Quicktime
I had written an Applescript for doing so but the disadvantage was; it bumped up the Quicktime window every time and depriving me of my focus over other tasks. I found a couple of application some free, some not. I don’t wanted a full blown application for batch processing my files because it seemed a perfect match for Automator and some application doesn’t support flattening but tries to convert the file.
So if like me you have a bunch of avi, mpeg, mov, mp4 files collected from your vacation with different brands of cameras. You desperately search for an easy way to make you workflow just work.
I fired up Automator only to discover that it has very limited support for video processing through Quicktime. It is only able to take the last settings from Quicktime with no flattening option.
The use is straightforward. You need at least a Get Specified Finder Items, select the movies you like to flatten. Plug the Flatten Movie action after it, choose the destination. I click Play.
The action can also be stopped; click automator stop. Depending on the internal state of Quicktime starting and stopping Quicktime takes randomly little or more time. Flatten Movie works with any kind of video files Quicktime can open, Reference movies and link movies to.
This is especially use-full if you want to join more files. Let’s say you have File1.mpeg File2.mpeg File3.mpeg, so open File1.mpeg and File2.mpeg. Select all from File2.mpeg and copy. Go to the end of File1.mpeg and paste. Close File2.mpeg and repeat the process with File3.mpeg. You can continue to edit File1.mpeg as pleased. When you are ready Save As Reference to a new mov file(takes a short save time). Now pass your new_file.mov(reference of the work you done) through the workflow with Flatten Movie to get a self-contained movies.
There is really no need for supplementary application on Mac to accomplish trivial tasks.
Download Flatten Movies.
Enjoy
Related posts:
- Flatten Movies Version 1.1 Flatten Movies is an Automator action to flatten every movie...
- Quicktime Perian One essential plugin for Quicktime every Mac user should be...
- Convert to PDF I was astonished not to discover an easy way to...
- Convert to PDF Version 1.1 A minor update for a developer a major improvement for...
- Doc to pdf with Automator As requested here is one possible way to convert doc...
Tags: applescript, automator, avi mpeg, Download, file mov, Flatten, flatten movies, Mac, mov file, mpeg mov, Quicktime, video files
many thanks for sharing this – its exactly what I need and will save me a lot of time !
So far it seams to accomplish its work well but I tried out some for me unusual formats and they won’t work. So far FLV and MKV are concerned. Since I don’t use these containers that much it doesn’t bother me. If someone wants these formats supported please leave your request on this post.
Well, works great for me !
Do you know of an automator script for converting a bunch of different text documents into pdf format ?
Have been googling but not joy.
I thought I knew of one automator action, I saw it about 2 years ago, but its gone. I searched in vain, and so decided to put together a ‘Convert to PDF‘ action.
forgive my ignorance, but why would it be necessary to “flatten” a movie if it already plays fine?
If you only like to watch your movies, leaving them in there original container is just fine. Here are some arguments as why I like to be able to batch convert my files to MOV:
I use the flatten action with the “Ask for Finder Item.action in a automated workflow file called flatten.workflow. In it I set my default input/output to my Desktop. The workflow works very well from my flatten.workflow automator file. During execution it apparently takes the base name of the input file and creates a new file with the extension .mov. When I save the workflow as an app, and destroy the original automator workflow file and execute it no output file is generated because I get a null error in the log file (see attached log). When I check the Why? How can I get around this? I have tried various things but nothing works.
log:
7/13/09 12:15:14 PM flatten[320] File /Users/bpl/Desktop/For Ryan 640X480.m4v opened
7/13/09 12:15:14 PM flatten[320] Start flattening to (null)
7/13/09 12:15:14 PM flatten[320] Error Domain=NSOSStatusErrorDomain Code=-120 “Operation could not be completed. (OSStatus error -120.)” (Directory not found)
William,
Please disregard my previous post. I upgraded to “Flatten Movies Version 1.1″ rebooted and all was okay.
Thanks.
this is exactly what i need! but i cant seem to get it to run. Tried on both 10.5.7 and 10.6 and it is unable to run in automator.
“The action “Flatten Movies” could not be loaded because it is not Universal.”
Am I doing something wrong??
I get the same in Automator Version 2.1 (246) (Snow Leopard)
Could not be loaded because it is not universal.
I’m not sure it will do what I want.
I have scoured the net, everyone seems to be looking for the same this, a decent script that will automate a bunch of AVI’s to “save as reference” in Quicktime Pro. I found one that works well “Movie2iTunes” by just dragging a load of files onto an applet and it creates a refernce and puts the resulting mov into iTunes but I can’t edit the files ad drop artwork into them for some reason where-as a manually done file in Quicktime lets me change the artwork, so that’s really frustrating since its 99.9% perfect for me
Hi drh,
Give me a couple of days; I will upload a new version soon, which will solve the Universal Binary problem and it will be able to convert flv files as well.
So you have three kinds of mov files:
1) Self-contained MOV doesn’t have external dependencies( big file ). A Flatten file contains the whole data( f.ex video tracks, text tracks, multiple audio tracks possibly artwork) everything in one file.
2) Movie Ref: Is a movie files which tracks are references to external files, but can also have tracks of its own. So it’s a kind of hybrid between (1) and (3) this file is generally a couple of mega bytes, it depends on the amount of data stored in.
3) Movie link: holds no data at all but is just a link to an external file ( very small file, a couple of Kilo bytes). A Movie Link contains nothing but only a reference to a file, so you have to edit the original file( in your example the source container is avi, which doesn’t support all the features that the mov container supports). Movie2iTunes creates MOV Link files(3).
f.ex AVI files
1) everything( one audio, one video track [multiple tracks, images, script, references etc not supported]) in one file
2) not supported
3) not supported
Apologies, It would appear that I have got 10.5.7 automator to open it now.
Is there a way to make it so that the results are saved in the same folder as the original?
And despite
“is an Automator action to flatten every movie Quicktime is able to open”
I am unable to process some flv’s which open fine in QT (with perian)
I have successfully used QT’s save as but for some reason the automator action does not work on them.
if i can help troubleshoot in any way let me know because I have a whole big bunch of FLV that I would like to change to mov’s
Thanks heaps for you efforts
I’m running Leopard 10.5.8 and I can’t get your automator action v1.1 to work. I double click it and automator opens but the action isn’t added to automator. I’d love to be able to use this action but no matter what I do your action won’t import into automator.
Nevermind I got it working, apparently you can’t double click it to make it work you have to actually import it through the automator app