Quicktip for MPEG Streamclip - Preparing 4/3 Letterbox Movies from 16/9 clips to use in FCP

This small tutorial explains briefly what to do if you want to export 16/9 (both real and anamorphic) movies to the 4/3 letterbox format.

In fact it is quite the same as my previous tutorial:

1. Open the file in MPEG Streamclip

2. Use the Export To QuickTime Function (File->Export to QuickTime or ⌘+E)

Choose the appropriate codec (I am using Apple DV PAL). When you press the 'Options' button the default setting will be the right one (4:3).

The only thing you need to change is the X/Y aspect ratio. This should be set to 1.333%.


Press the 'Make Movie' button. Choose your desired destination and you will have a 4/3 letterbox movie clip that will look like this.

Quicktip for MPEG Streamclip - Preparing Anamorphic Movies from Letterbox clips to use in FCP

I get a lot of movie clips (mpeg/quicktimes) who are in the 4/3 letterbox format.

I convert them with mpeg streamclip to Quicktime DVPAL Anamorphic because I wan't to have all files in FCP to have the same codec and size.

How to do it?

Well it's very simple:

1. Open the letterbox clip with MPEG Streamclip

2. Export it to QuickTime (File->Export to QuickTime or ⌘+E)

Now choose your wanted compression. In my case that is  Apple DV-PAL.

Then press the 'Options' button (Note- This will depend on the codec you selected) and choose Aspect Ratio 16:9. Then confirm by pressing 'OK' This step isn't necessary, but doing it now will save some time in fcp)

You can leave all other settings as they are by default. The only parameters that are important are Zoom and X/Y.

Zoom has to be set at 133.3% and the X/Y dropbox at ratio 0.75.

That's all. Just press 'Make Movie', select your desired destination and the job will be done.

The result will look like this.

A Dozen Free Mac OSX Applications I Couldn’t Live Without -part 9

Screen Spanning Doctor

Most of you probably know this little application/hack, and for most people it is totally obsolete.

But if you do have an old emac/ibook/imac which doesn't support an extended desktop and you need or want to use multiple monitors this nifty tool is just a lifesaver.

BUT BE AWARE and check if your Mac is supported - if not you risk destroying your video card.

You can find a list of supported machines on the developer's site here.

More info and download are here.

A Dozen Free Mac OSX Applications I Couldn’t Live Without -part 8

Live Mesh from Microsoft

Although not a big Microsoft supporter, I must admit that they do have a decent free online storage service or Online desktop as they call it.

This service -because it is more then just an application- provides you with an online desktop of 5GB and let’s you synchronize certain folders on your Mac with your online desktop.

You can choose if this should happen one-way or bidirectional. Live Mesh is currently in it’s beta phase and supports only Intel Macs running Leopard (OS X 10.5) or Snow Leopard (OS X 10.6)

You have to download the Live Mesh agent which provides you information about which folders are being synched between Mac and Online Desktop and which Users have access to those folders.

You can access your files from any random computer with an internet connection, you can share these files or specific folders with other users.

I use it personally to backup my documents and professionally to share documents with colleagues.

The betaversion vcan be tried and downloaded here.

A Dozen Free Mac OSX Applications I Couldn’t Live Without -part 7

Growl

Today I am going to describe an application that isn't very useful, but as we all know knowledge is power...

The sole purpose of this little application is to keep you informed about the status of certain applications and/or hardware.

It posts messages on your desktop so you don’t have to switch between active programs.

Growl offers a lot of control on how the messages are displayed and also about the content of these messages. 

Growl comes as a preference pane and can be shown in the menu bar as an option.

Applications who (can) make use of Growl are amongst others: Mail, Safari, Toast, Cyberduck and many others.

QUICKTIP - Make Applications Run in The Background / Hide Them from the Dock

I just want to share a very simple way to hide a running application from the Dock without using third party software.

For the first, but easiest, solution you'll have to install Apple's Xcode Tools which can be found on the OSX installation disk you got by your Mac or can be obtained as a free download on Apple's website here.

(free subscription is needed although)

Once installed you will have the necessary tool to quickly change the behavior of an application.

PEOPLE RUNNING XCODE 3 on OSX 10.5

First of all you will have to locate and open the application's Info.plist. To do this just rightclick (ctrl+click) on the application you want to hide and choose Show Package Contents.

A new finder window appears and shows the package contents. What interests us here is the info.plist file.

Go ahead and open it. If you have Xcode installed it will open as default with the Property List Editor application. It will look depending on which version of Xcode/OSX you have like this:

Just select the last row and press the + symbol a new line will appear with a dropbox.

Search the following key in the dropbox "Application Is Background Only" and then select the box to activate. Save and quit the editor and then (re)open the application.

If you ever want to change the setting again just deselect the box.

PEOPLE HAVING AN OLDER VERSION OF Xcode

Users of an older version of Xcode have to do this in a slightly different way.

When they open the Properties List Editor it looks a bit different and they have to press the 'New Child' or 'New Sibling' button.

Then insert LSUIElement in the new item field and use 1 as value (be sure to have string as class).

Then save and quit the editor. The only thing left to do now is to update the LaunchServices.

The easiest way is to just replace the application to another folder (desktop) and open the application. If it works you can then put the application back to it's original folder.

To undo this just delete the row you just made or use as string value 0 and save. Also here you need to update the LaunchServices.

ALTERNATE SOLUTION WITHOUT Xcode (found this one on Mac Geekery)

Locate and open the Info.plist file. By default it will open with TextEditor. Scroll down and add the following exactly as is:

LSUIElement
 1

Then just save and quit TextEditor and you will have to update the LaunchServices (as described above) before this change will take effect.

To undo this just delete the new key in TextEditor, save, quit and update the LaunchServices.

A Dozen Free Mac OSX Applications I Couldn’t Live Without -part 6

FileSync + DSW


Today I want to talk about a software combo I found to be very useful. The tag-team I am referring to is Do Something When and FileSync.

FileSync lets you synchronize two (or multiple) folders with each other. It’s really easy to use. 
Just use the ‘Add’ button to create a sync rule and then press ‘Sync’ to start your synchronization. A Progress window will open and keeps you informed of the files that are being treated.

DSW (Do Something When) on the other hand is a preference pane that, once loaded, will do something when a certain rule applies. You can trigger your self-made rules by mounting/unmounting volumes (drives) or launching/quitting applications.

In my setup when I insert a specific USB Key it will load File Sync. This way I can easily make a synchronization of my professional folders and files when I want it. If I don’t feel like synching, I just press ‘Quit’ in FileSync.

DSW can be downloaded here and FileSync here.