Avi to MP4 converter

Fred Woogle · Post by **Fred Woogle** » December 28th, 2009, 15:01

Hi all, family sent some Videos which I need to convert from AVI to MP4 or something for my mums IPhone, can anyone recommend something?

Post by **Dog Pants** » December 28th, 2009, 15:03

I think Movica was what I used to use, but it doesn't seem to work in Win 7.

Stoat · Post by **Stoat** » December 28th, 2009, 15:19

I've never actually got Handbrake to work, but I'm told it's highly recommended.
Xvid4PSP is now only unofficially supported, but has proved very able in my experience.
MediaCoder was quite good too.
I'm not sure why all video encoders seem to be awfully skinned.

Davius · Post by **Davius** » December 28th, 2009, 17:26

Try sweeping Total Video Converter from somewhere, its not that pretty but it gets the job done!

Post by **deject** » December 28th, 2009, 17:48

Stoat wrote:I've never actually got Handbrake to work, but I'm told it's highly recommended.
Xvid4PSP is now only unofficially supported, but has proved very able in my experience.
MediaCoder was quite good too.
I'm not sure why all video encoders seem to be awfully skinned.

For converting video for ipods and such, Handbrake is the way to go. It has presets for pretty much every ipod capable of showing video, so it's just choose input, choose preset, and go.

Lexy · Post by **Lexy** » January 16th, 2010, 18:37

Stoat wrote:I've never actually got Handbrake to work, but I'm told it's highly recommended.
Xvid4PSP is now only unofficially supported, but has proved very able in my experience.
MediaCoder was quite good too.
I'm not sure why all video encoders seem to be awfully skinned.

It's not that all video encoders are awfully skinned ... it's that the ones that aren't awfully skinned happen to be called things like Autodesk Smoke or Final Cut Pro and cost $$$.

cheeseandham · Post by **cheeseandham** » January 16th, 2010, 21:39

FFMpeg - http://ffmpeg.org/ (download - http://www.videohelp.com/download/ffmpeg-0.5.7z)

Just get ffmpeg.exe and pop it in a directory somewhere, make a batch file in that directory

Code: Select all

"C:\your\path\ffmpeg.exe"  -i %1 -acodec libfaac -ac 2 -vcodec mpeg4 -s 320×240 -b 500kb -ab 96kb -coder 1 -flags +aic+cbp+loop+mv4+naq -trellis 1 "%~d1%~p1%~n1-iphone.mp4"

Drag and drop the files you want to convert onto the batch file whenever you want a file converted. (not tested but seems to work, I don't have an iphone - i'm sure if you want different bitrates you can spot them in the command)

SmartFFMeg - http://freeware.satria.de/SmartFFmpeg/index.php?lang=EN
If you want a GUI with presets.

(I prefer the batch file approach, you don't need to open a program and select things.)

Lexy · Post by **Lexy** » January 17th, 2010, 4:52

320x240 will look like poop.

Iphone encoding settings:

1.5 mbps
640 x 480 (360 if wide screen)
h.264 codec
48khz stereo audio

That will work. Can go up to 2.5 mbps but 1.5 is generally enough anyway. You probably want to do two passes, better downscaling, no interlacing, progressive/square pixels aspect ratio.

kthxbai.

cheeseandham · Post by **cheeseandham** » January 17th, 2010, 11:24

That's why I mentioned that I don't have an iPhone, doing a quick Google my settings do appear a little lower than some - of course different people prefer different settings, some might be happy with 0.5 Mbps whilst others have 0.75Mbps and you want 1.5Mbps - all fair enough.

Remember lower quality settings mean less CPU usage and longer battery life, and a second pass doubles the encode time for a small increase in the quality.

However I am curious why you'd want 640x480 encoding on a 480x320 screen?
Looking at the specs It supports "H.264 video, up to 2.5 Mbps, 640 by 480 pixels, 30 frames per second" - that doesn't mean you have to use that, particular if it means the iPhone is then going to have to downscale from 640x480 to 480x320 after you've encoded, that'll completely kill the point of your second pass and result in worse quality because the iPhone is having to do it on the fly.

You may want to change my line to increase quality and set for different aspect ratios

For 4:3 aspect

Code: Select all

"C:\your\path\ffmpeg.exe"  -i %1 -acodec libfaac -ac 2 -vcodec mpeg4 -s 480x320 -aspect 4:3 -b 768k -ab 128kb -coder 1 -flags +aic+cbp+loop+mv4+naq -trellis 1 "%~d1%~p1%~n1-iphone.mp4"

and For 16:9

Code: Select all

"C:\your\path\ffmpeg.exe"  -i %1 -acodec libfaac -ac 2 -vcodec mpeg4 -s 480x320 -aspect 16:9 -b 768k -ab 128kb -coder 1 -flags +aic+cbp+loop+mv4+naq -trellis 1 "%~d1%~p1%~n1-iphone.mp4"

Lexy · Post by **Lexy** » January 17th, 2010, 15:58

It's just advice. I make a lot of content for many devices.

I tend to notice artifacts rocking up too much under 1.5Mbps depending on the source. With things like phone devices it's pretty important to hit a sweet spot between watchable and can play on lots of devices. 1.5Mbps will play on an iphone or your out of date nokia generally without it choking.

The workflow I have second passes don't really bother me. If you're encoding on a consumer laptop then sure second passes may not be worth it; but if I was forced to use entirely consumer software then I'd want the second pass. Even then though, a consumer laptop can run an encode in the background whilst posting on 5punk, listening to an MP3 and dancing. It's just time. I'm more about quality.

Plus it can depend on what you're encoding. Complex footage will suffer more from not having a second pass than consistent footage. But does someone encoding stuff for their family really want to sit and try to evaluate what qualifies as complex.

If you're aiming for quality whilst preserving battery life ... it takes more processing power to raise bit rate I'm pretty sure than to down scale an image. So having a smaller frame at a higher bit rate would kill battery faster ... I'm not a phone battery expert, but have a rough idea of my processes. Though sure, scaling will have some effect on it.

The down scaler for the iphone isn't exactly a random impulse resize script, and a second pass often deals with different artifacts than you're referring to with a resizing. The two aren't really connected as far as I'm aware. Personally I find consumer/prosumer encoders introduce artifacts on a regular basis, and a second pass assists with this. Introducing scaling is a different set of maths and little to do with how many passes I've done.

I think you will struggle to see the difference between downscaled footage and correct rez footage on your iphone. If you run an emulator actually you will struggle to notice the difference between the iphone and a nokia 19-whatevs classic. And the iphone has better software.

The iphone etc ... is also within a suite of other devices which can produce bigger displays. It's not just making your video future proof, it's making it useable right now. The iphone has out puts etc ... to play on other devices. It's generally just best to assume someone is going to use those functions than not; and yes in that event lower resolution will look poop.