The Unofficial Apple Weblog (TUAW)

Scott, since you're just getting into video editing, maybe you've got a suggestion, or can get some advice from other more experienced people, on software I'm looking for: a simple, inexpensive video clip organizer, very much like iPhoto for video clips.

There are lots of "DVD movie" organizer products (I like DVDpedia), but that's not what I'm looking for. I want something to manage all the stray video files I've got on my Mac. Something that will handle everything Quicktime does, let me create playlists (and smart playlists), assign keywords or other information, show me a thumbnail view of a playlist, automatically show me the file size and video length, etc. A built-in player is nice, but not required. I do want something that refers to the files in their existing locations, and doesn't suck them all into its own library (like iPhoto does with photos).

I've hunted around and found a number of these programs, but none is really satisfying.

- yFlicks, in TUAW a few days ago, is more of a browser, and doesn't have keywords or notes/info fields to help categorize videos.

- iVideo does everything I want, but it's buggy, not Universal, and orphaned (not updated since 2005).

- iDive is expensive and more for professionals.

- Stimulus is too much of a browser.

- MovieGallery is the closest to what I'm looking for, although I wish it had keywords instead of just a big info field.

Do you (or any TUAW readers) have any suggestions? Thanks.

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Just so you know, you can take a finished mpeg4 or h264 ipod movie, open it in QT Pro and put the chapters BACK into it.

1. Export your timeline from FCP. You're likely doing this anyway as you usually use that to batch your ipod videos (at least that's how I do it). Make sure you choose to export chapters (I usually use the DVDSP setting as we also batch our stuff to mpeg2)

2. Open that FCP movie in QT pro and hit Apple-J to open the Movie Properties window.

3. Depending on wether you exported using all markers, chapters only or DVDSP chapters, ONE of the text tracks will have your chapter data in it. If you use the DVDSP setting, it'll be text track 2 (1 will contain markers on all of your hard cuts).

4. CHoose the text track and hit the Extract button.

5. Select all of this new timeline that QT has made from your extracted text

6. Open your Podcase video file, set the play head to the beginning of your movie and choose Add to Movie (pasting won't work right).

7. With your iPod movie still selected in QT, hit Apple-J again and open that movies properties. Click on the Video track in the list, and then choose Other settings. From the Chapters menu, choose your text track.

If you did it right, your iPod movie will have the same chapters as your FCP movie.

We do this for a class at our church, and it's really handy to have the chapters in the web movie match the chapters on the DVD.

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please, i'm begging you please - stay away from editing.
work on your producing and interview skills first. like how to hold a mic, don't step on people's lines, appearance, stuff like that. you're a good guy, but you're getting way ahead of yourself.

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