14 DAY TRIAL // SplitFuse is a program that is designed to split movie files into multiple segments, and to put them back together again into one big file later. There are many practical reasons for needing or wanting to do this. One would be to ease storage and transition of very large files by splitting them up. Another would be to work with alias movies to see the composite effect of a series of clips, without having to actually merge them together.
Splitting movies The reasons for splitting movies are many. Above I have mentioned a few, but there are others, such as splitting a HD movie to make it compatible with iMovie's maximum size of 2GB, or easing the load of working with huge files in editing programs. Regardless of why you want to split a movie, this program makes it pretty easy to do.
The first thing you need to decide on is how you want to split it. There are several methods to choose from. The first two are pretty automatic: you can split into clips of a certain duration, the total number of clips being dependant on the chosen clip duration and the duration of the movie; or you can choose to create a number of clips, the duration of each being dependant on the duration of the movie and the number of clips you choose. After that just type the root name and choose the separator type and you are good to go.
The third method of splitting is using a clip list. This Clip list is defined inside the program, by scrubbing to the stating point of a clip and setting the position, and then scrubbing to the ending point and choosing the position. In this way you define any number of clips into which to split, each having any duration you wish. This is the most complicated and flexible method, as it allows you to even skip parts of the original movie that are not needed, however, it has its own limitations. For one thing, you can't create overlaps between clips too easily, and setting up clips is quite a pest, especially since you cannot edit them after created, or reorder them? your only option is to simply delete the faulty clip and make another. The second major issue is how imprecise the program is. Through a design choice, probably intended to make things easier when setting up clips, you can only move through the movie one second at a time? you cannot move frame by frame. This means that splitting up precisely, into several clips based on different scenes is impossible without either cutting the scene short or having extra garbage at the beginning and end. Ideally, this behavior could be changed through the preferences, but this is not the case.
Fusing movies The reverse of the split operation is a bit more straightforward. Just add all the clips you want to the list, drag them in the order you want and you are pretty much set to go. The only option you have to worry about is the 'create self contained movie' one.
This option might seem strange at first, but it is one of the key points of this program. A self-contained movie is a large movie file that contains all the original clips, back to back. It is what you had before splitting the file into several clips if you will. However, you can also opt to disable this option and create a symbolic movie. This is similar to an alias in the finder, in that you can interact with it, but it is not the original file. It is just a small file, usually several kilobytes in size, which can be played and seen, and it will look like the original file before splitting, but it is worthless without all the other individual clip files. THis option might seem silly, but it is absolutely great. Imagine you are working in post processing on a large movie, but you are modifying the different scenes separately, with various people working on each. Using this option, you can create a very small movie file that will let you preview the entire thing, no matter where the individual clips are as one big continuous movie.
Movies only Initially I was under the impression that this program could split and then join together any kind of file. After installing, it became clear that this is not the case. While I understand that SplitFuse was intended to work with movies, it could just as well do the same thing for any file with minimal modifications required. This would more than double the functionality of the program, and I cannot fathom why the developer did not do this.
The Good Splits and merges movie files, like it says and makes it very easy to do so.
The Bad Only works on movies when it could very well work on any kind of file.
The Truth A good program if you are working with monster sizes movie files. If it worked on any file it would have been one of those must-have utilities? back to multi segment archives.
Here are some screenshots, click to enlarge:
