VideoProc is a toolbox for the Apple Mac that enables videos to be converted from one format to another, downloaded from YouTube and other places, the screen recorded, and DVDs archived.
Although Apple provides iMovie for editing and outputting videos, in some ways it is quite limited. It is also slow for some people and lacks the features they need. An alternative is needed.
VideoProc is more of a collection of tools for processing and enhancing videos than a video editor. It is not a replacement for iMovie and it is not a video editor. It does have some basic editing features, but there isn’t much overlap with iMovie and the two can be used together. VideoProc can prepare videos and iMovie can edit and output them.
The VideoProc Mac app is free to download, but is limited to processing the first five minutes of video. This is fine for short clips or for testing purposes, but you need to buy a license to remove the restriction and work with any video length. (Digiarty provided one so I could fully test the software.)
Convert, edit and process video
The first tool enables one or more videos to be loaded and a useful collection of tools can be used to edit and enhance it. For example, a crop tool has several presets like 16:9, 4:3 and a freeform crop. The start and end of clips can be trimmed to remove parts you don’t want included.
Videos can be rotated left or right if the phone or camera was on its side when shooting. The playback speed can be adjusted and it can be slowed down or speeded up (0.1x to 16x). The audio volume can be increased, decreased or disabled and this is useful as it is often hard to get right.
A number of predefined effects can be applied to videos, such as grayscale, negate, tinted emboss and several more filters. They are similar to Instagram and photo editor filters. In addition to this, the brightness, contrast, saturation, hue and gamma can be adjusted.
How many times have you shot a video on your phone that just isn’t quite right? Too dark, too light, washed out? These tools won’t work magic, but they are useful for applying small tweaks to fix minor video faults.
Subtitles can be added to videos and must be provided in a standard subtitles file. A watermark can be added to a video and you can enter up to three lines of text and set the transparency, or add an image, such as a logo.
Video toolbox
A Toolbox tab provides access to a collection of useful tools and Deshake for example, stabilizes shakey video clips. Hand-held videos, especially when walking, cycling and other activities can be smoothed out.
Multiple videos can be merged into one and this makes VideoProc a handy editor for producing longer videos comprised of many scenes. Long videos can be split and this makes it possible to rearrange scenes or insert one clip into the middle of another. Videos can also be turned into animated GIFs.
Download video and audio
VideoProc has a built in video downloader and it enables streaming video, such as from YouTube to be saved to disk. Copy the URL from a browser and paste it into the app and it shows not only the video, but related videos, too. Checkboxes enable multiple videos to be downloaded and saved.
The output format can be selected and you can choose the video resolution or choose to save only the audio, which is useful for music videos. A lot of online video is copyright of course, but downloading to watch later or offline is probably fair use.
The DVD section of VideoProc enables DVD discs to be backed up and converted to different formats. When was the last time a Mac had a DVD drive? It will be a very useful feature to some people though.
Convert and output video
After editing, stabilising and adding effects to videos, the final task is to save it. There is an excellent range of predefined output options and these include a variety of devices. If you know the video is to be viewed on an iPhone, iPad, Android phone, YouTube, Facebook, Vimeo, PlayStation, and so on, the device can be selected and all the output options are set for you.
Choosing a device or format requires no knowledge of video codecs and settings, but if you want to, the settings can be customized. Various parameters of the video codec can be changed, like the frame rate, resolution, aspect ratio, bit-rate, b-frames, audio sample rate, audio bit-rate, and more.
You really need to know what you are doing and this is for experts only. Most people will be happy choosing one of the preset output formats.
Is VideoProc worth it?
This very different to Apple iMovie and it is not a Mac video editor, but a video processing toolkit. It provides an good range of features for converting video from one format to another, creating video for various hardware devices and for sharing online.
It can download video and save it or extract the audio, it can back up DVDs for those that still have a DVD player, and it can tweak, enhance, add effects and fix problems with videos shot on your phone or camera.
It is a great app that is easy to use, so how much does it cost? The regular price is $78.90, but right now it is being offered for $42.95, which is a good price considering what you get. That offer may not last forever though.
