Movie Packaging

We recommend always packaging movies. A package is a folder with files inside, Mac OS X simply recognizes it as a single file. This makes it very convenient to move around and not lose any necessary files.

A definite trend is users are acquiring video files over the internet. While this is a great convenience, the quality and creation process is largely unknown. What you download is what you get, in most situations there is no knowledge on how the video was created and what tools were used to compress, etc. Some of these movies will have different movie data containers that may be corrupted by Quicktime when there are attempts to write data back into the file. This is why it is best to always package the movies. The packaging process places the source movie in a movie data folder, then creates a reference movie that points to the source movie. Any changes to aspect ratio or text track information of the movie is saved in the reference movie and we never have to touch the actual source movie.

If a new timeline is linked to a free standing movie, a prompt will appear asking whether or not you wish to place the movie inside a movie package. We highly recommend answering yes to this question. The process is very quick, it simply wraps up the movie and timeline inside a package. It does not copy any data like the Save as standalone package does.

Place front movie and timeline inside a movie package

In previous versions of SportsCode, it was common practice to have a free standing movie and timeline file. If you have this situation, package them. Open the timeline and choose File > Place front movie and timeline inside a movie package. It will package them up together.

Note: Timeline files can still be free standing as long as the movie is packaged. You can have as many timelines pointing at a single package as you wish.

Timeline Backup Folder

To replace an existing timeline with a backup timeline. Open the package, navigate into the BACKUP folder, then drag and drop the backup timeline next to the existing one in the folder above and delete the existing timeline. When you double click on the package, the backup timeline will open as the default timeline. The file name can be changed if desired.