As a Mac user, you may have noticed QuickTime Player in your applications list.
It comes preinstalled on your device, and you may have never opened it to see what it’s about.
It doesn’t have complex features, and you can realize that it’s related to media when you open it.
Now, you may wonder if it’s a program for professional users or whether you can use it for average multimedia tasks.
Why Do I Need QuickTime? (5 Potential Reasons)
QuickTime is Apple’s Proprietary multimedia framework that allows users to handle multimedia files of different formats, including video, audio, pictures, animations, panoramic images, and many more.
The software interface for this framework is QuickTime Player, which allows you to play, edit, compress, and change the file format of videos.
It has a straightforward and uncluttered interface that makes it popular among average users.
You need QuickTime if you play video and audio files of different file formats and codecs, whether they’re proprietary Apple or third-party formats.
You can use QuickTime if you’re a content creator and need to communicate with your audience but don’t want to use professional-grade video editing tools that require high processing power.
It also allows you to compress video and audio files to decrease their size to fit them into your storage devices or conform to platforms’ upload standards.
Overall, the simplicity and user-friendly interface of the app are among the most important reasons that make it a must-have app.
1. Video Playing
The primary function of QuickTime is playing videos.
It’s a video player natively offered on all Apple devices.
It’s originally Apple’s proprietary software that revolutionized the way we watch videos by allowing us to play them on computers.
This video player also takes the name of this software to play videos.
If you watch videos on your Apple devices, you can rely on this preinstalled software without installing any other player.
What’s more, you don’t need a multimedia file on your device to play or see on QuickTime.
You can watch online content using the app.
Copy the link of the video or image inside the app and play it on QuickTime.
2. Screen Recording
In addition to playing videos of various formats, QuickTime is a great tool for recording videos, audio, and even your screen.
If you’re into content creation, you can rely on this tool to record your voice and screen while doing projects.
Whether you’re a teacher recording tutorials for your students or showing your fellow game players how to score high on a specific game, you can use this tool to record your screen.
In addition, you can use your device’s front camera or webcam to record your audio and video using the video recording tool.
The app has an audio recording feature allowing you to record your voice without recording your image.
And when you record your video or audio, you can share it on the selected platforms directly from inside the app.
You don’t need to save it on your device and then share the file from its location on the device.
Here are the main destinations to which you can send your video:
- YouTube
- Vimeo
- AirDrop
- Photos on Mac
- Messages
It also has a list of other destinations that you can choose from the Extensions list.
This feature allows you to customize the destinations to which you share your content.
It’s highly straightforward and doesn’t require you to go through a complex process of adjusting different settings to record videos.
It has a clutter-free interface that makes recording audio and video a breeze.
3. Video Editing
You don’t need to be a professional video editor to modify recorded or downloaded videos.
Every causal content creator can use a simple video editing tool to cut, trim, or combine videos they’ve already created.
Using QT’s video recording feature, you can do the same with your recorded videos.
It has a simple drag-and-drop design that allows you to cut parts of your video or add other parts to it.
You can split a video, rearrange, or rotate selected parts to add more effects.
As mentioned, you shouldn’t expect it to be a professional editing tool.
Instead, it’s a simple tool that lets you edit your videos on the go without requiring powerful rendering features and hardware.
The tool divides the entire movie into several clips displayed in a sequence of smaller clips at the bottom of the screen for better visibility.
You can choose specific clips to rearrange, cut, or rotate within the app.
4. Video Compression
Even if you don’t create your own content, you may need to upload videos on different platforms.
These platforms have different size requirements that your original video may not comply with.
In other cases, you may wish to archive your memories, such as family or trip videos, in your permanent storage device.
As we record movies with the highest quality, their sizes increase, creating space limitations if we wish to keep all our movies in one place.
Here’s how video compression can help us.
Compressing a video can reduce its size without lowering its quality.
If you’re a Mac user, you don’t need to download any third-party apps since your device comes preinstalled with just the right tool.
QuickTime allows you to adjust the video’s resolution and the video coding format (H.264 or H.265).
You can choose from 4k, 1080p, 720p, and 480p.
5. Support For Different Formats
The videos created by QuickTime have the .mov format, which is only playable through the QuickTime player.
However, it’s not the only format that QuickTime supports.
You can play a wide range of multimedia content with different codecs and formats.
Plus, you can view and combine different elements on the media player.
In addition to video and audio, it supports:
- 3D content
- Animations
- VR content
- Graphics
- Text
- Skins
- Smiles
- MIDI
- Hyperlinks
In addition to Apple’s native file formats, QuickTime supports many third-party formats, including ASF, Flash Video, DivX, Ogg, Matroska, and many others.
You can also change the format of your picture, video, and audio files using the “Export as” feature.
This feature comes in handy when you want to upload a file with a format not supported by the destination.
How To Use QuickTime
You can perform a wide range of tasks on your QuickTime Player, from recording and editing video to compressing files.
Your Mac device has QuickTime Player already installed, so you just need to locate it through the Finder or in your application list.
After opening the software, you can navigate its menus to use its different capabilities.
1. Record Your Screen
To use the screen record feature, go to File and select New Screen Recording.
On the bottom panel, you can click on the screen icons to determine what part of your screen to record: do you want to record the entire screen or just a portion of it?
If you choose the second option, you’ll see a rectangle on the screen that you can expand, shrink, and move to fit your desired spot.
Click Options to adjust the settings, like where you want to save the file and what microphone you’ll use.
You can also use a timer to delay recording for five or 10 seconds to give you more time to prepare.
When you go out of the Options menu, your mouse cursor will turn into a camera icon, and you can start recording by clicking any spot on your screen or the Record icon at the bottom of the screen.
As soon as you start recording, you can see a Stop icon on the top right corner of your screen, which you can hit to stop recording.
When you stop recording, the recorded file will be saved on the destination you’ve already specified.
2. Compress Video
The video compression feature in QuickTime Player is highly straightforward and doable in simple steps.
Simply launch QuickTime and open the video you want to compress.
Go to File and select Export to see the available resolutions.
After selecting the resolution, the tool will automatically do its job.
Follow the on-screen instructions to save the file.
3. Edit Videos
You can access the editing options under the Edit menu.
Open your video with QuickTime and click Edit in the top left corner.
You can see all the editing options in the drop-down menu, including rotation, flipping, trim, etc.
For example, when you click Trim, a bounding box will appear containing different frames and two handles on each end that you can move to determine where the video should start and end.
If your video has audio, you may want to trim it based on the audio.
To do so, go to View and select Show Audio Track.
After selecting the parts to keep (designated inside the yellow bar), click Trim on the right corner of the bar to trim the video.
Everything outside the yellow bar will be deleted.
If you aren’t happy with the edit, you can undo the changes by going to the Edit menu and selecting Undo.
Next, you should export the video and save it.
Click on the solid red circle on the top left corner of the app window, set the required values, and click Save.
4. Add Videos To Each Other
Merging two or more videos is very easy with QuickTime Player.
Play the video, go to Edit, and select Add Clip to End.
You’ll see a dialog box showing the videos you can add.
Select it, and you’ll see it’s added to the clip interface next to the original video.
You can do all the editing work you’d do with other clips and save your work.
5. Split A Movie
The Split feature allows you to cut movies into as many clips as you want.
To bring up the Split bar, open the video in QuickTime and select View > Show Clips.
You can also access the bar by pressing the Command Key + E.
After the yellow Clip bar appears, you can click the Play button next to it and see the red play head moving across the bar.
When the play head reaches your desired spot for splitting, hit Pause.
Note. You can also use the scroll function to move the play head.
After selecting the perfect spot to split, go to the Edit menu and select Split Clip.
Do the same for other parts of the video that you want to split.
After splitting your desired parts, you can see separate yellow bars next to each other.
You can remove the unwanted parts by selecting them and hitting the Delete button.
You can also drag the clips and drop them anywhere you want to rearrange the clips.
The tool also allows you to duplicate clips.
Simply click the clip and press the Option key on your keyboard, and you’ll see a copy of the selected clip inside the yellow bar.
Then, click the solid red circle to save your work.
QuickTime Broadcaster
QuickTime Player isn’t the only software offered by Apple based on the QuickTime media framework.
QuickTime Broadcaster is a live video encoding software that allows you to broadcast your video content live to your audience.
You can use it for business meetings and family gatherings to send live videos of events to people over the internet.
After downloading the free software from Apple’s website, you can run the software immediately.
Then, you should specify the device you’ll broadcast to by providing the IP address of the receiving device.
You can even broadcast your multimedia content to smartphones.
It supports different video and audio sources, allowing you to stream your content from various devices.
Can You Use QuickTime On Windows?
Although QuickTime is a proprietary Apple product, it has Windows and Linux versions.
It offers the same features as the Mac version, and you can download it from Apple’s support page.
However, Apple stopped its support for QuickTime in 2016, and a security company found vulnerabilities in the Windows version.
You won’t get any security patches, leaving your device vulnerable.
As a result, experts advise Windows users to uninstall QuickTime and replace it with other apps that offer the same features.
Still, you can install the QuickTime browser plugin to view videos on a webpage made with QuickTime format.
However, this browser plugin can only be used on browsers to play QuickTime videos.
If you want the same functions on a Windows app, you can use the following programs that can work as a QuickTime equivalent.
1. VLC Media Player
VLC Media Player is among the most widely used apps on Windows, macOS, Android, iOS, and Linux.
It’s free and open source and offers all the QuickTime features.
Screen recording, file format conversion, stream media, and many editing features are offered by QuickTime.
You can also create video and audio effects, play almost all formats available, and many more.
2. Kodi
Kodi is a free and open-source media player available for several operating systems and platforms.
It supports almost all media formats in addition to recording and allowing live TV shows.
Moreover, it allows you to play games through emulators and use the community-created add-ons that make your experience much easier.
Although these apps aren’t as straightforward as QuickTime, they can give you the same experience on a Windows device.
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