Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with osx and Video

What's the deal with Flash video on OSX? I can't click the play button!

Glum — Fri, 13 Nov 2009 14:12:28 -0800

Why do Youtube (and other flash videos) become unresponsive on my Mac when they are embedded in other sites? [iMac and MacBook Pro, Snow Leopard (and previous OS), Firefox & Safari]

Often, when I come across an embedded YouTube clip (and sometimes videos from other services like Vimeo) on my RSS feed or in a website I am visiting I am unable to click on it successfully. Trying to access the controls (play, pause etc) becomes almost impossible. I have found that if I right click to pull up the Flash menu, but then deselect it, I do then get one chance to click on the Flash object (with it going white in the process).

These objects almost always work perectly if I click through to watch them in their original location.

My browsers have been doing this for several versions, over the last two versions of the OS and the last three versions of Flash, on both my Macs. I have the most recent versions of all software.

I've read that Flash is very unreliable on OSX - with memory leaks etc. - but this doesn't seem to be that (although, of course, I don't actually know what it is).

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Best video codec for embedding into PowerPoint?

limon — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 17:51:55 -0800

I'd like to embed video clips in a PowerPoint presentation. It would need to play correctly on both Windows and OS X. What codec is ideal? My first attempt won't play on Macs.

Adding ADDITIONAL audio to an avi file

Charlie Lesoine — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 15:23:01 -0800

How do I add an additional audio track to a .avi movie file in OSX? I downloaded a full length movie, it had stereo channel audio, but one of the audio tracks was still missing, possibly the center channel that was lost from a surround sound mix when it was bounced to standard 2 channel audio. I now have the missing audio file and need to add it to the other two. I could just remove one of the existing tracks, or turn the existing two tracks into a mono track and then add the 3rd missing track. It doesn't need to sound amazing...but I don't know what software to use to do this. Any ideas?

One Image, One Audio Clip: One Movie?

furtive — Mon, 17 Aug 2009 15:59:06 -0800

How to make a video from an audio track for Youtube? I'm on a Mac, I'd like to make a video for Youtube that just shows an image for the duration of the video. iMovie is not playing along (limiting video to 4 seconds, wtf!)

Wanted: video editing software for OSX?

acb — Tue, 28 Jul 2009 04:49:40 -0800

I'm looking for OSX video editing software to use for preparing live music videos for uploading to YouTube. I want to overlay audio tracks from an audio recorder over video footage from a digital camera, cropping either as needed, and exporting the finished video as MPEG4 or H.264. Final Cut seems like overkill (and costs a fair bit), and iMovie doesn't offer the precision to easily align the separate tracks. Can anyone recommend a good, reasonably inexpensive package that will do the job?

How I can I make my videos created in Keynote look as good as videos as they do as slides?

4ster — Thu, 14 May 2009 10:32:19 -0800

When I make presentations in Keynote 08 and then export them to video, they look terrible. My pictures are all blurry, and my fonts are all jagged. How I can I make my videos created in Keynote look as good as videos as they do as slides?

Please Help Me eMail my Videos via OSX Mail

konig — Sat, 09 May 2009 17:59:28 -0800

I want to send YouTube and other videos via email after I've download them. I am using OSX 10.5.6 and v3.5 Mail. I have a QT Pro license, so I can convert the format once the video is downloaded. I would like for friends who use PCs and those who use Macs to be able to play the videos. My questions are:

1) In what format should the video be when I send it, so that users of both platforms are able to enjoy the video?

2) If a PC user tells me that they cannot view the video, what application should I advise they obtain in order to do so. (I am not going to try to troubleshoot their PC, I just want to tell them that they need "X" program in order to play the movie.)

3) Is there any other info that I need to be aware of, from your experience, to do this as seamlessly as possible?

I have done a lot of searching for these answers and cannot seem to find them. I sincerely appreciate your assistance in advance!

HD animated maps for video?

nitsuj — Thu, 19 Mar 2009 16:54:58 -0800

What's the easiest way to create HD-quality (1080x) animated maps for use with video? iMovie '09 has the nifty little map feature, but I use Final Cut Express and don't want to plunk down the extra cash for another editor. Is there a similar -- perhaps a bit more professional and detailed -- solution for creating animated maps for importing into Final Cut Express?

Ideally this would be a standalone program that creates the maps and outputs them into a format that is easily ingested by Final Cut Express.

(Other details: Final Cut Express 4, OSX.5.6, 2.4GHZ MBP + 4gb RAM)

Mac screen artifacts causing a headache

tanc — Sun, 01 Feb 2009 14:49:33 -0800

I'm getting some weird artifacts/corruptions appearing on my macbookpro screen. Any explanations? I've tried googling this, but as my description of what's happening is quite vague I haven't had any success...

It's been happening for a while. Here are two screenshots I took of different artifacts that are happening. 1 2

Generally the artifacting occurs within a specific window, although sometimes it occurs across windows.

I have an external monitor plugged in and it occurs on both my laptop screen and the external monitor.

I thought maybe it was due to how long I leave my computer on - it's often a week or two between reboots, but it's happening now and my uptime is less than 2 days...

It seems to start on video windows (quicktime) or tetris (Quinn) the most, but that may be due to those being my most common activities...

It doesn't happen constantly, but will come and go. At the moment it seems to be appearing for a few seconds and then going again, but sometimes it won't go unless I close a windows or somehow force a screen refresh. (I was typing this the screen became obscured by a large yellow block)

Any suggestions of how I can prevent it without the pain of a reboot/trip to an apple store?

What video editing software is best for me?

nitsuj — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 13:42:29 -0800

What video editing software is best for me? I've got a Macbook Pro (2.4 ghz Intel Core 2 Duo, 2GB of RAM, OSX.5.5), and I'm looking to edit HD video (from this camera). I'm fairly new to the Mac, but on Windows I was very proficient in Adobe Premiere. I've never worked with HD.

Looking through the Apple site, I see a bunch of different versions of Final Cut (Pro, Express, Express HD, etc) and I'm not sure which, if any, would be good for me -- considering I'm a Premiere guy. Is there anything about Final Cut that would make me want to switch to it in my situation?

Also: Does my Mac have the specs to edit HD footage well?

I'm doing prosumer level work -- nothing too fancy.

Not Getting Famous on YouTube

tmcw — Wed, 29 Oct 2008 13:24:55 -0800

I have a song I composed / recorded / etc. I'd like to make simple video by cutting together fragments of public-domain films with this song. I have a MacBook. How to get to point B? iMovie is crashing on every import. iMovie seems to crash every time I open the "Import Movie" dialog. Not a sign of quality software.

I don't want to spend much/any money on this. I've tried writing a quick app in Processing.org to do this, but the movies I'm working with are 100-200MB mpg files, and that fills up Java's heap very, very quickly - I can't imagine throwing FFT analysis on top of that.

Are there are any open-source or cheap applications that allow fairly basic video editing capabilities like this? Anything possibly designed for VJs or very nonlinear editing like this will be? I'm a little miffed that there hasn't been an obvious, slick answer to this like there has been for 99% of my mac artsy-software needs.

Thanks for any help!

Command-line video quandry

Alterscape — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 19:23:32 -0800

I have two synchronized 720x480 miniDV files. I have OS X 10.5.5. I want to render them side-by-side into a single webcast-resolution widescreen video (eventual target: Vimeo), preferably in a way that can be scripted/automated (so a command-line tool would be great). Right now, I actually edit the two streams in Final Cut Studio, switching between one or the other. However, I need to change the format and rig up some solution that someone who is not a FCP editor can execute repeatedly. Also, we don't have another license of FCP, so something that can work with FCE or a F/OSS tool is preferable. I'm not super-picky about whether the output is 640x230, (2x the width of the input files, scaled down to web-resolution) or regular 16:9 widescreen with black bands along the top or bottom, so long as the solution is easy, automated, etc. I regularly work with ffmpeg but as far as I know that tool won't do this. The files are about 60 minutes in duration, but I don't think this should affect what can be done. Thoughts?

Diavlogs for the masses!

ecmendenhall — Fri, 08 Aug 2008 13:17:45 -0800

What's the best way to record split-screen video dialogues to post on my blog? I have recently grown enamored of the budget punditry of bloggingheads.tv, which features hour long conversations between wonky writers, bloggers, and thinkers that make for a refreshing alternative to TV talking heads. Each "diavlog" is essentially a glorified split-screen video chat session that appears to be recorded over Skype, iChat or similar, and later edited together.

But why should the upper echelons of the Web commentariat get to have all the fun? I'd like to create and circulate similar conversations on my own personal Internet, but I'm not entirely sure how to do so.

Unfortunately, Google only serves to confuse, thanks to the constantly changing terminology for video on blogs (am I looking for video blogging? Vlogging? Vodcasting? Video podcasts? Vlogcasting? Diavlogging? Streaming vlogocastalogs!?). All the results that do turn up don't seem to indicate a simple way to do split-screen interviews.

It seems easy enough to record an iChat session, edit it into a splitscreen video, and post it to a site like YouTube or Vimeo. But there are also loads of services offering simple video recording and hosting, many of which can even broadcast live. It's hard to believe none of them can do a split-screen chat between two users, or that a utility for something like this doesn't exist out there in the depths of the Tubes.

So what's the best way to bring bloggingheads-style punditry to the people? I use mostly macs, and I'm not opposed to doing this with iChat + iMovie or final cut or something, but I hope the hive mind can come up with some other ideas. Thanks!

can front row be bookmarked?

luriete — Sat, 26 Jul 2008 14:16:35 -0800

Can Front Row be run in a window, or can videos being played in front row be bookmarked? I hate to have to try to skip back to where i was in a movie or tv show after doing something else...

Name That Tune/Video (Center)

ill3 — Tue, 03 Jun 2008 03:13:45 -0800

Naming Filter: Hive mind, please help us name our open source OS X media center application! I have been impressed by the hive mind's creativity when it comes to naming things, most recently the Lawyer Golf Team.

Sorry for the long explanation that follows, however, I think coming up with the best name is going to require a little bit of context.

I'm currently working on an open source project (free as in beer and speech) that is a recent fork of the well known and highly regarded XBMC project. In fact, I shamelessly plugged it here in an ask.mefi answer earlier. As many of you may know XBMC originally was called XBox Media Center. It was an app that could be run on a hacked XBox that allowed you to play media on your XBox (divx, h.264, mp3s, etc) pulling the media either from local disks or across the network using windows shares, ftp, etc. What made it a media center, rather than just a media player (like the excellent VLC and Mplayer) the application also has a great skinnable navigation and metadata system. XBMC will scan your media library (which in most cases would be located on a computer somewhere else in the house) automatically guess what piece of media the particular file was, and download and associate the appropriate meta-data. This would allow you to look for movies or songs based on Genre, Year, etc, all while flipping through the DVD's or CD's cover art. The interface is also optimized for use with a remote control, to make it easier to use from the couch than say QuickTime. It's easier seen than explained, here is YT video of it in action running the xTV skin (a skin inspired by Apple Tv).
A little over a year ago the core XBMC.org team decided to start porting what many consider to be the best media center application ever written, to other platforms starting with Linux. They have made great progress and they have already have a highly usable application for Linux. About 6 months ago myself and a few others decided to embark on an OS X port of the application, based on some amazing progress that the head of the new OS X port had made in just a few weeks. There was already quite a bit of pent up demand, as many thought the Mac Mini was an ideal HTPC (Home Theater PC) platform, again discussed here. We started out as a part of the larger XBMC team until very recently, both teams decided that we had enough philosophical differences that it made sense to amicably split up. Up until the project had been called XBMC on OSX and/or OSXBMC. We have currently been using the OSXBMC name as a place holder until we come up with a better name. There are a few reasons for wanting a name change, the big ones are :
- Having XBMC in the name does not differentiate us enough from the original XBMC.org project (the original XBMC guys have politely asked us to make our name a little more distinct) and it perhaps it makes it seem like an XBox is required to use the application.
- Something a little less "acronymy" would be nice, more in the tradition of Mac apps.
- It's possible that someday we will release versions of our (keeping in mind that at this point "our" software is 98% composed of XBMC's code) on platforms other than OS X, so we would like to get away from having the platform in the name.

The project's home page is http://www.osxbmc.com if anyone could possibly want or need any more information.

Thanks very much!

Seeking OS X media player with specific features

chudmonkey — Tue, 20 May 2008 13:26:04 -0800

What video/media player do you use in OS X? Can you recommend one that has some specific features (listed inside)? I've asked basically this same question before, but that was a few years ago and I'm hoping something has changed since then.

I really, really want a Leopard-compatible player with ALL of these features:

-"Always on Top" playing
-Variable-speed playback, preferably with automatic audio pitch-shifting, preferably with a control that shows precisely what % of normal speed is being played.
-Frame-by-frame playback.

I currently have the following installed:

VLC 0.8.6f - No variable-speed playback, no frame-by-frame.
Mplayer 1.0 rc2 - No VSP, no frame-by-frame, no "on top"
Quicktime 7.2.1 - VSP is via an imprecise slider and pitch-shift is not automatic.

MPlayer is actually my favourite, despite having none of my desired features. I like the way it looks. Quicktime is my least-favourite, despite having nearly all the features. It's better now than it ever was, so I'm really just clinging to a bias. The VSP system is shoddy, however.

I'm open to any suggestions you can make, or corrections of my above impressions. I know MPlayer is open-source as has been released in multiple flavours, but I haven't found one with variable-speed playback yet.

Thanks in advance!

MacPro Dual DVi->VGA problem with the Quadra 4500

Towelie — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 20:00:17 -0800

MacPro Leopard 10.5.2, Problems with the Quadro FX 4500 card. It has dual DVI ports. It'll run 2 DVI devices when it's DVI to DVI, but it won't run the same two screens if they go via VGA (both DVI ports having a DVI to VGA adapter). The second port (port 2) has the screen detected in the Displays System Preferences but the screen never lights up. Yes, I know all about DVI extenders, etc; I need the VGA to work.

Xbox 360 + Connect 360 (OS X) + 720p + 802.11n = jerky video?

bryanjbusch — Fri, 15 Feb 2008 13:26:43 -0800

Xbox 360 + Connect 360 (OS X) + 720p + 802.11n = jerky video? While recently streaming some 1280x720 video from the MacBook (10.5.2, RAM maxed out) through the AirPort 802.11n thing to the Xbox 360, which is connected via a physical ethernet cable, the show would periodically stop.

Then the audio would continue by itself, and then after a minute or so, the video would sort of "fast-forward" and catch up with the audio.

I wasn't running any other applications or downloading big files at the same time. Is this normal behavior, or should I be able to stream HD quality video with this sort of setup?

Streaming video from a Mac to an Xbox 360

ssmith — Mon, 03 Dec 2007 16:28:06 -0800

I was reading the December 2007 Video Playback FAQ about the new video options that are going to be incorporated in tomorrow's Xbox 360 dashboard update. And I was surprised to see question #28: "How can I stream content from my Mac?". They imply that it's possible, but they don't mention any 3rd party solutions. What Mac software can I use for this?

Can anyone recommend a software oscilloscope solution for OSX?

Magnakai — Mon, 22 Oct 2007 12:00:14 -0800

Is there a reasonable software-based oscilloscope for the Mac? I need to record a video of approximately 20 seconds. I have a 20 second or so AIFF. I need to stick on a software oscilloscope, and record a video of the output. The oscilloscope needs to be perfectly synced to the audio, and it would be preferable if you could adjust how "zoomed in" it is.

I'm thinking something similar to the Windows Media Player visualization Scope option.

I've tried PixelToy but it's too pixellated for my liking.

Can anyone also suggest a way of recording it to video? Obviously anything that can directly output a video would be good, but if not, can anyone recommend the very best screen recorder?

Many thanks in advance!

Help Me Stop Watching My iPod With My Glasses Off, Please

interrobang — Mon, 16 Jul 2007 14:04:04 -0800

Audio and video are out of sync on mp4s downloaded from Google Video about 80% of the time. Is there anything simple that I can do about this? OSX, by the way, and it's mostly for watching on my iPod.

Can I get s-video or component video out of a Mac G5 using a cable or other device?

jeremias — Mon, 02 Apr 2007 06:09:02 -0800

Trying to capture video off a Mac G5 and looking for a hardware solution. Can I get s-video or component video out of a Mac G5 using a cable or other device? I'm working on some training videos and I want to capture the users screen movements on Machine A and capture it on Machine B. Machine A is an intel G5 with two DVI outputs.Is there some sort of cable or adapter that connects to DVI and converts to s-video or component video?

Also if you've had some experience with a hardware solution to capturing video off of a Mac (usability tests, screencasts, etc.) I 'd love to hear about your workflow. Please note I'm not looking for software solutions like Snapz Pro or iShowU.

Good alternative to iSight?

kirkaracha — Tue, 23 Jan 2007 09:59:15 -0800

What's a good webcam for video chatting on OS X? I'm looking for a good webcam for iChat AV on OS X.

I'd like to get an iSight, but it looks like Apple discontinued them and they're expensive on eBay.

Does there exist on the Mac a picture/video viewer that is as easy to use as ACDSee on the PC?

Caviar — Sat, 23 Dec 2006 19:28:31 -0800

Does there exist on the Mac a picture/video viewer that is as easy to use as ACDSee on the PC? Required features:

- Must allow browsing of the filesystem, with preview thumbnails. A dedicated db for thumbnails/metadata is acceptable. "Importing a directory" or building a playlist is a killer. I just want to browse the files I have already, whereever they are.

- Must support keyboard-only navigation and playing. Notably, ACDSee allows tab and arrow keys for navigating files in a directory, pressing enter to descend into a directory or play (for video)/view large (for images), pressing enter again to get back to the file browser, and pressing backspace to go up a directory. If I'm required to touch the mouse to do these things, this isn't the program I'm looking for. Doubly so if any of these features are mouse-only and listed under the "Keyboard shortcuts" section of the help.

- Must support a full-screen mode that's easy to toggle with a keyboard command.

- Must support (or with easy codec installation) all popular video and image formats. Canon Camera RAW support is a huge plus.

- Free is good, but commercial is fine.

Anything like that out there?

Full Screen Video on Secondary Display

rossination — Sat, 18 Nov 2006 00:06:03 -0800

In OS X, is it possible to set up a video to play at full screen on a secondary display? It seems like VLC should be set up to do this, but Googling gives me no answers. Basically, I'd like to be able to use my iBook to surf the web while watching movies on an attached monitor (I have the plugin installed so I can do more than just duplicate the display).

I'm certainly open to using other programs if necessary. The files are .avis, FWIW.