Editing Video with QuickTime Pro

Contact(s): Curriculum Support Group e-mail [email protected] 368-8600

http://www.cwru.edu/net/csg/csg.htm
Information Services Help Desk e-mail [email protected] 368-4357 (HELP)
http://help.cwru.edu

1. Introduction
One of the most important elements of multimedia is digital video. The production of digital video
always involves specialized software for digitizing and editing sound and moving images. Special
programs often in the form of browser plug-ins may also be required for viewing multimedia. This
session is only an introduction to a complex, constantly evolving field. It uses an inexpensive video
editing program called QuickTime Pro that is available for both Windows and Macintosh systems.

During this session we will:

Manipulate a video segment using QuickTime Pro
Save a video segment
Link a video segment to web page

To accomplish these tasks you should be able to:

Install plug-ins
Write basic HTML tags
Upload files to a WWW server

2. Vocabulary
amplitude depth / amplitude resolution - refers to the number of bits available to code each sample.
For sound, amplitudes are typically coded with 4, 8, or 16 bits. For video, it refers to pixel
resolution and ranges from 1 bit for bitonal images to 24 bits for full color.
bandwidth - generally refers to the total capacity of a network expressed in bits per second.
codec - for compressor/decompressor, any technology for compressing and decompressing data. Codecs
can be implemented in software, hardware, or a combination of the two. A commercial site
devoted to information about codecs can be found at http://www.terran.com/CodecCentral/
index.html.
compression - the process by which the description of computerized information is modified to so that
the information can be stored in less space and transmitted at a faster rate. Compression works
by eliminating redundant information. It may be lossless, in which information is recovered
without alteration after decompression, or lossy, in which the decompressed information is
different from the original although the user may not notice the difference.
computer animation - displaying on a computer screen a succession of correlated graphics giving a
sensation of movement.
frame - in video, a single complete picture. The number of frames per second influences the perceived
quality of the video; the television standard used in the US (NTSC) uses 30 interlaced frames
per second.
sampling - used to digitize analog information, a technique in which periodic “snapshots” are taken of
continuous streams of information. If the sampling rate is fast enough, the hearer/viewer can
not perceive the gaps between the samples when they are played back.
streaming - a way of transferring data so that it can be processed as a steady and continuous stream.
This technology is important for the transfer of multimedia files over the Internet because it
allows users to avoid long download times for large files. When files are streamed, the browser
(or plug-in) begins to display the data before the entire file has been downloaded.

Case Western Reserve University Information Services

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Editing Video w/ QuickTime Pro Curriculum Support
tweening - the essential process of computer animation, this consists of generating intermediate frames
between two images so that the first seems to evolve smoothly to the second.

3. Hardware and Software

The quality of your digital video files depends upon the technical quality of the content. Everyone has
seen and heard “digitally remastered” films and recordings in which old and/or damaged analog origi-
nals have been transformed using digital technology. Unfortunately, this is not really possible without
high-end equipment and software. And, of course, the process begins with professional quality origi-
nals.

Although many of the tips hold true for all photography, others suggest ways to compensate for the
resolution and frame rates commonly used in webbed multimedia. Remember, too, that different video
formats (VHS, Hi8, etc.) produce different qualities when digitized. Video is digitized using hardware
video capture cards. Many Macintoshes have video capture equipment built in. (The video files for this
workshop were produced by plugging an 8mm camcorder into the AV ports of a G3.) It is now also
possible to use videocameras and digital camcorders to produce digitized multimedia. In terms of
computing resources, audio-video work justifies the “bigger, faster, better” rule: you will need gigs of
hard drive space and the fastest computer you can find. There are even hard drives, sold as “AV” drives,
that minimize the number of frames dropped when captured video is written to the hard drive. Digital
audio and video files are stored in many different formats, but only some of these are commonly used
on the WWW. When creating or digitizing sound and video files, remember to save your final product
in a WWW-friendly format.

Video formats include:

ASF - Active Streaming Format, the standard file format of Windows Media files.
Video for Windows - (also called “AVI”) Microsoft’s initial multimedia architecture primarily aimed
at CD-ROM video.
MPEG - Moving Picture Experts Group - often used to refer to the standard file format and set of
compression algorithms developed to handle video and audio.
MPEG-1 - format which produces high quality video and audio streams at approximately 2x CD-
ROM data rates. Standard MPEG-1 is full frame rate (24 - 30 fps, depending on the source)
with a quarter size image (352x240), and is useful for playback on most desktop computers.
MPEG-2 - format which produces high data rate, full broadcast quality files. MPEG-2 playback re-
quires an extremely fast computer and video card, or a hardware accelerator card. MPEG-2 is
the format for DVD-Video and many home satellite dish systems. Standard MPEG-2 is full
frame rate (24 - 30 fps) and full screen resolution (720x480).
DV - Digital Video, format that is recorded by a digital video camera directly as digital signal, that does
not degrade with time, or suffer generation loss. Since Digital Video files are already digitized,
they only need to be moved from the camera to the computer.
QuickTime-a media system developed by Apple Computer that is commonly used to distribute audio
and video on the WWW because it is understood by both Macs and PCs and supports most
encoding formats. QuickTime Pro is an inexpensive editing system for media files. QuickTime
VR is an enhanced version of QuickTime, adding the ability to display and rotate objects in 3D.
RealVideo-the technology developed by RealNetworks for transmitting video over the Internet.

4. Basic Commands
⇒ To use the QuickTime Pro editing system, open QuickTime Player. (In Windows, Start > Pro-
grams > QuickTime > QuickTime Player).

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⇒ Movies and image sequences are created, opened, and saved via the
File menu. Other important commands in the File menu are Import (to
bring non-QuickTime data into your movies) and Export (to convert your
movies to other formats).

⇒ If you have several movies open simultaneously, you may

want to go to Edit> Preferences> General to play sound
from only one movie.

⇒ The Present Movie command under File allows you to

select the amount of screen space the movie uses.

You may also choose to view your movie as a slide show,

i.e., to advance frame by frame using the mouse. Selecting
Present Movie hides everything else on your desktop and
shows the movie. You must press the Escape key to end the
presentation.

⇒ Basic editing functions (Select All, Cut, Copy, Paste) are found under Edit and work as they do in
any other application.

5. Editing Commands
Edit Segments

To avoid irreparable harm to your carefully digitized video, you should always work with a copy of
your movie. QuickTime Pro has limited “undo” abilities.

To select segments to copy, cut, paste, use in new movies, etc., use the diamond-shaped selector at the
bottom of the Movie Player screen. To select only one frame, position the selector on the frame. To
select more than one frame, hold down the Shift key as you drag the selector. For finer control over
your selection, you may click on the left selector or right select at the left of the Play bar and use the
arrow keys to move them. The selected portion of the movie will be shown in a dark color on the Play
bar. Note: The image that is on the screen once you are done selecting is the frame which the selector
is on and has no relation to the actual selection. You can cancel a selection at any time by clicking in the
play bar or by clicking Select None in the Edit menu.

Play bar

Once you have made your selection, use the Edit menu to Cut or Copy.

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Other useful editing commands are Clear, Trim, and Replace:

Clear deletes the selected portion of a movie. It is under the standard Edit menu.
Trim clears everything except the selection. To find the Trim command, hold <control>-<alt> in
Windows or <option> on a Mac while you go to the Edit menu. Bug: in Windows, the Trim
command clears the selection!
Replace, as its name implies, lets you replace one selection with another. To find the Replace
command, hold the Shift key while selecting the Edit menu.

When you want to make a new movie out of pieces of other material, you need to open a new, blank
movie. To do this, go to File>New. This will produce an empty movie. You can the use Edit>Paste to
place material in this move. You can, of course, paste material into any movie, not just a new one.

6. Working with Several Tracks

Separating Tracks
Separating video and audio tracks--so you can use only the sound, for example-- is easy to do in either
of two ways:

1. Extracting a track opens a new movie file containing only the track you want it to. To do this, go to
Edit>Extract Tracks. Choose a track. A new untitled movie with just the selected track is created.
Manipulate this track at your leisure.
2. Deleting a track is accomplished by choosing Edit>Delete Tracks and selecting a track. Remem-
ber, however, that you may lose the track you delete.

Merging Tracks
You can add material in between other parts of the movie or you can add material on top of other
material (tracks) to play concurrently.

Edit>Paste places new material between portions of existing material but does not overlap anything.
For example, if you extract the sound track, edit it, and copy the whole thing back into the original
movie using the Paste command, you will have only sound—with a blank screen—followed by the
movie--with no sound.

To overlap tracks, you must use the Edit > Add command. Hold down <control>-<alt> in Windows or
<option> on the Mac while you select the Edit menu to see Add. Place the selector at the starting point
for the material and choose Add. The selection will overlap the existing track. If you want to overlap
only a certain segment, select the segment (using shift - selector) you want it to overlap, then hold
down <shift>-<control>-<alt> (in Windows) or <shift>-<option> (on Macs) and choose Edit > Add
Scaled. This will extend or compress the material to fit into whatever segment you selected.

7. Adding Text and Stills to Movies

1. Using any text editor (we suggest Notepad for Windows and SimpleText for Macs), write the text
you want to import into your movie. Remember to save the file as a text file.
2. Then go to File > Import in QuickTime. Find the text file, click on Convert, and save it as a
converted movie. You will have a text-only movie that can be manipulated as you would any other.

An almost identical procedure enables you to import a picture into your movie:
1. Go to File > Import, and choose a picture
2. Click Convert, then Save. The new movie with just the picture track will appear. Again, manipulate
it as you would any other movie.

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Editing Video w/ QuickTime Pro Curriculum Support
8. Saving Movies
Go to File > Save. For use on the WWW, choose Make movie self-contained. To work with different
types of file compression, choose File > Export, select a format from the pull-down menu, and click on
the Options button. You may then work with different codecs and frame rates to balance quality and
file size.

9. Linking QuickTime Movies to Your Web Pages

Once you have edited and saved a multimedia file, you can link it to a web page. You can use the
following HTML or Netscape Composer.

Note: Multimedia files are quite large and may take some time to upload. If you have many of these
files, you may find it useful to store them in a special directory. In these examples, the directory is
called “av” and the format for the links is av/filename.extension.

HTML
Tags for linking multimedia look much like those for any other links using the <a href> tag:
<a href=”http://starwars.apple.com/quicktime/trailers/fox/episode-i/
trailer_b/menace_480.mov”>Cool Star Wars movie</a>

Composer
1. Highlight the image or text that will provide the link to the sound or video file.
2. Click on the Link button on the toolbar. The Character Properties (Windows) or Format (Mac)
window appears.
3. Click on the Link tab and look in the Link to
section.
4. In the Link to a page location or local file
(Win) or URL (Page Location) or File
(Mac) box, type in the URL of the file to
which you are linking, or the path name of a
local document (if that document is in the
same folder as your current one, simply type
in the name of the document).
5. Click Apply and OK.
6. When you view the page in the web browser
and click on the link, it should load the video or sound file.

10. For More Information

Apple QuickTime Home Page
http://www.apple.com/quicktime

How to Embed QuickTime in a Web Page

http://www.apple.com/quicktime/authoring/embed.html

Step by Step guide on using QuickTime Pro

http://www.apple.com/quicktime/resources/qt4/us/help/QuickTime%20Help.htm

01/22/2001 edtech
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