MPEG Streamclip Tutorial – Part 1

You can use MPEG Streamclip to: open and play most movie formats including MPEG files or transport streams; edit them with Cut, Copy, Paste, and Trim; set In/Out points and convert them into muxed or demuxed files, or export them to QuickTime, AVI, DV and MPEG-4 files with more than professional quality, so you can easily import them in a DVD authoring tool, and use them with many other applications or devices.
Supported input formats: MPEG, VOB, PS, M2P, MOD,VRO, DAT, MOV, DV, AVI, MP4, TS, M2T, MMV, REC, VID, AUD, AVR, VDR, PVR, TP0, M2V, M1V, MPV, AIFF, M1A, MP2, MPA, AC3, …” (taken from the Squared 5 website)

What does this mean for the casual video editor? Basically this handy piece of software can take nearly any piece of video you wish to feed it and you can bend it to your will. Want to cut out an embarrassing fall? Reuse a piece of footage for a montage? Remove the audio to add your own later? You can do that.

Where to begin?

First and foremost, you should download MPEG Streamclip. It can be found at http://www.squared5.com/, for both Windows and Mac versions. While these tutorials will be for the Windows version, should be able to easily follow along on a Mac as well.

Additional software requirements:

*The Windows version of this software requires Windows XP, Vista, 7, and possibly 2000. If you are running an older version of Windows this software MOST LIKELY WILL NOT WORK*

*For MPEG-2, you have two options. You can use Apple’s official Quicktime software and pay for the MPEG-2 playback component (http://www.apple.com/quicktime/download/win.html) or you can use version 1.81 of the KL Quicktime Alternative located at http://www.filehippo.com/download_quicktime_alternative/2615 (later versions may be compatible but I am not sure)*

*If you want to use DivX files, you will need to install 3vix ) and have upgraded to Windows Media Player 10 or higher. (This guide uses WMP 12)*

Downloading & Installing MPEG Streamclip, KL Quicktime Alternative, and 3vix

Downloading is a breeze from their website, two clicks and you are there.

This will give you a .zip file that you can open with winzip, winrar, or any other similar program. Extract these files to somewhere you can find them, maybe even your desktop!

Optional Installations

KL Quicktime Alternative
When you install it, be sure to enable the checkbox “Additional plugins”, otherwise the MPEG-2 decoder will not be installed. You can choose either the full or the lite version.

If you already have iTunes and/or QuickTime installed, you can replace Apple QuickTime with QuickTime Alternative without causing problems to iTunes. Just start the QuickTime Alternative installer, and choose to uninstall Apple QuickTime before installing QuickTime Alternative.

3vix

Download, run the exe, and install to the default directory.

***NOTE***
Running Windows 7, I ran into issues experienced by many others online. First I had no audio for my video, and then I had no video for my audio!

To avoid this, I’ve discovered you need to install 3vix last.