Easy video editor

I am a new FCPX user and i have a drone photo and video company. I find that I have a lot of clips with frames that are useless. I record what I need and often forget to stop recording, resulting in large files. The clips are stored on an external HD.

What I would like is a simple video editor that does not require you to import into a library and do non destructive edits. I want to open the clip, cut what I do not sneed (sort of like ranges) and save it back to the original locations as a renamed (shortened) file.

The reason is simply to save HD space.

So I really do not want to learn a new complex interface.

Anybody have a suggestion?

Thanks
Rich

You can trim videos using Quicktime 10 Player without re-encoding. After examining the output file you can delete the original file: support.apple.com/en-us/HT201066

Thanks I will try this.

I did not have much success with QT. I looked at UT vids etc but got error messages. Using Google I was able to get around some of the error messages but after numerous tries. ....

The clip function is greyed out, the trim function does adjust but I cannot save the file, getting a "cannot complete operation error message". Looking at other google comment these are generic messages without giving any direction. I tried saving at various resolutions no luck.

Maybe I will try another file. I had high hopes for the limited functionality that I was seeking.

It also does not save as the same file. So now I have to deal with a DSCXXXXX number of the original file and a more meaningful save as file. Back to square one with large files.

Thanks for your help.

Sounds like this might be a good opportunity to use Compressor. You can use tokens to set up naming conventions that work for what you're doing, you can easily set in/out points and then do them as a batch. I recently had to pull several clips from something and decided it was easiest to just doing it through compressor as they were just reference files that required no additional work done to them.

ETdroneHome wrote: i have a drone photo and video company...I did not have much success with QT. I looked at UT vids etc but got error messages. Using Google I was able to get around some of the error messages but after numerous tries. ...The clip function is greyed out, the trim function does adjust but I cannot save the file, getting a "cannot complete operation error message"....

I just tried this using QT Player 10.5 on macOS 10.14.6 on an iMac Pro, and it worked well. I have previously tested this on a variety of other Macs.

I tried 4k/29.97 H.264 material from a DJI Mavic, DJI Inspire Pro 4, also 4k/23.98 HEVC material from a DJI Inspire 2, also 4k/23.98 ProRes HQ material from a DJI Inspire 2. In all cases QT trimmed the material and saved the result file without re-encoding, which was very fast. I did not try to save over the original file since that is potentially risky and if after examination the trim was OK you can delete the original file.

There may be certain codecs it doesn't work on, or maybe certain versions of macOS or Mac hardware are required, but it's worked every time I've tried it, provided the file is playable by QT 10.

Procedure:

- Load file in QT Player 10
- Do CMD+T to initiate trim mode
- Slide left and right side of yellow box to trimmed region. All outside that will be trimmed off
- Press "Trim" button to execute
- Save trimmed file by doing File/Save

Is Compressor a good choice for a beginner user?

Compressor is easy to use.




www.macprovideo.com/course/compressor-4-...transcoding-explored

Have never tried this one, personally use Movavi Video Editor. You can find it here - URL -if it's still necessary. 

ETdroneHome wrote:

What I would like is a simple video editor that does not require you to import into a library and do non destructive edits. I want to open the clip, cut what I do not sneed (sort of like ranges) and save it back to the original locations as a renamed (shortened) file.

You can let FCP read the original card files in the import window, (first, uncheck close window after import), modify the library so that the files are stored externally (on the disc you'd normally copy them to through Finder), then set ranges clip-wise and hit return. Seconds after the last "Return"-command, all selections are stored there.  If third-party apps accept the naked codecs, they will accept these movs. Why so complicated?

Because now you do have an extra library that you have no use for? Takes 5 seconds to trash it. Explain the problem with that.