December 2

Video Conversion Software: Two Free Choices

Video conversion is a topic that makes many of us cringe.  It sounds hard!

HELP!

confused by video conversion software

But video conversion is fairly easy if you have the right software.  Now, don’t get me wrong, it can get enormously complex if you are working at a high level.  Workers for Netflix converting Hollywood movies to formats suitable for streaming have to know an enormous amount of highly complex material.  However, your average online video enthusiast doesn’t need to know much at all.

This post will tell you about two different video conversion software packages you can download for free.

WHAT IS VIDEO CONVERSION SOFTWARE?

There are lots of different video file formats.  Incompatible files can definitely interrupt your workflow. It’s the reason why that Flash video won’t play on your iPad.  It’s also the reason that video disc burned by your friend won’t play on your computer.

Just like an old-fashioned 8-track audio tape won’t play in an audio cassette player, a .wmv video file won’t play on the DVD player designed for MPEG2 video files. There are dozens of different video file formats, so incompatibilities are common.

But lucky us, video conversion software will chew on that video file and pop out a brand-new file in the format of your choice!

Although needing to convert your video to a different format can happen anywhere along the way in a video project, most of the time, it happens at the end, after you have edited it into one finished show.

imovie video editing

Whatever video editing software you use will more than likely have some conversion capacity, so at the very end of your edit, you export it and convert it into to a sharing file.  There are several formats that serve as sharing files, the most commonly used today online is MPEG4.

If you are just doing simple videos, you may never need any conversion software beyond what your editing software offers.  Most cameras shoot in formats accepted by most editing software, so, luck is usually on your side.  However, there are a multitude of circumstances that can lead to you needing special conversion software.

Although there are plenty of paid choices with video conversion software, there are also some good free ones, and they might be all you need.  This post describes my two favorites.  They have both been extremely helpful over the years and both have free versions.

FREE Video Conversion Software

One freebie that I use all the time is MPEG Streamclip by Squared 5.  It comes in versions for both Windows and Mac.  It functions with all formats that are Quick Time compatible.

By using any Quick-Time compatible codec, MPEG Streamclip can convert from:

  • MOV, DV, MP4, AVI, DIVX, MPG, MPEG, VOB, PS, MOD, M2P, VRO, TS, DAT, M2T, MMV, REC, VID, AVR, M2V

to

  • MOV, DV, MP4, AVI, DIVX

For full compatibility with MPEG2, (the format used in home DVD players and the main format of commercial DVDs) Mac users need to buy an MPEG playback component from Apple  and PC users need to install the Quick-Time Alternative.

SQUARED 5 is a small group out of Italy who are generous enough to keep MPEG Streamclip as a freebie!  I use it all the time.

OPEN SOURCE CONVERSION SOFTWARE

Another, even more versatile choice is HandBrake.  HandBrake is an open-source, GPL-licensed (General Public License), multi-platform, multi-threaded video transcoder, available for MacOS X, Linux and Windows.

Supported Sources for HandBrake:

  • Most common multimedia files that libavformat and libavcodec support.  This is a huge list of formats.
  • Any DVD or Bluray-like source which is NOT copy-protected. (removal of copy protection is not supported)

Outputs in HandBrake:

  • File format: MP4(M4V) and MKV
  • Video: MPEG-4(ffmpeg), H.264(x264), or Theora(libtheora)
  • Audio: AAC, CoreAudio AAC (OS X Only), MP3, or Vorbis. AC-3 pass-through, DTS pass-thorugh (MKV only)

Between these two free video conversion software choices, you can probably do just about all the video file converting you’d ever need unless you are working at a high budget level.

Thanks for reading Video Production Tips!

Lorraine Grula


Tags

easy video conversion, free video conversion software, handbrake video conversion software, mpeg streamclip video conversion software, mpeg video conversion, Video Conversion, video conversion software


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