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.

A Dozen Free Mac OSX Applications I Couldn’t Live Without -part 5

NameChanger

This tool I use only once a while, but when I do I’m very thankful that MRR Software has developed this application. I remember doing manual renames of multiple files. With NameChanger this is completely history.

The renaming features of this small tool are:

• Replace First Occurrence

• Replace Last Occurrence

• Replace All Occurrences

• Wildcard

• Append

• Prepend

• Date

• Sequence

• Character Removal

You just have to add files with a simple drag-and-drop or you can use the programs interface to import files.
The original files are shown in the (surprise surprise) Original Filename column.

The resulting filenames are shown in the other column depending on your used settings.

This useful tool can be downloaded here.

A Dozen Free Mac OSX Applications I Couldn’t Live Without -part 4

MPEG Streamclip

This must be my all-time favourite out of the many free applications you can find on the web.

I do a lot of editing and very often I only receive a small (email-able) mpeg. Converting such an mpeg for use in an edit program such as FCP or Avid (or even iMovie) can be a tricky issue. Not any more!

Squared 5 offers a great solution to extract streams/ (batch) convert mpegs. It even handles .vob conversion end can fix time code breaks.

I’ll post some small, but very useful tutorials for this app when I'm done with the list.

You might want to consider getting the QuickTime MPEG2 codec as it is in combination with this app a deadly combo for everyone that is active in both editing and dvd-authoring.

When I buy a new mac it’s guaranteed the first application I'll download and install!

To download this remarkable piece of software go to the site of squared5 here.

A Dozen Free Mac OSX Applications I Couldn’t Live Without -part 3

ecamm network's - Movie Tools

There isn't much I can tell about ecamm network's Movie Tool apart of the fact that they do just what they are intended to do. It's plain and simple.

In fact this is a package which consist of following tools

• Convert To MP3 
• Convert To AAC 
• Convert To AIFF 
• Split Movie Tracks 
• Chapter Editor 
• Split Sides of Conversation
• Convert For Internet

It’s a collection of drag-and-drop converters that provide a quick and easy way to extract movie tracks and convert QuickTime movies (in fact every file that is playable with QuickTime) to MP3, AAC or AIFF format.

It’s a hassle free/idiot proof way to do some quick (batch) converting and I end up using this mainly for batch-converting .m4a to .mp3 files.

These tools make use of your iTunes settings for compressing sound. If you want to change compression settings just make these within iTunes.

The tools can be downloaded for free on ecamm network's site here. 

A Dozen Free Mac OSX Applications I Couldn’t Live Without -part 2

FormulatePro – Free PDF-Editor

For me this little pdf-overlay-writer was a true revelation:

Intentially made by Andrew de los Reyes to create overlay text and graphics on pdf-documents. As the creators site states it is really great to fill in forms etc, but I use it for a lot more.

In my job I receive a lot of pdf documents with price estimates etc. When I accept an offer I have to send the signed version through mail as proof. The contractor then has to send this document with his invoice.

Before I got to know FormulatePro I always printed the estimate signed it manually, added the date and job number, made a scan and then mailed it to the contractor.

No need to tell that this isn’t a very productive way to handle this kind of workflow.

In came FormulatePro… Now I just open the pdf place a transparent stamp with my signature in it and add the current date and the right reference.

Then all I have to do is to print it as a pdf and mail it.

At first I was thinking to buy Adobe’s Acrobat, which is without any doubt a very decent piece of software, but this small robust application is just all I need for the moment.

I even use it to edit pdf files that need some last-minute changes. I made a white image in Photoshop and use it as a mask to cover any unwanted information in the pdf.

The Main window is very basic and has just a zoom (in and out) function and a customization icon with which you can add a Next Page and Previous Page button.

When you opened a pdf-document you have six tools to edit it.

You can write text, draw rectangles and circles or just draw with the freeform tool. It also has a function to place check-marks (very handy for filling out forms)

The arrow tool lets you select an resize edited text and shapes you created/imported.

To download this application, just visit the developer’s code.google site here.

A Dozen Free Mac OSX Applications I Couldn’t Live Without -part 1

I will be posting the next few days some free Mac tools that I believe are truly amazing.. Wether it is in my professional or private Mac, these nifty applications will always be present on a Mac I am using.

The first one I want to introduce is:

 Cyberduck – Free FTP CLIENT



I am quite sure there have to be more then a dozen other free ftp-apps for Mac, but I am using this ftp client for several years now and frankly I can’t complain.

It’s basic and very simple easy-to-use interface makes connecting to ftp-sites a matter of seconds.

It has a very useful bookmark tab to store your favourite servers, but it also keeps a history of recently visited sites.

Also very useful is the ability of Cyberduck to store the passwords for visited sites in your osx Keychain.

If you are interested you can download Cyberduck at the developers site here.

a small introduction…

Hi there,

I am starting this blog to share some basic, easy-to-understand and learn, mac and internet stuff, which makes my life much easier and/or made me have more enjoyment.

What to expect?

I’ll be posting some useful lists, a review once in a while and my thoughts about a certain new development etc.

to be continued…