video apps

Automatically turn screen recordings into eye-catching videos

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Get a lifetime subscription to FocuSee's automated editing power for $40.
Save time editing content with FocuSee, now only $39.99 for life.
Photo: Cult of Mac Deals

Turning screen recordings into compelling videos proves tricky, even for the most skilled video editor. But FocuSee screen recording software for Mac (and Windows) can capture what you see and do on-screen and automatically turn the video into something that looks like it took hours to produce.

It’s perfect for producing eye-catching product demos, easy-to-follow tutorials and more. And right now, you can get a lifetime subscription to the FocuSee screen recording software for just $39.99 (regularly $79).

4 great Mac apps to boost your productivity this year

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4 of the best productivity apps that will change how you use your Mac.
Pick up the pace (and stop pulling out your hair) with these top-rated productivity apps.
Photo: Cult of Mac Deals

With a new year comes new possibilities and the chance to achieve an exciting new set of goals. Whether yours are personal or professional, we could all use a way to maximize the time we have — and productivity apps are the best way to do that.

It’s time to get more done, in less time — and enjoy more free time as a result.

Download videos straight from YouTube to your Mac with VideoDuke

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Download videos from social media and YouTube.
With VideoDuke, easily download videos from YouTube and Vimeo straight to your Mac.
Photo: Cult of Mac Deals

One of the most frustrating things that can happen online is when a video you love disappears entirely. Maybe it’s a tutorial for fixing your car’s ignition, or a guide for taking good pictures, or a cat that’s just absolutely floored by the existence of a cucumber.

Whatever it was, it’s gone now — and you can’t find it anywhere. But you don’t have to lose your favorite videos. With VideoDuke for Mac, you can download videos straight from many of the most popular video sharing sites for life. And right now the software is on sale for just $29.99.

Convert, download, resize and edit video on Mac: Get MacX Video Converter for free

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MacX Video Converter Pro makes working with videos by you and others easy.
MacX Video Converter Pro makes working with videos by you and others easy.
Image: Digiarty

This video converter post is presented by Digiarty.

Digiarty has updated its MacX Video Converter Pro software for 4K ultra-high-definition video processing. Right now, you can get the improved product at a big discount — or even free — for a limited time. Plus, you get some additional free software, too.

Make great videos on your Mac with this top-rated editing bundle, now 50% off

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This Mac App duo covers all of your video needs
The Mac apps in this bundle should handle all your video needs.
Photo: Cult of Mac Deals

Who said great video editing software had to come with a high price tag? You can easily create videos on your Mac with the two top-rated apps included in The Essential Filmage Mac Bundle. And right now, lifetime subscriptions are on sale for just $19.99 — that’s 50% off the regular price of $39.

Make the most of your videos on any device

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videoproc
This powerhouse video-processing tool makes clips look their best on any device or platform.
Photo: Cult of Mac Deals

Uploading videos to social media or transferring them between devices, it’s easy to wonder what went wrong. Strange compression, weird resolution issues, and other problems can make even high-quality videos suddenly look like junk.

You can avoid those kinds of totally annoying hassles with a heavily discounted lifetime subscription to this video-processing app for Mac.

Convert any video to 1,000 formats with Wondershare UniConverter

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Wondershare UniConverter updated
Wondershare UniConverter, now in Version 12, lets you work with a multitude of media formats.
Photo: Wondershare

This video conversion post is presented by Wondershare UniConverter.

Whether you love to make videos or just watch and share them, if you want them to be seen in virtually any format on practically any device, you need a good video-conversion tool. It might be time to try Wondershare UniConverter, which can convert any video to more than 1,000 different formats. Try the Mac-dedicated version for a taste of how easy and quick video conversion can be.

Give your videos that sweet cinematic bokeh with Focos Live

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Focos Live lets iPhone users film bokeh video.
Don’t wait for the iPhone 12. Focos Live lets iPhone users film bokeh video today.
Photo: Xiaodong Wang/Cult of Mac

iPhones can automatically blur the backgrounds of still images but not video. Enter Focos Live, a recently released application that brings to iPhone video the effect Apple calls Portrait mode (and everyone else calls “bokeh”). The effect gives photographers the ability to unfocus the background to draw attention to what’s going on in the foreground.

Get all the video tools you need in one app [Deals]

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Filmage
This app is a one-stop app for HD screen recording, fully featured editing, fast conversion and multi-format video playback.
Photo: Cult of Mac Deals

Making videos on Mac is easy, if you have the right tools. But subscriptions to creative software suites are expensive, and can take up a lot of space. Often, they’re too complicated for casual users.

Not so with Filmage Screen, a single app that offers a one-stop shop for all your HD video needs.

Nizo blurs the lines between shooting and editing video

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Nizo manages to mix power and ease of use. Take note, Apple.
Nizo manages to mix power and ease of use. Take note, Apple.
Photo: Nizo

Nizo is a new take on video apps. It manages to blend shooting and editing together, so you can edit your movies on the fly as you capture them.

The interface to do this is — like much good design — so clean and obvious that you wonder why it wasn’t done before. Let’s take a look.

YouTube for iOS gives you more control over your experience [50 Essential iOS Apps #14]

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Youtube App on iPhone X with Cult of Mac Video
The YouTube app is the best way to keep up with your favorite channels.
Photo: Ian Fuchs/Cult of Mac

50 Essential iOS Apps: YouTube, the best video app Every day, millions of people watch more than a billion hours of video on YouTube. More than half of those views come from mobile devices.

From tutorials and tech reviews to vlogs and movie trailers, YouTube is the largest video sharing service in the world, growing at a rate of 300 hours of content every minute (that’s an average of 18,000 minutes being uploaded every minute of every day). If you’re not using the YouTube app to dive into this ocean of video content, you’re not doing it right.

Best Apple TV apps for streaming soccer

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Best Apple TV apps for streaming soccer
Best Apple TV apps for streaming soccer.
Photo: Riccardo Bresciani/Pexels CC

By Chris Brantner

Soccer is one of the most popular sports in the world — there are soccer fans everywhere. With all of this popularity comes a ton of potential leagues and tournaments to watch. If you’re a big fan, you’ll be glad to know there are some great ways to watch streaming soccer on Apple TV.

Apple inks deal with social video app Musical.ly

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Musical.ly
Apple wants to appeal to tween and teen users.
Photo: Musical.ly

Update: Musical.ly’s partner 7digital denies that it is being replaced by Apple Music, with CEO Simon Cole saying it “just signed a renewal agreement with Musical.ly” and has “in no way ended our working relationship.”

Apple has reportedly teamed up with Musical.ly, a popular music-themed app for video creation, messaging and live broadcasting.

Starting today, Apple Music will be the service that supplies songs for the social network app, replacing joining existing provider 7digital.

How to shoot iPhone video like a pro

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iPhone video tips
Learn all you need to know to get the most out of your iPhone's camera.
Photo: Ste Smith/Cult of Mac

While iPhones have pretty much replaced standalone video cameras, they don’t offer the same level of polish that a dedicated video camera or DSLR produces. It’s true that “the best camera is the camera you have with you,” but you can almost always spot a video shot on a phone.

The quality gap isn’t purely due to the lenses and tech within our phones, though. Bad habits make plenty of iPhone videos look lackluster. To show just how good an iPhone video can be, I put all my filmmaking knowledge to use for the montage below.

Instead of using my $3,000 video camera, I picked up my iPhone. With a minimum of accessories, I managed to produce what I think is a pretty cinematic video. You can see the results below — and then I’ll give you some useful tips and tricks for shooting iPhone videos like a pro.

This iPhone film festival wants you to submit your masterpiece

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The Disposable Film Festival showcases video shot on iPhones and similar gadgets.
The Disposable Film Festival showcases video shot on iPhones and similar gadgets.
Photo: Disposable Film Festival

Calling all iPhone filmmakers! The Disposable Film Festival is now accepting submissions for its 10th annual program in March 2017.

Heralded as the “Oscars of online video,” the Disposable Film Festival showcases the finest films made on everyday devices and “disposable media,” including cellphones, point-and-shoot cameras, DSLRs, webcams, screen-capture software, Flip cams, and newer technology like Google Glass, 3-D printed stop animation, and more.

One-day discounts on Lytro camera, Steamcrate subs and more [Deals]

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This 2015 App of the Year will reinvent the way you work and collaborate with PDFs
This 2015 App of the Year will reinvent the way you work and collaborate with PDFs
Photo: Cult of Mac Deals

We’ve always got a great raft of deals on great gear and gadgets, but for one day only those prices are dipping even lower. From the award-winning PDF Expert to the revolutionary Lytro Illum camera, a powerful tool for capturing online video and a year of access to a library of awesome games on Steam. Each is discounted even further than their already reduced price but just for one day, so now’s the time to jump on this:

Download and archive Instagram photos and videos automatically

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4K Stogram
With 4K Stogram, you can automatically download Instagram photos and videos.
Photo: 4K Stogram

This post is brought to you by 4K Stogram.

For many of us, Instagram is the primary place to get our daily fix of fresh images and videos. We’ll spend hours browsing the feeds of friends and family, and our favorite artists, public figures or journalists. But all that addicting content — including what you post yourself — stays on Instagram’s servers, where it’s a bit of a hassle to find and only accessible by logging in.

Apple TV news app keeps you plugged in from the couch

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Get all your news, sans cable package, right on your Apple TV.
Get all your news, sans cable package, right on your Apple TV.
Photo: Watchup

Watchup wants to replace standard TV news with a personalized multi-channel news aggregator that runs right on your Apple TV.

The developer promises that you’ll get a customized, on-demand news app right on your big TV, letting you lean back and learn what’s happening in the world.

All that without a cable subscription; sounds pretty great to me.

Best video editing apps for iPhone and iPad

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You don't need a Mac to create professional-looking video. With these great apps, an iPhone or iPad will do just fine.
You don't need a Mac to create professional-looking video. With these great apps, an iPhone or iPad will do just fine.
Photo: Ally Kazmucha/The App Factor

app-factor-logo-thumbnail Long gone are the days where video editing has to take hours and involve your Mac. Thanks to the iPhone and iPad, I’ve put together some awesome, professional-looking video. Depending on what your needs are, and how much control you want over the process, these are currently the best video editing apps I’ve found for iPhone and iPad.

Instagram takes on Apple’s Live Photos with Boomerang

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Boomerang is just like Live Photos.
Boomerang is just like Live Photos.
Photo: Instagram

Instagram’s new app Boomerang lets users create one-second videos of everyday moments, then share them to Instagram, Facebook or Twitter.

The new app is a lot like the new Live Photos feature Apple introduced on the iPhone 6s and 6s Plus. Boomerang takes a burst of five photos, stitches them together into a mini-video, then plays the clip in forward and then reverse — you know, just like a boomerang!

Here’s how it works:

How to turn Live Photos into shareable GIFs

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The face that first introduced us to Live Photo.
The face that first introduced us to Live Photo.
Photo: Apple

The iPhone 6s’ new Live Photos feature created a new media format, but there’s one major problem with the new moving pictures: You have to own an iPhone 6s to see them.

Most of your friends probably haven’t upgraded yet, which means those cool Live Photos you’ve snapped are only viewable by you. However, there is a way to transform your favorite Live Photo into a shareable GIF or video file, allowing everyone to see the movement in your picture, no matter what device they’re on.

Here’s how to do it:

Start making movies with one of the easiest video editors around

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iSkysoft Video Editor makes it easy to dazzle your friends.
iSkysoft Video Editor makes it easy to dazzle your friends.
Photo: iSkysoft

This post is brought to you by iSkysoft Studio.

Videos are the new family slideshow, a way of turning visual memories into entertainment for friends and loved ones.

Our computers double as digital junk drawers, with photos, video clips and audio recordings collecting in folders and collecting dust — one of the best ways to bring those memories back to the light of day is to make videos out of them.

Say VH-yes to this cheesy ’80s video app

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Set your iPhone video camera on 1985 with the VHS Camcorder app.
Set your iPhone video camera on 1985 with the VHS Camcorder app.
Photo: Rarevision

Dust off your father’s Miami Vice suit and start growing a mullet. (Get it permed in back, too.) A new app turns your iPhone’s camera into a 1985-style VHS camcorder, complete with terrible quality and a date stamp.

Facebook’s Periscope clone is only for beautiful people

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facebook-mentions-live
Facebook is harnessing the power of its massive user base to compete with Periscope's live video streaming.
Photo: Facebook

Did you think the biggest social network on the planet was just going to sit idly by while the likes of Meerkat and Periscope find success in live, social video? Facebook won’t stand for it. So it’s launching its own contribution to the live streaming mix, but the catch is only cool people can use it.

Add all your videos to your iTunes library with iFlicks

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iFlicks makes it easy to import all your videos into iTunes. Photo: iFlicks
iFlicks makes it easy to import all your videos into iTunes. Photo: iFlicks

This post is brought to you by iFlicks.

Are all your videos hidden in a bunch of folders or stored haphazardly in the cloud? Wouldn’t you rather they were all as easy to sort and locate as your iTunes content, with metadata like movie posters and cast credits?

Using iFlicks 2, you can easily import your video collection into iTunes. This gives you the ability to watch your third-party videos directly in iTunes or transfer them to your Apple TV, iPad, iPod or iPhone. On top of that, iFlicks downloads metadata (information or visuals related to your videos) and lets you tweak the metadata manually. Managing your video collection in iTunes has never been this easy!