MPlayer OSX Extended Rev 10 & VLC 1.0

Two new FREE video players are on the top of my list if you want to watch Videos on Mac, For example if you want to watch HD movies (.ts, .mkv) files then MPlayer is excellent choice. You can also turn on Anti Aliasing (you may need to experiment with different settings). I found MPlayer quite good. Infact VLC was unable to play some movies (like .ts file) but MPlayer played them quite well.

Make sure you download the latest version of MPlayer rev10 as most sites has old version.

VLC has also released its 1.0 version which is major upgrade. It now plays videos quite smooth but it still has some glitches to be sorted out when playing various (.ts) files.

Quicktime X looks so beautiful on Mac Snow Leopard, I wish all these players should follow its video window.

Enjoy your videos.......

AVCHD Player (.mts, .m2ts) and Converter for Mac OS X

You can now natively play AVCHD Files(.mts, .m2ts) on your mac by using one of the following Applications:

VLC Player version 9.xx (FREE)
Toast 9 or 10 (It uses Toast Player to play AVCHD Files)

You can also convert your AVCHD Files to any format using Toast. It is very fast.

Enjoy your Movies!!!

ILife 09: AVCHD to Toast to iMovie 09 (Workflow)

iLife 09 is here and you will be ofcourse curious to compose your first movie in it. The problem is you have got a camera which produces AVCHD format.
One simple Solution is to attach your camera with notebook, start iMovie and import movie. But I have copied all my AVCHD to folders on my notebook as I don't have time to empty my Memory card by capturing it through iMovie.

Toast to Rescue:

IMP: In Toast 10 Preference (Audio & Video) set Chapter Markers to None, otherwise your converted movies will not be visible in iMovie 09.

Fireup your Toast (Toast 9 or 10) and select convert choose the AVCHD (.mts) file or just drag and drop that file into Toast. Start the conversion, choose following setting:

In Device Choose H.264 Player

In Quality Choose Custom

and change the setting according to screen given below in picture. Now Start Converting.

The Advantage of using Toast is two folds. First the conversion is very fast and Second the file sizes are quite small.
iMovie 09:
Import your converted movie into IMovie 09 using Import Movie Command and then start composing your movie.
Export your Movie using Share command in iMovie 09 using Large Format. (It will be automatically set for you).