Using QuickTime/iMovie/FCP for capturing live video from USB capture card: question about changing cache location.

[BeatCrazy]

I'm helping my son with a school project. I have this HDMI/USB capture card. It works just fine, and I can open QuickTime, select the capture device as an input, pick "High" or "Maximum" quality, and record.

The problem is the resulting captures (before export, obviously), are ~1GB per minute of footage in Maximum quality. I want to grab at least an hour's worth of footage, and I'm pretty sure this will fill up my internal SSD.

Is there a simple way to change the recording cache location in either QuickTime, iMovie or FCP so I can use an external drive to temp store the raw capture footage? I'm a novice with both iMove and FCP, and I don't see the capture device even show up as a "camera" source when I try to import media.

 

[Dave Braine]

With iMovie, you can create a new iMovie Library file on an external drive by going iMovie File Menu>Open Library....New and then choosing a location. You can then choose this when you import. I suspect that you can do similar in FCP but don't know about QT.

However, if the capture device is not showing in iMovie/FCP then you won't be able to import directly into those apps.

From doing a quick Movie Recording, it doesn't store the recording anywhere until you save it(although I suppose it must be taking up disc space somewhere), so you can then save it to an external drive.

 

[BeatCrazy]

With iMovie, you can create a new iMovie Library file on an external drive by going iMovie File Menu>Open Library....New and then choosing a location. You can then choose this when you import. I suspect that you can do similar in FCP but don't know about QT.

However, if the capture device is not showing in iMovie/FCP then you won't be able to import directly into those apps.

From doing a quick Movie Recording, it doesn't store the recording anywhere until you save it(although I suppose it must be taking up disc space somewhere), so you can then save it to an external drive.

Thank you for the reply.

Yes, the problem is where I bolded your comment above. I need to change this cache location, as my captures might be several hundred GB, before I edit and export them.

 

[Slartibart]

As @Dave Braine pointed out, if you create a library on an external HD/SSD, iMovie will import directly into it.
There will be some buffer on your Mac I suppose, but basically the import goes directly to the external disc.
The external drive must be formated for MacOS and your capture device is the “camera“ you directly import from within iMovie (the guide by Apple is for tape-based cameras - still, point 6 is relevant for your scenario).

For the old MacOSX there is Quicktime Broadcaster, which will allow this.

If you want to do something similar - as in saving directly to an external Lightning/USB-C SSD/stick - when recording video with your iPhone or iPad you can use iKlips.

 

[BeatCrazy]

As @Dave Braine pointed out, if you create a library on an external HD/SSD, iMovie will import directly into it.
There will be some buffer on your Mac I suppose, but basically the import goes directly to the external disc.
The external drive must be formated for MacOS and your capture device is the “camera“ you directly import from within iMovie (the guide by Apple is for tape-based cameras - still, point 6 is relevant for your scenario).

For the old MacOSX there is Quicktime Broadcaster, which will allow this.

If you want to do something similar - as in saving directly to an external Lightning/USB-C SSD/stick - when recording video with your iPhone or iPad you can use iKlips.

Even though my capture card is UVC, it doesn't show up as a "camera" in iMovie.

The iKlips app is interesting, but it doesn't seem to support capture from an external USB interface.

 

[Slartibart]

Even though my capture card is UVC, it doesn't show up as a "camera" in iMovie.

The iKlips app is interesting, but it doesn't seem to support capture from an external USB interface.

But QuickTime “sees” it? Maybe you can try like e.g. Open Broadcaster Studio?

 

[BeatCrazy]

But QuickTime “sees” it? Maybe you can try like e.g. Open Broadcaster Studio?

Yes, QuickTime sees the capture device. Late last night, I tried OBS. The capture device is recognized, and I fooled around with the settings for >1 hour. Unfortunately, I could never get good quality results with OBS. Too many dropped frames, poor image quality etc. Made me realize just how good QuickTime is

I think I can manage my SSD space and use QuickTime, going forward. However, I ran into a known glitch with Monterey that limits QuickTime recording to 10:55 min. Hopefully Apple will fix this soon. More info here.