SimpleMovieX 3.1 review

SimpleMovieX is an alternative movie editor to QuickTime Pro, its notable feature being native Mpeg editing; that is, without recompression and subsequent loss of quality. Mpeg audio tracks can also be transcoded upon export.

As it sits on top of QuickTime, SimpleMovieX is capable of opening and exporting to the same list of formats, making it easily extensible. However, anyone hoping to edit Mpeg-2 camera footage will need to purchase Apple's corresponding codec. The same logic applies to exporting non-standard formats such as Windows Media.

Individual movies open in separate windows with their own timeline and controls beneath. When editing Mpegs, the handy Keyframe Indicator turns orange to indicate an I-frame (containing a complete picture); sticky mode assists in editing such formats by jumping between these frames.

Rather than having a separate playhead and in and out points for making a selection, there are two dual-purpose knobs. While it works, it took a while to adjust to this; the distinction seems unnecessary and required active thought to snap back the markers - using the backspace key - after playback.

The timeline can be zoomed for finer control. When zoomed in, a bar representing the whole movie appears above the controller. Curves between the two show the context of the current selection in the movie. The presentation of the timeline is slightly too fussy and also took time to adjust to.

The Gallery and Tools buttons reveal corresponding drawers. The former contains thumbnails of open movies; clicking one switches to that movie's window. It also acts as a bin for frequently used movies such as idents. Dragging one into the viewer inserts it at the playhead's position, but we found this fiddly; the Gallery slides shut when SimpleMovieX loses focus, and only slides back into view when files are dragged from the Finder over the viewer.

We also found items were sometimes unexpectedly removed from the Gallery, despite visual indication that they would be pasted into the movie.

The Tools drawer contains four tabs; one is a keyboard shortcut reference. The Chapters tab provides easy management for adding, updating and renaming chapters, which are clearly indicated by yellow circles in the timeline. Odd or even-numbered chapters can be removed, and a movie can be split into smaller chunks as self-contained or reference movies. Chapter creation is one of the strongest features here.

The audio synchronisation tool resyncs audio of individual chapters. Disappointingly, this works in imprecise, fixed 0.05-second increments rather than by individual frames. This tool is also unavailable for Mpeg media, likely due to the multiplexed video and audio.

Finally, the Search tab generates a set of 16 or 64 thumbnails within the current selection. Clicking one moves the playhead to that frame. It's handy for locating specific parts of a movie, but it's a pity that the number can't be customised.

There's also a handy batch conversion tool tucked away on the file menu. A single preset can be applied to the list. Once added, we were unable to remove entries from the list; the corresponding skip checkbox had to be ticked to ignore them.

When exporting files, a progress bar and status report appear, but the file browser remains at the top and can still be used. This is non-criticial and didn't cause problems, but it's odd and should be tidied up.