Chapter 15. Movies & Sound
Macs have been capable of handling sound and graphics from Day One, years before the word multimedia was even coined. MacOS’s QuickTime technology, for example, plays digital movies and live “streaming” broadcasts from the internet. This chapter covers it all: how to record video and sound, edit it, and play it back.
QuickTime Player
A QuickTime movie is a playable video file, on your Mac or online. Like any movie, it creates the illusion of motion by flashing many individual frames (photos) per second before your eyes, while also playing a synchronized soundtrack.
The cornerstone of macOS’s movie software is QuickTime Player, which sits in your Applications folder. Despite its name, QuickTime Player also lets you edit movies and even record new ones, either using your Mac’s built-in camera or by recording screen activity. Finally, when everything looks good, you can post your masterpiece to YouTube, Facebook, Vimeo, or another online site.
You open a movie file by double-clicking it. When QuickTime Player opens, you get a borderless playback window. Just hit the space bar to play the movie.
There’s a control toolbar at the bottom of the window (Figure 15-1), but it fades away after a few seconds—or immediately, if you move the cursor out of the frame. The toolbar reappears anytime your mouse moves back into the movie frame. These are the controls:
Volume slider (…). Click in the slider, or drag the dot, to adjust the volume—although it’s actually ...
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