If you’re working in video, reviewing files can be a bit of a hassle on the Mac. QuickTime Player is fine for just watching videos, but since its metamorphosis from version 7 to X, the handier features for video pros were either lost or crippled in some way. Of course, you could always launch your favorite editing application, but even a light editor like iMovie takes a while to load. So you’re stuck between an overly simplified app and an overly complex one.

Pro Player’s sole purpose is to help you review clips quickly and efficiently. Let’s be clear, though: unlike QuickTime 7, which allowed you to select, copy, and paste parts of a clip, Pro Player only does what its name implies. It plays files. You get no editing capabilities whatsoever. Unlike any version of QuickTime, you can’t open multiple files at once, either, just one at a time. And if your clip contains chapter markers, they won’t show up in Pro Player.

But what you can see is extremely useful when reviewing footage. Aside from the video itself, the next biggest part of the interface is your timecode, displayed beneath the video, so it’s easy to take note of where problems occur and make a note of it, in a separate app or on a piece of paper. Your clip’s general information (frame rate, codecs used, file size, and so on) lives in the lower left of the interface.

To the right are buttons to see a clip’s alpha channel or transparency, a great feature if you work with motion graphics. You can also see details of your chosen in and out points (if you’ve made any), and use those to only play a specific section of your video. Those points are created using the industry-standard I and O keyboard shortcuts. Navigating also follows expected conventions: use J, K, and L to move back, stop, and move forward, respectively. You can also move back and forward one frame or one second at a time.

Should you need to jump back a few seconds and watch a segment again, there’s a handy button for that,  which you can customize in the Preferences between 5 seconds and 30. There’s also a Loop button to play back a selected part over and over again. Most functions can be controlled via keyboard shortcuts, but they’re not all displayed in the app’s menus; for instance, you can get to the Recent Files feature, which displays the previous ten clips you’ve played in Pro Player, by hitting the R key.

The bottom line. If you’re looking for an app that launches fast, displays your video file and makes it easy to navigate through it for review purposes, you may well like Pro Player. It is a bit expensive for just a simple player, and there are a few annoyances, but it’s new software and its developers are keen to know what you’d be looking for in such an app, so it could grow to become a highly indispensable tool in time.

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Pro Player Screens

• View the full image

  Mouse over a recent thumbnail to see its name and when you last opened it.

• View the full image

  Set in and out points to focus on a specific part of your clip.

• View the full image

  You can review transparency and alpha channel with the click of a few buttons.

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