In the process of moving from Mojave to Sequoia (also from Intel to Apple Silicon Mac), and am finding a very few apps that I use which no longer run on Sequoia.
One of them is the late and lamented QuickTime 7 Pro. I found it handy for viewing video files; but what it was invaluable for was simple video editing: trimming, selecting, cutting and pasting clips together. The sort of thing where Final Cut is overkill, and then some.
There are plenty of good apps out there for viewing videos, or transcoding them to a different format. But I’ve been surprised that I can’t find recommendations for an app that fills the gap QuickTime 7 Pro left behind: a simple point-and-click video editor, sans bells and whistles, with a very intuitive UI.
I am not a video professional, and don’t need or want features like applying additional audio tracks to video, dissolves, etc. Just looking for a simple quick-and-dirty video editor.
Given that, any recommendations? I’m quite willing to spend modest $$ for something that fills the bill.
Thank you in advance!
PS The only thing I’ve found so far that seems close to what I’m looking for, is the “Lossless Cut” app in the Mac App Store. (I suspect it’s based on the open source losslesscut multi-platform video editor code.)
I use Avidemux for that sort of editing now. I wouldn’t call it particularly intuitive, and it’s cross platform so it doesn’t have a very Mac-like interface, but it gets the job done.
The Mac version from that site is an Intel app, but this forum thread has a link to a build script that you can use to build a native Apple Silicon version:
If you find something better, I’d like to hear about it.
I haven’t been on Sequoia for a while, but am seeing QuickTime Player 10.5 on my M2 MBAir in Tahoe and its File/Edit/View menus seem to show the actions you’re seeking.
I don’t do much with video but have been using Macs for decades and iirc these basic editing abilities have been in QTPlayer/Pro for a very long time.
Maybe you have iMovie also installed, it can do all that and more, but would take a bit to learn even the basics as its interface is much different than QT.
@TBTdn made a good suggestion regarding QT Player 10.5. You can take a look at the Sequoia version of the QuickTime Player User Guide to see if it has the features you are interested in. The navigation on that page can be a little confusing, but just click on the Table of Contents to see what is available.
QuickTime Player indeed offers split, trim, pasting in. Very rudimentary but functional. I still miss QPro7 and its utility as a conversion tool. So useful an app, a real shame they let it go.
I also found several other functions of QT7 simple to use:
audio editing such as adding/replacing a sound track
horizontally flipping a video (eg mirror image for tai chi lessons)
changing to slo-mo
It is one of the reasons I keep an old iMac on Mojave (+ several other 32 bit apps). However the export options for QT7 are a bit limited and I find I often need to reprocess the output with Handbrake.
Thanks to everyone for the suggestions and feedback — it was invaluable! After reviewing it, and spending a few hours this afternoon experimenting, my search has come to a satisfying conclusion.
In short, @TBTdn’s suggestion to use the QuickTime Player app that comes with Sequoia is the right one (for me). It basically provides all the functionality I was seeking, with a somewhat different, but still simple, UI. Major thanks to josehill’s link to the QuickTime Player User Guide — that and 15 minutes of experimentation convinced me that this was the app I was looking for.
As others have said, I will miss several aspects of QuickTime 7 Pro. QuickTime Player isn’t quite as intuitive as Quicktime 7 Pro was, IMO; and it doesn’t have the handy simplified transcoding capabilities of Quicktime 7 Pro (though the choice of formats have become pretty outdated). However, between HandBrake and Permute, transcoding won’t be an issue.
Also, I tried out several of the 3rd party editors that were suggested; here’s a brief list of my (highly subjective) experiences:
Trimma: Even simpler interface than Quicktime Player; but I found the trimming operation, and a couple of other features, were actually less intuitive. Prefer Quicktime Player.
Lossless Cut: Sort of the flip side of Trimma. A little less intuitive than Quicktime 7, but also with some interesting features that QuickTime Player lacks. I was tempted; but I just don’t see myself using that extra functionality very often, if at all.
AviDemux: Venerable, but the interface is very non-Mac.
iMovie, Shotcut, Davinci Resolve: full-fledged video production software, and overkill for what I want to do. Good suggestions, just not what I’m looking for.
Also, Some I didn’t check out, other than look at their product web pages:
Telestream Switch Plus ($739!!)
Screenflow – looks like a stripped-down Final Cut Pro, but aimed at the things Quicktime Pro 7 did.
I use Cmd+T to trim videos and occasionally the other things. IIRC after Apple replaced QuickTime it took them some time to add these features back in.
I’m glad you found what you were looking for and especially something that works. But I have to question WHY QuickTime Pro 7 (which we pay for) is no longer offered nor supported on newer MacOS systems.