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   Last updated: February 18, 2011

3. Export (no longer supported)

There is little for us to say about compressing video with ScreenEdit as what you see after choosing Export Movie comes from QuickTime.  If you want to compress your movie with a different QuickTime video compressor, choose Movie to QuickTime Movie.  In order to compress a movie into a Window Media video, you need to have a Flip4Mac QuickTime component (WMV Studio, WMV Studio Pro or WMV Studio Pro HD).  If you wish to export just a single frame, choose Movie to Picture.  Again, these options are built-in QuickTime Pro functions, which we have no control over.

If you don't know which video compressor (after choosing Movie to QuickTime Movie) to use, H.264 might be a good one to start with.  H.264 is also called MPEG-4 Part 10.  A similar one is known just as MPEG-4 or MPEG-4 Part 2, which you might also want to try using.  Apple uses the latter and wraps video and audio tracks with a multimedia container called MP4.  Another somewhat popular video compressor is Animation, which is often used to create lossless video.  'Lossless' means all values can be recoverable at the time of video decompression.

4. Split

Another major feature that ScreenEdit supports is Split.  What it does is to let you split a single movie file into up to 19 smaller pieces plus one file with the rest.  When you switch tabs to Split, you will see an edit box next to 'Segments in seconds.'  Enter a number of seconds by which you want to split a movie.  Then click on Select to designate the folder where you want to save movie files.  And the edit box right below will indicate the path to the directory you have selected.

If everything goes well, you will find split files labeled 001, 002, 003... and Final.

5a. Slide

A new feature that has been adopted since version 1.0.5 is Slide.  Slide supports 60 QuickTime's built-in SMPTE effects to let users create simple slideshow movies.  Slide works pretty much in the same way ScreenSequence works except that you need to select two images by setting an in point and an out point. 

In order to select two images, set an in point for Image 1 and an out point for Image 2.  Then choose one of 60 SMPTE effects from the pull-down menu.  ScreenSequence has a preview screen that display samples of all 133 SMPTE effects, and ScreenEdit doesn't.  And, again, ScreenEdit supports only 60 SMPTE effects.  Anyway, click on the Next button if you are ready to proceed.

Next, enter the width and height of a slideshow movie you are going to produce.  Also enter the frame rate, which serves as the number of frames since there are only two images involved.  If you further click on Next, you will be prompted with QuickTime's built-in video compression window.  Choose a video compressor of your choice and confirm the frame rate or enter a different one if necessary.

5b. Change after Version 1.0.6

A new property shown as 'Number of frames' is added for the slide function.  The number of frames determines the speed of animation.  It has to be an integer.  The higher the number is, the more slowly animation will proceed.  If you don't know what to enter, set it to 24, 48 or 96, and see which number will produce the best result for you.

6. More

A simple feature, which you may find useful, is Take Screenshot.  Move the play head to a particular frame and choose Take Screenshot.  Then a picture of the frame will be copied to the clipboard.  If you are a Mac user, launch Preview and choose New From Clipboard.  Then you can save the picture with any graphic format that it supports by selecting Save As...  Of course, you don't have to use Preview to retrieve the picture you have copied to the clipboard.

If you have already set an in point and an out point, try using Play Selection.  If you turn it on, the movie will run only along the segment you have selected.

QuickTime Pro has Movie Inspector, which shows movie details such as video compressor, frame rate, audio compressor, audio depth, active resolution.  ScreenEdit has Movie Info, which you will find under the Movie menu.  Movie Info does not show the frame rate of the movie and the video compressor due to uknown factors.