Video

If you are viewing a movie or other video in Quicktime Player, you can easily get some important info, such as the Movie Time, SMPTE Time Code, or the Frame Number. This can be especially helpful if you are trying to edit a video and you need the exact frame number.

1. Open a Movie with Quicktime Player. I like to use the 'Get a Mac' videos with the Mac and PC Guys. READ MORE »

Q: I just bought a Macbook and some of the videos that I used to be able to play on my Windows machine no longer work. I thought the Mac was the best for video. Any ideas?
- Jason, via email.

A: The problem you are probably having is that you don't have the proper Quicktime plug-ins to decode the videos. Mac OS X tries to use Quicktime to playback almost all of the video on your system. Since there are so many video formats, Quicktime doesn't support everything out of the box. To make it work, you need an extra plug-in to help it decode the formats it doesn't natively support. Here is what I would recommend. READ MORE »

Have you ever taken a video with your digital camera and the orientation was all wrong? If you have Quicktime Pro, you can fix it easily. Note: You will need a registered copy of QuickTime player. When it's registered, it turns into QuickTime Pro.

Here is how to do it:
Open a movie with QuickTime Pro

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Have you ever seen any of those TV shows that show convenience store robbery tapes, or a sunrise coming up in the morning? You can create your own time lapse videos with an iSight and iMovie 6 HD. The date and time will be embedded, and you can watch hours of video in a very short amount of time.

Here is how to do it:
Open 'iMovie 6 HD'

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You have your brand new Mac (or older one with an iSight), and nobody to test the cool iChat AV with? Well, luckily there are some Apple test servers that you can test it with.

Here is how to do it:
Open 'iChat AV'
next, from the iChat menu, choose 'Buddies -> Add Buddy'
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If you are a web designer or do any work matching colors with photos, you are in luck. Mac OS X comes with a cool little program to help you get the digital value of any pixel on the screen. It's called Digital Color Meter.

Here is how to do it:

From the 'Finder' menu, choose 'GO->Utilities'
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If you have Quicktime 7, you can tweak some of the finer points while the video is playing. Some features are only supported if you have a video card that supports Core Image, but most modern macs have this. Even if your Mac doesn't, you can still play around with some of the features.

Open 'Quicktime Player' Finder -> Go -> Applications

Next, open a movie (you probably have some in your Movies folder).

Now, hold down 'COMMAND + K', or alternately, go to 'Window -> Show A/V Controls'
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