Mac .avi converting...

[SCMedic]

So.. I was hoping someone could shed some light on some free .avi to mp4, or whatever, software for the mac..

I've been trying FFMPEG's software, and it converts nicely, but for some damn reason, no matter how I vary the settings, My movies end up squished in the middle..

I've tried the AppleTV settings, iPod Video settings, and setting my own custom settings without success...

Please, PLEASE, help!

 

[Kabeyun]

So.. I was hoping someone could shed some light on some free .avi to mp4, or whatever, software for the mac..

I've been trying FFMPEG's software, and it converts nicely, but for some damn reason, no matter how I vary the settings, My movies end up squished in the middle..

I've tried the AppleTV settings, iPod Video settings, and setting my own custom settings without success...

Please, PLEASE, help!

I'm pretty happy with Quickime Pro, but if it's free you're looking for you may want to try iSquint. I'm sure you'll also find others at Versiontracker.com, Macupdate.com, etc. (Or you can continue to tinker with FFMPEG's settings.... )

-K

 

[Martlet]

What sort of video is in the .avi wrapper? Divx? H.264? What's the aspect ratio? ... etc. etc.

The list goes on... you probably need to find a tutorial for "converting video for iTunes on Mac", and you'll find pre-existing help on sites that specialize on video conversion and the free tools like ffpmeg.



From your minimal description, it sounds like you are resizing and converting a widescreen 16:9 aspect ratio video into 4:3 aspect ratio, without respecting the aspect ratios. You'll either have to do the math for the height/width/aspect ratio of the source and the destination, and them figure out the amount of top/bottom padding you need to add to ffmpeg, or figure out a way to tell ffmpeg to autodetect and maintain aspect ratio.

When searching, it sometimes seems like everyone keeps their "perfect" conversion settings to themselves, like some magical Coca Cola recipe. Yet another reason to spring for non-free tools that use the settings someone else has already tuned for you.

If you don't want to do the research into understanding how to convert video using the free tools, I suggest buying one of the shareware tools that have premade profiles for PSP, TiVO, iTunes, iPod, iPhone, Apple TV, etc. On a Mac, $23 is probably worth it for VisualHub, even though it's just a GUI and some profiles to make it easier to call ffmpeg to do the actual work.

 

[sdge]

Visual Hub is pimp and it doesn't use Flip4mac to convert .wmv's so (if you are using freeware version of flip4mac) you don't get the ugly "Made by flip4mac" in the whole video.

What I have been taking advantage of is using xgrid through visualhub which allows me to use my mom's and my sister's laptops on the network to help convert movies. It's totally awesome, and VERY simple!

If you want free iSquint is the best way to go.

 

[arothman]

Not sure if this is what you're after, but I've been using a freeware app called TubeTV on my Mac to convert FLV and MOV files into iPhone videos. If your movie will play in Quicktime, this app probably can handle it.