Video Barbershop features a simple and powerful video capture tool. Leveraging the macOS capability of using video and audio devices without drivers (the UVC/UAC standard), any device your system recognizes can be used for capturing.

A simple 5 Step process keeps you focused and reduces confusing options while simultaneously offering you a powerful set of customizable controls. Choose your video source, customize the device's output, customize the video format exported (including changing aspect ratio, codec, video quality and even select a different audio source), set your output folder and then capture!

You will get an estimate for how much drive space you'll likely use with your settings. While recording, you'll see the time elapsed and actual file size, so you'll never be surprised.

If you change the aspect ratio of your export, Video Barbershop previews the letterboxing and shows you exactly what to expect. If you even choose ProRes 4444, the letterboxing will be transparent. Powerful capture of video assets made easy. 

Video Barbershop features a powerful CEA-608 Closed Caption extraction tool, which detects the embedded signal patterns preserved in your video... if it was preserved. 'If' is the keyword. Most capture devices don't preserve the blanking signals used to synchronize the over the air TV signals to CRT TVs for viewing. However, some devices, like the GV-USB2 with Video Barbershop, do preserve the information as a line of specific pixel patterns.

Video Barbershop finds those patterns, if it can, configures itself for export, has customizable controls and a live preview to fine tune settings, and can export the text. You can choose as a raw .TXT transcription or as an .SRT subtitle formatted file.

Video Barbershop also features an incredibly customizable tool for deinterlacing videos. Like all the tools, a simple multi-step process spells out what you need to do, making the cryptic art of deinterlacing highly understandable.

Interlacing a video was a sneaky way to push out twice as much content in the same amount of time. It involves weaving one half sized frame with the next frame, creating a single image that help two frames of data. This weaving shows up as combed lines, especially noticeable with movement. Deinterlacing involves unweaving these two frames and filling in the missing lines.

I've developed a variety of different algorithms for deinterlacing, defaulting to the most powerful, for a simple, no effort, load and export experience. It's no QTGMC, but if you want to dig deeper into all the configuration settings, I make them available to you! A 3 sec preview and the ability to take full screen shots allows you to test out your settings and compare to see the results before you export, taking all the guess work out of deinterlacing a video. 

Apple does not natively support .MKV or .WEBM files, nor does Video Barbershop, however, Video Barbershop does have a track extraction tool that can pull natively compatible audio and video tracks out and repackage them into .MOV files. Simply load an .MKV or .WEBM file and select compatible tracks to be extracted.

.MKV files are merely containers for different tracks of data using different codecs. Many of which are the same codecs used in .MP4 and .MOV containers. However, Video Barbershop goes way beyond just audio and video! You can also extract out subtitle tracks into their .SRT format, or for those with bitmap subtitle track data (commonly used in DVDs) you can export a folder of all the subtitles converted to transparent .PNGs!

Video Barbershop isn't just a video clip editing program. It truly is a video asset generating suite of powerful utilities.

Video Barbershop works directly with videos, clipping, exporting and merging clips. Designed to generate video assets (assets you may use in other editors), Video Barbershop also can help you standardize your assets for consistent use. Video Barbershop features tools to convert audio to video, video to audio, as well as empty silent videos.

Audio to Video: Create slide shows from audio recordings! Convert that cassette tape from the thrift store to an empty video in the format you wish, then in Video Barbershop replace the background with a static image and clip the video up, adding in image overlays for each clip. Using the keyframe system you can animate them in and out for a fun and dynamic presentation.

Easily convert your video to an audio file using a number of simple presets, ranging in use from a format preferred by Whisper or WhisperX to auto transcribe your video into text (Whisper requires a specific bitrate and mono audio, and can be slower transcribing if it has to convert itself or not work as well if not given the correct format) to high bitrate archival quality. Or take control and fine tune the settings yourself, including the preferred file type.

Video to Audio: Cut clips out of commercials, use the AUv3 plugins to clean up the audio (being able to save and load AUv3 plugin pipeline chains allows you to save time with repeated cleanup), then extract into a format that makes editing your retro 80's pop culture podcast trivial.

In Video Barbershop you can load in and clip multiple videos at once, building a clip queue for each video. How they are exported is totally up to you. Convert to .MOV or .MP4, use the source resolution, frame rate and bitrates, select from presets, or customize to your exact needs. Export individual files or merge the clips together to form video compilations.

Clip Export

Export Clips -  Export each clip individually in the currently selected video clip queue.

Merge Clips - Merge the clips in the current clip queue into a single video compilation.

Bulk Clip Export

All Clips - Export all clips from all queues as individual files.

Merge Each - Merge the clips from each queue together into their own file per video.

Merge All - Merge all clips from all videos together into a single video compilation. Sorted by the video order and clip order.

Did you know VHS tapes do not store color data in a 0-255 RGB range? Their values are more 16-235, with true blacks and whites being reserved for signal syncing, closed captions, line and image refreshing for old CRT TVs. VCRs captured the over the air TV signal directly, with luminance remapping occurring in the television itself.

Modern capture devices often capture raw signal data from the VCR, leaving your video darker and washed out... lacking true blacks and whites. If you ever captured a VHS tape, uploaded it to YouTube, and wondered why your video was darker than when you watch the tape through your VCR/TV... you know EXACTLY what I'm talking about!

Video Barbershop has simple, yet powerful, luminance remapping tools, allowing you to see how your capture mapped the colors and correct their remapping. It shows you exactly how it is remapped through detailed histograms and graphs, with live feedback as you make edits. Video Barbershop works in Rec.709 color space (the standard color space for YouTube, Netflix, regular TV broadcasts, and standard HD displays), so your converted videos will match what you will see in today's environment.

Video Barbershop has a unique foundation for video-wide editing and clip specific overrides, giving you fast control over your edits. Duplicating effects is trivial, saving you tedious time worrying about what effects are applied as you iterate.

Video Button Bar - The buttons at the top feature controls that affect the entire video... and all clips cut from the video. Many other editing suites treat each track clip as a separate entity, with effects applied only to that clip. Video Barbershop takes a more holistic approach, allowing you to edit the source video, then modify specific clips as you see fit. No matter when you clip, your video and clips will be consistent. 

Clip Button Bar - When selecting a clip specifically, you'll see a new bar of buttons, controlling effects for that specific clip. Many of the video controls are duplicated, allowing you to override the video's settings with that clip's specific needs.

Video Barbershop also features impressive video enhancing tools that clean up that fuzzy VHS tape. Back in the day we marveled at storing 6 hrs of video on a 2 hr tape... unfortunately, most didn't realize in the future we'd have HDTVs and those SLP mode tapes would be looking pretty rough, with tragic compression leaving the video fuzzy.

Video Barbershop does not feature any AI tools, so if you want photo realistic upscaled AI enhanced videos, this is not the tool for that. However, it does feature many of the tools you might be familiar with built upon Apple's exceptional AVFoundation. The thing that Video Barbershop brings to the table is highly detailed and understandable visualizations. When you make changes, you see those changes live, but also see exactly what was affected. In the case of the Enhancement tools, you can see what elements were blurred and what edges were sharpened, making looking for hotspots and over tuning far easier.

At first glance there's far more definition than the images above, but upon further inspection, a little too much of the image might have been affected, and you can see some posterizing occuring.

It's very common in VHS tapes to observe audio and video out of sync. In other editing suites you detach the audio track and shift it over a little, but this doesn't address the nastier detail of audio drift. Drift occurs over time where the difference becomes longer and longer. By the end of the tape, the audio is again out of sync.

Video Barbershop does a sneaky thing with the video/clip control paradigm... instead of overriding the settings per clip, for the Audio Drift repair tool, each clip adds to the base video setting.

To correct Audio Drift you simply break your video up at black frame transitions or where the audio is silent for a short period of time. Apply a video wide fix in the video controls to fix the beginning of the tape. Then in each clip, shift the audio a little more to account for that drift over time. The seams of the audio tracks will overlap in the silent sections, so there won't be any noticeable glitches.

How can you quickly and easily clip a video at black frames?

I'm glad you asked... 

Video Barbershop features a very powerful and customizable black frame detection and auto-clipping tool. Do you extract out retro commercials from VHS tapes for fun compilations on YouTube? Do you have a really important recording, but want to clip out the commercials quickly and easily?

Video Barbershop's Commercial Break Detection tool can be configured to your tape's specific background noise level (ignoring that buzz and hum) and your tape's specific brightness levels (ignoring static and old tape quality) with the click of a button. Just find a good frame representing your usual black frame transitions and click. Then you are off to the races, as it races through your tape, clipping out programming and commercials! Find and review the clips, deleting the ones you don't want. Click Merge Clips. Done.

Video Barbershop supports Apple's audio plugin architecture, Audio Units v3. If you are not familiar, this is a system-wide registration of audio filters 3rd parties can develop, which you can install, that are accessible across all apps. Apple has loaded your Mac with a large variety out of the box, but Video Barbershop can also leverage ones you've purchased too!

With these, you can build a chain of audio plugins that systematically alter the audio in your video. Better yet, you can save and load your favorite audio chains, so you only need to set them up once.

Remove Annoying Clicking

I've included a spectral analyzer, allowing you to see the audio behavior across 30+ frequencies. Better than a visual equalizer, the mirrored version on the right is a power of change visualizer... meaning it shows when audio rapidly changes... which can show you the exact frequencies to reduce to clean up unwanted clicking. Just use the AUGraphicEQ plugin and reduce the matching color-coded frequencies for that clip.

Video Barbershop simplifies the headache of resolution and aspect ratio changes common to other editing suites. Others assume HD output, causing you to jump through hoops just to maintain your source resolution, or require you to stretch and alter the video to fit 4:3 videos into 16:9 defaults. Yuck!

Video Barbershop makes this simple. All videos are letterboxed automatically into different aspect ratios. All you need to do is select the export resolution and the preview player shows you what your video will look like when exported.

But, you can easily customize things from there. Simple anchor controls and zoom and offsets allow you to change the location within your resolution. Better yet, preset buttons make common conversions trivial, such as returning VHS tapes back into 4:3 aspect ratio, that were captured and stretched into upscaled 16:9 HD.

Video Barbershop supports transparent backgrounds by default, so if you save as .MOV ProRes 4444, the letterboxing will be transparent. Export as .MP4 and the bars will be black automatically. 

Video Barbershop is NOT a full multi-track video editor, however, many of the most common uses you might have, like watermarking your videos, can be done easier and faster with the wide variety of tools available to the clips.

Each clip supports an image overlay, which you can easily anchor, offset, scale and change its opacity, while also applying different blending modes. A click of that Copy to All pancake button instantly sets all clips with the same image overlay.

Keyframe Animation

Far beyond a simple watermark, most controls actually support keyframe animation as well! Animate your image into place, fade away, zoom and pan, you can create a complex variety of effects with this simple interface.

Frame Repair - See that little camera button? Clip a couple frames of a bad flash. Screen shot the good frame right before and use that frame as a full overlay, hiding the bad glitch.

Dynamic Transition - Using the frame repair technique, overlay the last frame of the previous clip but this time quickly animate it away. Once you grok Video Barbershop's unique video/clip paradigm, you'll start discovering you can accomplish far more than you ever expected... far faster than it used to take you.

Additionally, there is a clip specific text overlay tool, in which you can create everything from subtitles to lower third chyrons to whimsical popups. Using keyframing, they too can animate, fade in and out, change color and even type out, creating a huge variety of effects. Every font on your system is available to you.

Subtitles & Closed Captions

 You can leverage the text overlay tool to manage subtitles for you video. As of v1.8.5, you can import an .SRT file and auto-clip the entire video with the text. Adjust the style in one clip and hit that pancake button and thousands of the subtitle clips are updated instantly. Only the style is copied to all clips via that button, so don't worry about overwriting the text itself.

YouTube Thumbnail

The camera button takes a full-size screen shot, exactly what you will see when exported. You can use the text overlay to screen shot a great thumbnail for YouTube, without needing to involve other graphics programs. Just find a good spot in your exported video, clip around it, and screen shot with your text.

If you are a serious video archiver or just a YouTube hobbyist, Video Barbershop can even speed up your data entry. Within the app settings is an overpowered (yes, I went a little overboard on this one) markup language that you can leverage to create custom reports. What kind of reports? Everything from a basic log, to a CSV file to copy and paste into your Excel sheet, to automatically generating your YouTube chapter markers to a full .SRT export of your text overlays... and oh, by the way, all of those are available for you to add to your app, and start to explore the language yourself.

It might look complex, but it has a very simple structure with text variables that pipe to functions that transform the text:

{{ variable ? fallback > transformer(s) }}

Video or Clip scoped variables are strings, like "C.start" is the clip's starting timestamp within the exported video, in the format of hh:mm:ss.sss. SRT files require a comma instead of a period, so you can pipe the text to a replace function:

{{ C.start > replace:.,\, }} -> hh:mm:ss,sss

If you use that type of replace often, you can create a macro and embed macros within your reports, wrapping the macro name in double pound signs:

{{ C.start > ##SRTTIME## }}

It's quite simple, really. But it's extremely powerful and you can create custom metadata fields for both your videos and clips, then format your data however you want. Best part is you can save and load reports, sharing them with other Video Barbershop users! (or if you need me to help you, I'm available to consult and send you the report you need.)

Join our community Discord and share your reports, ask questions, get help and see what's in development!