OT mov conversion

Yes, a program by the name of FLASK. It will do all sorts of conversions and there are many plugins available. FreeWare.

Quicktime 6 is MPEG.

I've been playing with TMPGEnc under Windows. The base software can be found here:

a plugin for reading Quicktime files can be found here: If you're trying to make a DVD, be aware that the MPEG-2 encoder for TMPGEnc is NOT freeware. You get a 30-day evaluation, after which you're supposed to pay $25. It can, however, do MPEG-1 (VCD, for example) for free.

I tried TMPGEnc after being stymied by mencoder and transcode under NetBSD. I can't really say how TMPGEnc is doing yet, since the spare PC I'm running windows on is really old (66MHz 486, IIRC) and it's only about halfway through the encoding task I've given it (after grinding away for about a week). I really need to find a quicker junk PC...

My difficulties with mencoder and transcode are that the various pieces I needed to make it do what I wanted didn't work. I spent a week arguing with transcode, but still don't quite have enough of it compiled to make an MPEG-2 for a DVD from a Quicktime movie containing an iMovie full of stuff edited from my camcorder (exported from iMovie via "Export for iDVD"; my DVD burner is on my NetBSD box, and isn't anything iDVD would recognize, anyway). Currently transcode refuses to do anything useful with the audio; export modules that seem to work insist there is no audio in the stream while export modules that see audio refuse to work.

I also haven't figured out how to pass parameters to the various codecs for transcode. For example, the MPEG-2 bit I've gotten to work on transcode is encoding via the ffmpeg library. However, I have not found any documentation about how to tell the ffmpeg library, via the transcode command line, the bit rate to which it should encode. The command line for mencoder is every bit as mysterious as transcode's.

I also need to find a freeware FTP client for MacOS 9 that can deal with files larger than 2GB. I can't do a bloody thing with them using Fetch

3.0.3, Appletalk, or any other freeware means to move files around that I've found. Fetch 4.mumble can handle them, but it's not freeware.

Grumble, grumble, grumble.

Bob, Quicktime is a technology, not a codec. Same is true of AVI's. What I mean by that is that you can use Quicktime to playback AVI, MPG, MOV, DIVX, and other types of file types. I use the QT player on Windows instead of Media Player because the QT player allows me to scrub through video randomly, as well as go frame by frame using the cursor keys. You don't say what OS you are using, obviously that will affect your choices.

MPG is a copyrighted codec, so there are generally not any free MPG encoders. Most of what you'll find will be demo versions of commercial products, or shareware. If you install Toast CD burning software by Roxio on a Mac, it also installs a pretty good VCD MPG encoder that is available as an export option from any Quicktime aware application. It does not offer a lot of settings, but it works pretty well.

You also don't say what codec the QT movies are compressed with. Be aware that transcoding from one codec to another often introduces secondary compression artifacts that can greatly reduce video quality. Think of it as re-folding a highway map in thirds instead of how it was originally folded. The next time you unfold it, it will have lots more creases that 'degrade' the image quality. It's possible to transcode video without a loss of quality, but it takes some work.

On Windows, the Adobe Media Encoder included with the latest version of Premiere Pro does a great job, but it's hardly freeware. However, I found a product at:

that seems to do what you want, but it works only from Media Player on windows. Depending on how your video is compressed, you may be able to open in in Media Player to convert it. As a last resort, you can always export it out of QT Player (Pro version) as an uncompressed AVI (huge file) and then use Media Player to convert it.

One nice thing about Adobe Premiere on Windows, is that it will convert almost any file format to any other.

Keep looking around - you'll find a way to do what you want.

Tony.

You might want to check out ProCoder Express;

It's not free but at $60 it appears to be a good deal. Going to score a copy next pay period.

Ted Novak TRA#5512