application and save it with no further fuss.
Here’s how you do it:
- Launch Quictime Player.
- Go under the File menu and select New Movie Recording (or simply hit Command + Option + N).
- Your iSight camera will turn on (indicated by the glowing green LED next to the camera above your screen. Click the red record button at the bottom of the Quicktime Player window (indicated in the screenshot above) and do your thing.
- When you’re finished, click the stop button.
- Go back to the File menu and choose Save As (or Command + Shift + S).
- Choose the format you desire from the drop-down menu. You can choose between .mov, iPod, iPhone, and HD 480p.
I love the fact that Apple built this handy little feature in to a simple application such as Quicktime Player. While you have virtually no control over editing, sometimes it’s nice to get it done quick and dirty without the learning curve or expense of another app.
I guess by “editing” I meant something more than just cutting or adding frames of video (which QT Pro does do quite well, as you’ve stated).
(Apologies in advance if the blockquote tag doesn’t render)
I’ve had QT Pro for so long, I don’t know what the standard QT is able to do. But, since you mentioned QT Pro as being a requirement at the top of the article, I will say this: You can, in fact, do a pretty decent amount of editing in QT Pro, right down to frame-number accuracy. I don’t have any links handy, but the info is available out there in the Googleverse.