I have quite a few legacy mp4 movies that I want to warehouse on my server. They need to be edited in some Mac app. What do you, guys, use for such a task (without bloating the file-size)?
I tried to do basic trimming in QuickTime Player, but the saved files were significantly bigger than originals before trimming. How to prevent that?
I use Total Video Converter Pro (Mac app). I’m not a pro when it comes to video, but it does the job for me.
@NeilUK – Thanks for this suggestion. I will check it out.
Do you have any comment on what I wrote above about the bloated file size? It seems that when finished movies are edited again, they gain a lot of weight. Or, more likely, I just don’t know how to deal with this phenomenon?
Total Video Converter has many options for the output of edited videos. It has a dedicated section just for web output in all formats imaginable. I remember cutting a video and then converting for web and it was much smaller.
Hi, I use the free program called “Adapter” from: https://macroplant.com/adapter
That looks good, and free can’t be beaten.
@Fuellemann, @NeilUK – I do have Adapter, MPEG Streamclip and MovieMator (all free).
However, I forgot to mention that besides trimming the unnecessary footage, I also need to adjust the visual quality of resulting files. Most of the time, I need to lower the quality, to make files more web-friendly. And that’s where my ignorance in video editing comes in. I just don’t know how to adjust all the settings.
Do you have any suggestions?
Just curious…why don’t you put them on Vimeo, youtube or similar?
Handbrake (free) is what I use
Hi Adapter does this. I change the quality using Adapter and I assemble and cut using iMovie.
You might be missing the obvious, iMovie (now free) will allow import of mp4 (and other formats or stills), editing, trimming, correcting exposure, adding effects and export to many formats suitable for web use or direct upload to Youtube or Vimeo and then link to or embed on your website, there’s many articles and tutorial videos out there on it’s use to get you started.
Hey, Marc,
The main reason I want to host them myself is security. When my videos are on some external site, it is rather difficult for me to define the Content Security Policy in such a way that it does not break the functionality of my site and—at the same time—it maintains high level of security.
The other reason is I don’t want to take chances with the reliability of external sites.
Hey, Jan, Dave,
Actually, I have tried iMovie, but I found using it way too unintuitive, its interface cryptic and the Help documentation not up-to-date. Several versions back, I actually could do some work in iMovie, but not anymore (same goes for GarageBand). Most likely, I should blame my own lack of practice…
Hey, everybody,
I want to thank you all for being very helpful. In the end, I went to YouTube and watched some iMovie tutorials. I think I am now better prepared for using this app and hopefully, I will get my editing done after some practicing. 
Apparently one of the best compressors is Vimeo, what others have done is to upload the source to Vimeo and then download the file Vimeo created for itself, you can then delete the video off Vimeo.
That’s a great advice, Paul!
This is worth picking up for ÂŁ4.99 (was ÂŁ9.99) - http://appshopper.com/mac/video/tutor-for-imovie-v101.
Thank you, Dave. This looks like a great buy. Already purchased a minute ago – for $4.99, which is an even better deal…