Editing An MP4 Movie

[vansmith]

@vansmith As far as I know QT Player doesn't have a cropping tool. You'll have to resort to a dedicated video editor. Too bad. Such a.tool would be helpful.

I'd love to have something simple like that, particularly since iPadOS/iOS has it. This is a feature that they should port across.

 

[Slydude]

I'd love to have something simple like that, particularly since iPadOS/iOS has it. This is a feature that they should port across.

Now that I understand exactly what you were looking for I agree. iMovie is great but there are times when it is overkill/difficult to manage on an iPad.

 

[vansmith]

Now that I understand exactly what you were looking for I agree. iMovie is great but there are times when it is overkill/difficult to manage on an iPad.

Absolutely. And while iMovie can work, I'd rather not install something so large just to do something simple as crop a video. This is particularly true for me as I find myself having to crop out the black bars at the top and bottom given that much of the content that I record is done in Keynote on my iPad (so I can use the pencil to annotate) and that records at a wide aspect ratio (and I also want to crop out the annotation toolbar at the bottom).

 

[TechnoBob]

The free movie editor Handbrake will let you crop top/bottom/sides.

When you open your movie in Handbrake, click the "Dimensions" tab (which is next to the default "Summary" tab), then look on the left of the window where you'll see "Orientation & Cropping" options (flipping, rotation, and cropping).

Cropping defaults to "Automatic"; you'll select "Custom", and you can put in the number of pixels you want removed on the left, the right, the top, and the bottom. ("Display size", just above these options, tells you the total number of horizontal and vertical pixels you're dealing with.)

After you've guessed at the cropping you think you want, click back on "Summary" again and you'll see how much is going to be cut off; if it's too much or not enough, go back and play with Custom Cropping some more.

 

[TechnoBob]

For another approach to movie editing besides iMovie, consider the free HitFilm Express. The user interface is a little more intuitive than iMovie, IMO. Also, there are lots of YouTube videos helping you through the specifics, and there's a pretty good online manual as well.

 

[MacBiter]

For another approach to movie editing besides iMovie, consider the free HitFilm Express. The user interface is a little more intuitive than iMovie, IMO. Also, there are lots of YouTube videos helping you through the specifics, and there's a pretty good online manual as well.

There's also Shotcut, though its interface is a bit of learning curve - but it too has loads of great YouTube videos.