Mac NTFS driver and exporting FLV files

Couple of Mac tips today.

Can’t write to someone’s NTFS (Windows) external drive on your Mac? Install the free NTFS-3G driver but don’t accidentally get the commercial version. Er, you know, unless you want to.

When making your Quicktimes into Flash, use the FLV converter which is included with the all purpose, and wonderful ffmpeg. Also a guide for you to follow.

For a pretty picture, it’s likely you’ll need to use the “Video” tab to whack up the bitrate to around 900 kbit/s. I get about a 70MB file for 10mins with this setting at 640×352.

If you need to letterbox a 16:9 to 4:3 for a rubbish, old school player, add letterboxing in the “Filters” tab and for a 640 wide film, enter 64,64,0,0 in the letterbox fields. Job done.

Leave a Comment