Exporting video with QuickTime X Player

Using QuickTime X Player, you can export video in file formats targeted for different scenarios. The important thing to remember is that QuickTime X Player presents you with a number of different presets to export your movie and that these presets are based on the original resolution of your video. There are a few different ways to export your video in QuickTime X Player: you can always export using the standard Save as commands, but there is also the new Share command in the menu that allows you to export video optimized for iTunes, MobileMe, or YouTube. You’ll first take a look at the standard exporting options.

Exporting video for the Desktop

QuickTime X Player dynamically presents you with various presets to choose from when it comes time to export your video. These presets are based on the original size of your movie: Apple’s goal here is to remove options that result in poor-quality video. You’ll see how this works by first looking at the options for a high-resolution screen recording and then looking at the options for a low-resolution file.

1. Open Screen_recording_1280x800t.mov. Choose Window > Show Movie Inspector. The Movie Inspector window shows you the settings for this movie; this video is 1280x800 pixels and is exported from a screen recording. Press the Close button in the top-left corner to close the Movie Inspector window.

2. Choose File > Save As. Click the drop-down menu labeled Format.

iPhone (Cellular): Optimizes a movie for viewing on an iPhone (or other mobile device) on a cellular network: 176x110: .3gp

iPhone: Optimizes a movie for viewing on an iPhone: 640x400: .m4v

iPod: Optimizes a movie for viewing on an iPod: 1152x720: .m4v

Apple TV: Optimizes a movie for viewing on Apple TV 640x480 .m4v

Computer: Optimizes a movie for viewing on a computer: Same size (1280x800): .m4v

As you can see, with the exception of the iPhone (Cellular) version, all of the formats are exported in the MPEG-4. standard, .m4v; however, they all have different widths and heights based on the standard for their respective platforms.

What about those HD formats?

There are three presets in this dialog for HD. Although it’s a bit beyond the scope of this article to fully explain what’s happening here, the concept is fairly straightforward: The QuickTime X Player always presents you with as many options as possible when exporting. High Defi nition video is just a term that represents the number of pixels in a video file. There are different types of HD video, however. In the case of the screen recording in this example, you have a file that has sufficient pixel information (1280x800) so that it can be downsampled to the common HD sizes: HD 1080p, HD 720p, and HD 480p.

Note that this does not mean you convert existing standard video to HD using QuickTime. If you do not have a video file of sufficient quality to begin with, QuickTime X Player does not give you these options.

1. How to Transfer Files from iPod to Mac
1. How to Transfer Files from iPod to Mac?What you Need... Mac OS X v10.4 or above;An iPod;iMacsoft iPod to Mac Transfer. Why Choose iMacs...

2. What is the best selling Apple iPad Tablet
Many would think the 64gb 3G iPad tablet would be the best selling iPad tablet, but surprisingly it's not! According to our consumer statistics for the month of May 2010, t...

3. Short Apple Computers History
An alternative to the bus-oriented Altair design was the single-board microcomputer like the IMP-16C. Miniaturization made it possible to put a small computer comprised o...

4. Optimizing NetBoot Performance
The NetBoot service, and network-based system deployment in general, is among the most demanding services you can subject your network and servers to. Therefore, before s...

5. Mac OS X users manage their authorization rights
Even if you don’t want to enforce strict usage policies, you will still create accounts on Mac OS X for your users. The choices you make regarding user account types...

6. How to create simple NetBoot images
Many clients can read from the same NetBoot image, but when a client needs to write anything (such as print spools, browser caches, and other temporary files) back to its ...

7. Enabling ARD Remote Management
Apple Remote Desktop (ARD) 3 is the remote control, management, reporting, and deployment tool for Mac OS X systems. Every Mac OS X v10.5 system includes the client-side ...

8. Mac OS X file attributes and permissions
Mac OS X uses a unique file system, the Mac OS Extended format, that provides both perceived simplicity and enhanced metadata attributes. These file system features are r...

9. Printers in Snow Leopard and Gutenprint
Printers come in varying shapes, sizes, and configurations. As the primary output device on your computer, the printer becomes an important tool for converting the digital...

10. The NetBoot service explained in detail
The NetBoot service is most commonly used to provide a temporary operating system. In this article you will learn how to further accelerate the system deployment process b...