Recording and editing video on a Macintosh Creating a World of Warcraft movie is , at a minimum , a 2 step process . The video must first be captured and then encoded . Prior to the Patch 2 . 2 . 0 release of " World of Warcraft " , two commercial software programs allowed screen video capture in game : iShowU and SnapzProX . The default recording path of files for the World of Warcraft video recorder is by default " World of Warcraft / Movies " . This folder can be changed by adding " SET MovieRecordingPath " / Volumes / SomeDisk " " in the " World of Warcraft / WTF / config . wtf " file . World of Warcraft Video Recorder Options . This recorder is supported by Blizzard Entertainment , so assistance can be found at the World of Warcraft Macintosh Forums . The recorder has many options which can be accessed from the " Mac Options " submenu of the " Game Menu " . These Options are as follows : Encoding Recommendation . Typical videos ( since most Macintoshes come with a version of iLife / iMovie ) should be at a resolution of 640x480 @ 23 . 97 framerate , encoded with MPEG - 4 . For entry - level HD encoding using a 2 . 8 GHz iMac with 4 GB RAM or a superior system , record at 1280 * 800 @ fps 1 / 2 of game frame rate , and compress with H . 264 for smaller files and virtually the same quality as MPEG - 4 . Set Quality to High . This can then be letterboxed to fit ' normal ' 1280 * 720 HD format . External Audio Recording and Editing . Audio recording of sounds not made by the World of Warcraft game can be recorded by three programs : Soundflower ( freeware ) , Audio Hijack Pro ( commercial ) and the very simple and easy - to - use WireTap Studio ( commercial ) . Audio editing can be done with the GPL - licensed program Audacity . Macintosh Movie Editing . The following iMovie example was done in iMovie HD 6 . 0 . 3 . Source video was MPEG - 4 , 640x480 @ 23 . 97 fps . Final Cut Pro ( FCP ) and Final Cut Express ( FCE ) . FCP and FCE require specific qualities of files when importing . Aralesh on Bloodhoof - US : " FinalCut ( Express or Studio ) won ' t open files with anything other then [ sic ] PCM ( Uncompressed ) or Apple Lossless audio . And make sure your frame rate is at 29 . 97 . " NOTE : Testing has shown frame rate is not the determining factor in whether or not FCE will import a file . Unfortunately for the newbie to FCE , there ' s nothing that will let you know that your Sequence Settings is one of the most important variables in determining the final quality and resolution of your finished video . The following is from p202 of the FCE User ' s Manual : WARNING : After about a year of using FCE and being continually frustrated with the quality of the end product , I finally found that even more than the Sequence Preset , the ' Render Control ' tab hidden in the Sequence Settings will make a monumentally disproportionate impact on your final product . Frame Rate and Resolution should both be set to 100 % . / FACEPALM . Export Settings Recommendations : Regarding bitrate ( " source link removed as bad " ) : Starting with 5000 is a good " test run " . Try dropping it to 2500 - - do you notice a drop in quality significant enough , or does it still look good enough ? Try raising it to 7500 - - is it so good that it ' s worth the extra download time ? Direct Editing / Transcoding of Video . Many different programs allow transcoding video into different formats and splitting the audio and video into different files . These programs do not allow manual editing of frames . Transcoding may also be done using VLC , but this needs to be confirmed . Multiplexing using Avidemux . This example takes an audio file and adds it to a video file such that the audio plays when the video plays . Prerequisite : Xvid Quicktime Component ( May also be beneficial to have Xiph Quicktime Component as well . They get installed to the same place : " < Macintosh HD > / Library / Components " ) Editing for YouTube . YouTube supports uploading of multiple formats . YouTube will lower the resolution to approximately 320x240 and to an average bitrate of about 380 kbps . Importing to FCE / FCP using Quicktime Pro . WHY : The video that is compressed by the WoW client is not importable into Final Cut Pro and Final Cut Express , the two most commonly used video editing programs on Mac OS . Advantage : Using Quicktime Pro over iMovie just to get audio AND video into FCE seems to be a relatively simple process . 1 . record video / audio in wow and compress using wow 2 . open up in QTP , hit Command - I to see a little more hidden info about your clip . [ 2 . 5 : ] For HD Editing use Quicktime Pro to make initial cuts , it goes a lot faster than doing it all in FCE . You will run into problems with wanting to restore things you cut , but this can be worked around by saving the edited file under a new file name . With a little work and some caution you can avoid a huge bloated file full of un - needed video in FCE . Much easier to do the initial editing in QTPro than find out later when the rendering takes forever . To quickly make initial cuts , use mouse and arrow keys to put the cursor on the first offending frame and press ' I ' to place the In Marker , then place the cursor on the frame after the last offending frame and press ' O ' to place the Out Marker and then Command - X to Cut . You can also use the Mac System Preferences to bind a key - combination to ' Trim to Selection ' for cropping ( essentially cutting all materials other than what you ' ve selected . Alt - T is reasonably easy to remember and doesn ' t force you to do unnatural finger movements . Command - S to save . 3 . Command - E to export , decide where to save it . ( Command is the funky weird Apple button , equivalent of the Windows button on PCs ) . Export : Movie to QuickTime Movie - unclear if this makes a difference for FCE . 3 ALT . Alternative solution that works better for keeping track of large number of files which you may or may not have already readied for FCE : Export : Movie to MPEG - 4 . This solution leads to you not having to worry about figuring out which raw files you ' ve already processed for FCE . 4 . Options button . Enable both Video and Audio . Sound settings : Format Apple Lossless ( PCM may work too , but I just don ' t really know much about this , ok ? ok . ) Rate 44 . 100 since that ' s what came from WOW afaik . Render settings Faster - dunno if this affects audio much , but I ' m not much into audio quality in pvp / pve videos , there ' ll be music to cover it anyways . Preview button seems to work ok if you ' re in doubt . 5 . Leave unchecked the box ' Prepare for Internet Streaming ' - I can ' t stand WoW videos on Youtube and like , the visual quality is just too bad . Anything I write about will be HD , or close to it . 6 . hit OK . 7 . hit SAVE . 8 . now you ' ll get a little window pop - up that ' ll have a floating bar showing exporting progress . with luck your average 1min pvp clip of about 1min footage = ` 70 - 100mb filesize will now be compressed into roughly 50 - 60 % of that . 9 . Now you ' re ready to import this into FCE . You can either open FCE and then import , or right - click the file and choose ' Open With ' . 10 . This entire process , once you ' ve messed with the QTP settings , doesn ' t take all that long , since the export settings are saved . Open file from wow , stop video playback , Command - E , Enter and DONE . 11 . If you have a very large number of files that are going into one single video ( think 3 , 000 + ) you will become intimately familiar with Blizzard ' s file naming conventions and its limitations . Quickly browse through videos and rename them with a code letter in front of or behind the time - location stamp file name that the WoW Mac client assigns . Examples : Importing to FCE / FCP using MPEG Streamclip . According to a poster in good standing on the Mac FCE forums : Try this free third party app : http : / / www . squared5 . com / Try this third party app : http : / / www . appgeeker . com / how - to / convert - flv - to - mp4 - mac . html Try this software ( for Windows ) : http : / / www . top - password . com / knowledge / convert - flv - to - mp4 . html Try this third party app : http : / / www . iappflow . com / how - to / convert - mpg - to - mov . html You have to decide which format you want to work with in FCE and use that Easy Setup . Read the details when you are at the Easy Setup window , each are different to suit incoming audio and video . Then use Streamclip to convert your original footage to conform to your chosen Easy Setup , audio rate and video size . From http : / / strats . fusion - guild . org / index . php / CreatingMacintoshVideos # Pre - Editing : It ' s quite possible that your editing program will not like the files produced directly out of the WoW client ( e . g . Final Cut Pro doesn ' t ) . I don ' t think anyone knows why - - I suspect it has something to do with how the frame rate is recorded . The good news is it ' s fast and easy to reprocess it with MPEG Streamclip and you don ' t see any noticable quality loss . NOTE : Does not appear to matter what the frame rate is set to . 23 . 98 , 29 . 97 and 20 all work for film you want to import into FCE . If you ' re unsure the size of your movie , open it in QuickTime and press ⌘I ( command - I ) and look in the info box for the dimensions information .