Add Chapters Using Quicktime Pro
With Quicktime Pro you can add chapter markers to your movie and help viewers jump from one part to another with ease. The steps aren’t as friendly as iMovie - but you won’t have to import your video into iMovie either!
Apple has scripts on their web site that automate tons of Quicktime functions. If you didn’t think Quicktime Pro could do much check out the scripts. It’s amazing just how much this application can do.
That’s enough of the sales pitch. If you need Quicktime Pro chances are you already know about it.
The screencast is loosely based on this tutorial from the Apple site. But the Apple version says to activate chapters on the text track - which didn’t work for Murphy. In the screencast you’ll notice Murphy activates chapters on the video track. It could be an error in the Apple tutorial - or it could be a version compatibility issue.
Here’s a little more information on text tracks and Quicktime. Click to download the movie used in the screencast and a sample text file.
Note: Apple announced changes to the Macbook Pro line today. If you don’t need the very latest check Amazon
11. June 2007 at 2:05 pm :
Hi,
I believe there is an error in the screencast. After futzing around for hours, I discovered that when adding the text to the movie using the “Add to Selection and Scale” as recommended in the screencast, the chapters often repeat themselves, due to the way QuickTime handles text. Rather than using the “Add to Selection and Scale,” I think it is better to use just the “Add to Selection” without the “and Scale,” also available from the QT Player menu. I didn’t discover this myself, but found a message posted on another site (not Apple’s site) that described the problem and the simple solution.
I tried everything I could think of to make the screencast method work, but everything I tried failed. I thought for sure I was misreading or misunderstanding some of the screencast, but that wasn’t the problem.
I love the screencasts, by the way, and am a big fan of this site, and it’s not just because of the great name you have.
Best regards,
Patrick Murphy
11. June 2007 at 3:41 pm :
Did you do a select-all on the destination movie before the Add to Selection and Scale? I included that because it was mentioned as a step on two different sites.
One of those sites was the apple site - but like I said I think they have at least one other mistake in their directions.
Also - you should probably adjust the frame rate ( the one that defaults to 1000 in the screencast) to whatever your frame rate is.
With all that said, the steps in the screencast did work for me, and the chapter markers were placed where I expected they would be. But that was a very short movie and a longer one might be more vulnerable to differences in the steps.
Here is the other place I saw the steps detailed. Scroll down to a post by regulus6633 where he explains the manual method.
What exactly didn’t work with the screencast method?
Finally - I don’t know WHY the scale part was added in the instructions. If you use that command to add audio to a video the audio is stretched or compressed to match the length of the video. I don’t see why this would be a factor with a text track.
So if it works for you without the scale command I would go with that!
Thanks for visiting and for sharing your experience - I’m sure some people will find it useful.
12. June 2007 at 2:38 am :
“Did you do a select-all on the destination movie before the Add to Selection and Scale?” -
Yes
“Also - you should probably adjust the frame rate ( the one that defaults to 1000 in the screencast) to whatever your frame rate is.”
Did that too
“What exactly didn’t work with the screencast method?”
It was interesting. In the text file “movie” the chapters displayed just as they should have. When added to the target QT movie, which was 15 minutes long, the chapters repeated themselves, so that I might have two chapters named “chapter two,” for example.
The screencasts are really cool. They look good and I like them all.
Best regards,
Patrick
12. June 2007 at 5:51 pm :
I had something like that (the double chapters appearing) happening when I tried to make my own text file from scratch - by just writing it. If I remember right that problem went away when I used the Export method to create the text file in the proper form.
So - when you leave the “scale” command out it works perfectly for you?
btw- not sure why your comment went into my spam. sorry about that.
13. June 2007 at 12:52 am :
“If I remember right that problem went away when I used the Export method to create the text file in the proper form.”
I followed the Screen cast directions precisely, and made sure to export the file as recommended in the screencast. Didn’t matter.
And yes, when I omit the “scale” command, everything worked just fine
13. June 2007 at 1:30 am :
Thanks for posting your experience Patrick. Maybe I’ll ask Quicktime Kirk why they would have the scale command in there.
13. June 2007 at 4:47 am :
Hi,
Thank goodness for the “History” in Safari’s menu bar. It took me awhile, but I found the source of the information I’ve reported here. It can be viewed at this address:
http://forums.3ivx.com/index.php?showtopic=85004&hl=Chapters
Scroll down to the third message, from bantha, dated September 27, 2006. This is the post where I got the information about adding the text.mov’s without using the “Scale As.”
Hope this helps…..
Adios, Murph … (but I’ll be back … this is a great site!)
Patrick
1. June 2008 at 11:24 pm :
Hi there,
I’ve been adding chapters to a QT movie using the steps above, but at the point when I “Add to Movie” the image quality of the text graphics already in the movie deteriorate - go from being smooth to blocky.
Did anyone else experience this? Is there a work around?
Many thanks,
Matt.