Converting from MOV to MPEG or AVI

Off-topic
1

One of the threads in R.S.U. is getting off topic talking about video compression. I’ll answer one of the questions here where it’s not off topic.

The question was from Andrew’s thread: Andrew’s 8 minute movie…

The question was:

Here’s a description I wrote up for converting a MOV file from a digicam to an MPEG-1 file. The MOV files from a digicam are not very compressed. They’re a bit big to be posting online in the gallery. Converting them to a format like MPEG-1 will make them convenient to put in the gallery.

Here’s how to convert a MOV file from a digicam to an MPEG-1 file with TMPGEnc.

Install TMPGEnc and the QT Reader plugin

TMPGEnc
http://www.tmpgenc.net/e_main.html

QT Reader plugin

Start TMPGEnc
It will start up with the Project Wizard
Hit Cancel, we’re going to configure things manually since the presets don’t do what we want to do

For Video source click Browse
Find the source file (the MOV file) and click Open

Check the Output file name and make sure the name and path are what you want

For Stream type make sure it is set at “System (Video+Audio)”

Click on the Setting button

Select the Video tab
Stream type: MPEG-1 Video
Size: 320 x 240 pixels
Aspect ratio: 1:1 (VGA)
Frame rate: 30 fps
Rate control mode: 2-pass VBR(VBR)
Click on Setting for Rate control
Average bitrate: 500 kbits/sec
Maximum bitrate: 2000 kbits/sec
Minimum bitrate: 100 kbits/sec
Click OK
Motion search precision: Highest quality (very slow)

Note here: Pick a frame rate that is equal to or a multiple of the frame rate that the camera produces. If the camera does 10 fps or 15 fps then 30 fps will work well. If the camera does something like 12 fps then pick 24 fps for the frame rate. Check the camera’s documentation to find out its frame rate.

Click on the Advanced tab
Video source type: Non-interlace (progressive)

Click on the Audio tab
Stream type: MPEG-1 Audio Layer II
Sampling frequency: 32000 Hz
Channel mode: Mono
Bitrate: 64 kbits/sec (could go lower if you want)

Click OK
We’re done with the settings. Time to compress.

Click the Start button.

When it is done, play the output video and see how the quality is.

These settings got a 3900 KB MOV file from a digicam down to about a 1000 KB MPG file.
This is at an average bitrate of 500 kbits/sec. That was the point where the compression artifacts were starting to get noticeable. If you go lower than 500 kbits/sec you are going to want to keep an eye on the output quality to make sure it isn’t too blocky. You can go lower if you need a smaller file size.

Experiment with the average bitrate. 500 kbits/sec seemed to work OK on the sample clip I used. You can try a higher average bitrate of maybe 750 kbits/sec or even a little lower. The higher you go the better quality you are going to get, but the file size is going to get proportionally bigger.

If you have problems with the sound when converting the MOV file, go to the QuickTime settings and toggle the Sound Out settings from DirectSound to waveOut (or vice versa). I don’t know why that got things working for me, but it did.
Control Panel >> QuickTime
Select Sound Out in the QuickTime dropdown list
Toggle the playback device to/from DirectSound to waveOut (or vice versa)

From here you can import the MPG file to a program like VirtualDub to trim away parts of the video or do other basic editing. If your goal is to import it to an editing program you will want to use a higher bitrate (something like 2000 kbits/sec or 3000 kbits/sec or more would be good) to keep the quality up. Then once the editing is done compress the final version down to something smaller.

2

JC wrote up that conversion recipe for me and I thank him for it. I did further compression from MPEG to .wmv with another recipe he wrote for me. I found the settings in both steps to be sensitive and easily created video artifacts unless left at default values. Hopefully you will have better luck than me and, undoubtedly, you are more clever than me. This is NOT to say that the JC recipes don’t work. It’s just that I had to use default settings to avoid artifacts. With the defaults they worked flawlessly.

3

Another options is to use The Rad Video Tools to convert the MOV to an AVI. The Rad Video Tools is a free utility.

Last September they made an important update to the program. It now can import DirectShow video and audio. This is important because QuickTime 6 uses DirectShow. Before this update the program didn’t work very well if you had QuickTime 6 installed (you had to downgrade to QuickTime 5 to get the MOV file import to work).

Here’s a guide that explains how to use it: MOV to AVI guide

The guide recommends using the MJPEG codec for compressing the AVI. That works well. Another compression option is Huffyuv which is a lossless codec. It will get you about 2:1 compression compared to a RAW uncompressed AVI file. Huffyuv is good if your goal is to import the AVI file to another program for further editing. Since it is lossless you won’t have any video quality loss during editing. Huffyuv is also good for capturing video. I use it when capturing video from a VCR. But at only 2:1 compress it makes for some large files.

The Rad Video Tools does not compress the audio in the AVI file. To compress the audio you’ll need to compress the file using a tool like VirtualDub along with the LameACM MP3 codec. Best bet in VirtualDub is to compress with DivX and Lame MP3.

The Rad Video Tools is a great utility for converting MOV files. With the recent update, so it works with QuickTime 6, it is actually useful again. It’s free, but worth a small donation if you find it useful.

4

I use the “WinAVI Video Converter” which can turn WMV, MOV, AVI, RM, etc etc… into any of the previously listed. I also use a kodak that takes videos in a .mov form, I convert them and BAM wmv/avi’s for me to use in videos! It’s free, and fast, and as of yet I have no problems with it.

DOWNLOAD IT HERE!

5

It’s not exactly free. There is a trial version available with the following limitations:

To use it with a clean conscious and no watermark you are supposed to pay $29.95.

There are many shareware and commercial applications that can convert MOV files to a more useful format. But they’re not free. There are only a few free tools that I’ve found that can convert MOV files. The best ones that I know of are the two that I mentioned. Free is a very good price.

6

I downloaded if tom Download.com and there aren’t any watermarks on any of my videos. It does show a register dealy when you start it up but you just have to click past it.

So… really it works just as well.

7

I just tried it and it didn’t work very well for me at all. It crashed, gave errors trying to open the file, and generally didn’t work very well. I was unable to get it to convert a basic MOV file to an AVI. It would crash with an access error or give an error saying it couldn’t open the file. I was able to get it to convert the MOV file to a WMV file.

I downloaded it from WinAVI.com. The version I got put a big watermark on every frame in the video. I’ll attach a video capture of the watermark. If you have a version that doesn’t do the watermark, you’re going to want to keep it and never upgrade to the new and improved watermark version.

I give it two thumbs down. It just plain didn’t work for me.

winavicapture.jpg

8

Wow… it never has that tag for me.

Jus looka t all of my videos. Which all use the WinAVI converter.

9

Something must have happened when they upgraded WinAVI to a new version. They completely broke it and added the big watermark. I didn’t check the version number of the version I installed. I have since uninstalled it and deleted it. Stick with your older version.

10

Here’s another way to convert a MOV file to a different format. In this case WMV. Windows Media Encoder 9 can read MOV files from a digicam and convert them to a WMV file. That surprised me because it’s not supposed to support MOV files. But it worked. I don’t know why.

MOV files are not one of the specifically supported input file formats in Windows Media Encoder 9. That’s why I’m not sure why this works. I have QuickTime 6.5.2 installed and am running Windows 2000. I may have some other codecs or magic utilities installed that somehow makes this work. If it works for you consider yourself lucky because it seems to be an undocumented feature in Windows Media Encoder.

Here’s how to go about it:

Get the Windows Media Encoder 9 from here
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/9series/encoder/default.aspx
http://tinyurl.com/7wf8
and install it. It’s free.

The interface for Windows Media Encoder is a bit complicated. The problem is that Windows Media Encoder does a lot more than just convert files. It also can be used to compress streaming video, capture live video, and lots of other things. It makes for a complicated interface.

The good news is that WMV compresses better than MPEG-1. You should be able to get the file down to about 1/4 the size of the original MOV file size. The bad thing about WMV 9 files is that people with Unix/Linux or older Macs won’t be able to play the video.

Here’s how to convert a MOV file to a WMV file.

New Session --> Wizards -->Convert a file

Select the source file
Click Browse.
MOV is not a file type that is supported by default
Go to “Files of type” and choose “All files (.)”
Now you’ll be able to see MOV files in the file dialog
Find your MOV file and click Open

Select the output file
Choose a name and a location for the new file

Click Next

Choose "File download (computer playback)

Click Next

For video select "VHS quality video (250 Kbps VBR)
For audio select "Voice quality audio (CBR)

Click Next

You can supply title and author info in you want

Click Next

Click Finish

Now we need to tweak the settings to get better output

In the menu bar select View --> Properties Panel
Select the Compression tab
Click the Edit. button next to the Destination dropdown box
Click on the tab labeled 263 Kbps or whatever number it happens to be
For Audio format select “20 kbps, 22 kHz, mono”
For Video size select the checkbox for “Same as video input”
For frame rate enter “15” or “30”. I’m pretty sure your camera is 15 fps.
Anything that is a multiple of your camera frame rate will work.
Now for the big one. Now we’ll change the setting for the video bit rate.
This will have the biggest effect on quality and file size. Some
experimentation here will be necessary. A bit rate of somewhere between
500Kbps and 1250Kbps is probably a good range to try. For now we’ll try
1000Kbps
In the Video bit rate (average) box enter “1000K”
Click OK

Click Apply in the Session Properties Panel

Whew! Now we’re ready to encode.

In the menu bar select Control --> Start Encoding or just click the Start Encoding button on the toolbar.

Watch the encoding progress. Then watch the output video.

See if the output video looks good. You can now try some lower bit rates to get a smaller file. Just watch for compression artifacts in the video (blocky video, washed out areas in the video, etc.). You can possibly go down to 500Kbps without too much loss in video quality. Going down to 500Kbps will cut the file size in half compared to 1000Kbps.

And that’s all there is to it.

It is possible that Windows Movie Maker 2 in Windows XP may also be able to read a MOV file the same way and thus be able to convert a MOV file to a WMV file. I don’t have Windows XP handy right now to test this out.

11

Do you still have the install file?

I think there’s a website that has older version of programs like for just a situation but I cant remember the name of it.

EDIT: I desided to google it, its www.oldversion.com it seems to be down right now. I dont know if it will have it or not though you can try though.

12

Here’s some info on using DivX along with VirtualDub to compress an AVI file.

First you’ll need to install an MP3 codec that supports the ACM (Audio Compression Manager) interface in Windows. There are versions of LAME that include an ACM driver. There are also other MP3 codecs that include an ACM driver. I’ll explain how to install the LAME ACM driver.

How to install the LAME ACM driver:

Download the LAME 3.96.1 stable bundle from Rarewares
Extract all the files to C:\Program Files\lame
Right-click on the LameACM.inf file
Select “Install” from the context menu

The DivX web site has some guides on how to encode using DivX.

DivX How-To Guides
DivX and VirtualDub Guide

There is a big DivX User Guide in PDF format that explains the various compression settings in the DivX codec.

The page with the DivX User Guide also has a few additional How-To Guides. The “Using DivX Pro with VirtualDub” guide covers the basics of compressing video using VirtualDub, but it neglects to cover how to compress the audio. An additional guide “Encoding Audio for DivX Certified Devices” covers the audio compression part. Combine the two guides and you’ve got the basics of video compression and audio compression covered.

VirtualDub and many other tools do not automatically compress the audio when you create an AVI. It is not uncommon to see AVI files where the video has been compressed nicely but the audio has been left completely uncompressed. Uncompressed audio is a waste of space and in some cases can double the size of the file. Compressing the audio will make for a smaller AVI file.

A handy tool when working with AVI files is AVIcodec (AVIcodec homepage). AVIcodec allows you to see what codec was used to compress the video portion of an AVI file and what codec was used to compress the audio section of an AVI file. This will let you see if the audio portion of an AVI file has been compressed. AVIcodec can also list all of the codecs that you have installed. A very handy little tool.

13

DivX AVI vs. MPEG-1 vs. WMV9

When picking a format for a movie or video clip there a few things to keep in mind. Each format has it’s own unique advantages and disadvantages.

MPEG-1 is very compatible. It can be played by most any modern computer. It will play on Windows, older Macs, newer Macs with OS X, Linux, Unix, and others. MPEG-1 is the format to choose for the most trouble free playback. The downside is that MPEG-1 does not compress as well as DivX or WMV9. Files compressed with MPEG-1 can be twice as big, or larger, as the same video compressed with DivX or WMV9.

WMV9 (Windows Media Video version 9) is a convenient format for Windows users. It does require that the user have Windows Media Player 9 or greater installed, or the Windows Media codec pack for WMP 7.1. There is also a version of Windows Media Player 9 for Mac OS X. So Mac users will be able to play the video too. But older Macs and other platforms like Linux are not supported. WMV9 compression is very good. It does well at low bitrates and is good for downloadable video files. Some of the Mac users here have problems playing some of the WMV videos in the gallery. I don’t know what’s up with that.

DivX is also a popular option. It compresses well and can create small files good for downloading. WMV9 and DivX are about equal in compression ratios. The DivX codec is available for Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux. The problem with DivX is that it is not a native codec in the OS and will need to be manually installed by the user before they play the video. If the user doesn’t know that the DivX codec is required and where to go get the codec, they won’t be able to play the video. When encoding with DivX the best option for compressing the audio is to use MP3. Some people use WMA (Windows Media Audio) but that is a very bad choice for the Mac users and Linux users. DivX files with WMA audio will not play on Macs or Linux. Stick with MP3. To get the most compression out of DivX you need to use the DivX Pro codec when compressing the video. The DivX Pro codec has a 6 month trial period. After that it is $19.99.

My preference is to use MPEG-1 unless the size of the video gets to be too big for a convenient download. When I want more compression I’ll use DivX or WMV9.

14

lol … that’s understated …

my .MOV file 49mb -----> converted to 371mb .AVI

also … I’m having a problem with sound not sync to video…

I was using ‘ABCvideo Roll’ which converts and edits into a number of different formats… but had same sound problem
(it converts AVI much smaller)

I’m dumping this program …

15

What about mpeg2? It should be just as compatible with most systems (unless it’s very old) and compresses better than mpeg1. It’s what DVDs and the ATSC digital TV signals use.

It’s “DivX ;-)”, not the failed one time use DixX DVDs that were sold at Circuit City.

Isn’t DivX :wink: an Mpeg4 codec? And so is xvid? So why can’t a single mpeg4 codec handle all these? Mpeg4 is standard. Or do these codecs just not adhere to the standard very well?

So many options… AAC or mp3… DivX or mpeg1/2/3/4 or propriatary WMA.

16

Not accepting .MOV file is silly (IMO)

I’ve converted my MOV files to AVI
(which is accepted by the Gallery)

They are much larger and the quality just plain sux after conversion.
(not as bad as the coversion from that other program I tried above)

17

The gallery accepts .mov files.

It’s currently configured for: ‘avi’, ‘mpg’, ‘mpeg’, ‘wmv’, ‘mov’, ‘swf’, ‘mp4’, ‘rm’, ‘wav’, ‘mp3’, ‘jpg’, ‘jpeg’, ‘gif’, ‘png’

18

My mistake … I needed to change the

‘gallery items’

to

‘all files’

thx Gilby

19

You can only play MPEG-2 if you have DVD player software installed. DVD player software comes bundled with some DVD drives, otherwise it’s something that you have to buy separately.

MPEG-2 isn’t a good format for downloadable videos because many people don’t have the software to play it. MPEG-2 is good for DVDs and that’s about it.

WMV9 and the MPEG4 based codecs (like DivX, XviD, and the new QuickTime) get better compression and better results at lower bitrates than MPEG-2.

20

XviD and DivX are both MPEG-4 codecs. XviD can supposedly play DivX videos and DivX can supposedly play XviD videos. But I don’t know how well that works in practice. I haven’t played around with XviD enough to know how interchangeable DivX and XviD are.

There is an MS MPEG-4 codec that doesn’t follow the standard well enough for DivX or XviD to be able to play video encoded with MS MPEG-4. So some MPEG-4 codecs are less compatible than others.