OS X Mountain Lion Bible

Creating Media Files

Although it's called a player, QuickTime Player also can create media files: movies, sound recordings, and screencasts (“movies” of what occurs on your Mac's screen, for how-to guides, for example). The process for all three is similar:

• Movie recording: Attach a video camera to your Mac or use its built-in iSight camera, if it or its monitor has one. Then choose File⇒New Movie Recording or press Option++N. The Movie Recording window opens. Note that if no camera is attached (or, if you're using an iSight camera on a laptop, but the laptop case is closed), the Movie Recording window displays the message “The camera is off.”

• Audio recording: Choose File⇒New Audio Recording or press Control+Option++N. The Audio Recording window opens.

• Screen recording: Choose File⇒New Screen Recording or press Control++N. The Screen Recording window opens.

As Figure 16.1 shows, the video recording window has controls for video and audio sources, quality levels, and recording destination. To get these options, use the unnamed pop-up menu. As Figure 16.2 shows, the audio recording and screencast recording windows offer the same pop-up menu for you to select the audio source; you ...