Export a video

Exporting writes a new file with every edit applied. The project and its recordings stay as they were, so you can keep editing and export again.

Export a video

1. Press Export at the top of the editor, or choose File > Export… (⇧⌘E).
2. Under Format, choose H.264 video or HEVC video. Both write an .mp4 file.
3. Set the Resolution and Frame rate - see below.
4. Press Choose destination and export… at the bottom of the sheet.
5. Rooster opens a save panel in your Downloads folder, with the project's name filled in. Choose where the file goes and press Export.

The sheet shows the progress. When the export finishes, press Show in Finder to see the file.

Rendering happens on your Mac, and nothing is uploaded - the sheet says so: Rendering stays on this Mac - your media is not uploaded.

H.264 or HEVC

Choose H.264 video when you are not sure, because almost every player and site accepts it. HEVC video is the newer codec: it usually makes a smaller file for the same picture, and older players may not open it.

Resolution and frame rate

• Resolution is Source, 720p, 1080p or 4K. Source keeps your recording's own size.
• Frame rate is Source, 24, 30 or 60 fps.

Rooster does not offer a size larger than your footage, or a frame rate faster than it, because scaling up makes a bigger file with no more picture in it. When it holds one back, the sheet says so. Under the options, a line shows the size, the frame rate and roughly how large the file will be.

Captions in the picture

If the project has captions, Burn captions into the picture draws them into the video, and it is on unless you turn it off. Turn it off for a clean video and export the captions as a separate SRT or VTT file instead.

Match loudness

Match loudness to -16 LUFS raises or lowers the whole mix so the speech sits at the level podcasts and spoken-word video are usually published at. It is off unless you turn it on, and the sheet shows what your narration measures now and where the export will land.

Other formats

The same Format menu exports the project as:

• Audio only (.m4a) or Uncompressed WAV audio (.wav),
• SRT captions (.srt) or VTT captions (.vtt),
• the transcript as Markdown (.md) or Plain transcript (.txt).

Replacing a file, and what Rooster will not overwrite

If you choose a name that is already in use, macOS asks whether to replace it. Rooster refuses to export over a recording any of your projects is built on, so an export can never destroy an original; choose another name or folder.

Cancel an export

Press Cancel export. Rooster will not quit while an export is running.