Looking for .mov coverter

[I Grok NSX]

Looking for a freeware .mov converter if anyone knows a good one. I have a digital camera and decided to take a movie. Well I downloaded it to my computer and it's in a .mov format. I got the free download from apple to watch the movie, but I'd like to change the format to .avi or .mpeg.

If no one knows of a freeware converter, how about a suggestion for a pay version. Thanks.

 

[Jimbo]

I just would get the QuickTime Pro player from Apple.

http://www.apple.com/quicktime/download/qtpro_faq.html

It's $30 but it's the best and it gives you all kinds of import/export options.

-Jim

 

[NeoNSX]

Grok, if you convert it to another format, it will be double-compressed and the quality will be very poor. You sure you want to do that?

I use Premiere if i want to convert quicktime to another format, but that's not freeware.

You might find something here:
http://www.newfreeware.com/search.php3?q=mov+convert+mpeg

otherwise wait and hope that <B>Phoe<FONT COLOR=red>N$X</FONT></B> reads this ... he's pretty good at digging these kind of tools up.

 

[Jimbo]

Neo,

How do you know that the file from the camera is compressed and if so, to what extent? The codec and level of compression are independent from the file format.

In any case, I believe QuickTime Pro is smart enough not to doubly degrade the image.

I use it all the time for these digital camera movie clips.

-Jim

 

[NeoNSX]

Neo, How do you know that the file from the camera is compressed? The codec and level of compression are independent from the file format.

I just know.


Digital cameras (nearly) always compress because they have limited memory speeds and capacity (now a digital camera + iPod would be sweet ).

<B>The technical explaination:</B> Uncompressed video is just too inefficient. For example, video at 720x576 (PAL) @ 24-bit, 25FPS would be would be ~31.1MBytes for 1 second of uncompressed footage. Even as DV (4:1) it would be 7.75MB/sec. I don't think flash memory can even write at that speed. Hence my presumptious comment.

 

[Jimbo]

Fair enough, but let's say that the camera uses Motion-JPEG (which is what I think most of them use) or some other codec. When you save it out in QuickTime Pro it's always better to use a real video codec such as MPEG 4 or Sorenson.

My main point is that I believe QuickTime Pro won't blindly doubly-degrade the image.

It will take the Motion-JPEG QuickTime .MOV file and preserve whatever it can. Obviously if you select a quality level worse than the original the resultant movie will look crappy.

And it's only $30.

Also most of these movies created by digital cameras are only 320 x 240 @ 30 fps or if they are 640 x 480 the frame rate is 15 fps or so.

-Jim

 

[NeoNSX]

Hey Jimbo, we seem to be having some good debates lately! We sound like a married couple.

Yup, you're right... m-jpeg is a very popular codec, so let's ditch the uncompressed argument.... we're talking "real world" here.

But for the record:
320x240 @ 30 fps (24bit) = 6.9MBytes per one second uncompressed footage.
640x480 @ 15 fps (24bit) = 13.8MBytes per one second uncompressed footage. [resolution might look like x2 but it's a matrix (i think that's the correct mathematical term???]



I'm not sure of your understanding of video codec's, so please excuse me if i sound patronizing. I'm not interested that in high-brow crap. Let's get down to basics.


* Take 1 frame of footage from a camera. Let's assume the quality is perfect (hmm... must be a pix of Ms.Christine ).

* Now when it's saved into M-JPEG (which is a lossy-compression scheme) there is an inherent loss of quality. Let's say the loss of quality is 'very low' (because Quicktime - encoded properly - gives very good results )

* Now GrokNSX takes that 1 frame that's now in M-JPEG and using QuickTimePro exports it to a .MPEG (or .MP4). QuickTimePro compresses the frame done in M-JPEG (which had a slight loss of quality) so the MPEG file will be compressed a second time.

You can't avoid double-compression when converting formats, unless in theory you are (for example) converting from MOV M-JPEG file into a .AVI M-JPEG file, and the QuickTimePro is smart enough to restructure the headers/keyframes. That's only in theory, because Intel and Mac CPU's have different bit-ordering [this is where i get into heavy IT talk] : I forget which is which, but i think Intel's are 'Little Endian' - [in an byte, the most significant is on the right ie. '01'] and Mac's are 'Big Endian'. [which is the other way, ie. '10'] Anyway, the point is the structuring of the data is different between Intel's and Mac's are different which screws up that mjpeg-to-mjpeg theory. But most people encoding .AVI do not use M-JPEG... they use one of the crap built-in codecs, or divx/xvid, or mpeg. I don't know .. now it's past 2am and i'm falling asleep at the keyboard.


gee i earned that post. let's continue this tomorrow.

EDIT: spelling.

 

[Jimbo]

* Now GrokNSX takes that 1 frame that's now in M-JPEG and using QuickTimePro exports it to a .MPEG (or .MP4). QuickTimePro compresses the frame done in M-JPEG (which had a slight loss of quality) so the MPEG file will be compressed a second time.

Neo,

But what level of quality does Grok export it at?

Since it's already compressed somewhat - why wouldn't he save it in the highest quality possible?

-Jim

PS: It's Endian.

 

[NeoNSX]

Why am i posting on this thread again when i should be sleeping.

Thanx for correction about the Endian... you're right. Kinda funny making a spelling mistake with a computer term, considering we have products with poor English like ".Net" and "C++". The Gammar Nazi would rip Microsoft to pieces.

Back to the issue...

Ask Gork if he wants to save it at the highest level of quality. But it will still have mild compression applied to the footage. It wouldn't show up in "blocks", but usually makes the image "smoothed" or blurry. It depends on the CODEC. M-JPEG usually causes smoothing. If he encodes at a high quality, the file size will be much larger too.

Bottom line is we are both right.


PS. Mac (using RISC CPU's) are big-endian system, traditional Intel x86 architectures use the little-endian approach. Big-endian is a term that describes the order in which a sequence of bytes are stored in computer memory. Just clarifying myself for sake of completion.

PPS. I'm going to bed.

 

[matteni]

Do you have a Canon or Nikon camera?

Canan, Nikon, and a few others bundle software with the camera if the camera takes movies.

My last couple cameras came with VideoImpressions by ArcSoft http://www.arcsoft.com/en/support/downloads/downloadview.asp?downloadid=184

There is a free trial availible and you may want to check you CDs again.

Also - this program not only gives you the option to add elements, transitions, timelines, music, etc. It will assist you in burning a DVD or CD-R (that will play on almost all DVD players but only requires a 10 cent CDR disk). You can save it an a huge number of formats, edit the movie, and most importantly - resample or resize the movie for email distribution.

Hope this helps / good luck.

 

[Jimbo]

Grok,

Unfortunately this thread has devolved into something other than trying to answer your question.

Let me try to summarize for you.

Whether you're shooting stills or movies most digital cameras apply some measure of compression. Most cameras also permit you to adjust this. Obviously for the best image quality you'll want to choose the least amount of compression. Some cameras even support a Raw format (usually for still images).

Your question about a converter, however, is really independent of compression.

I mentioned QuickTime Pro simply because I believe it to be the best converter out there and at $30, the cost is certainly reasonable.

Once you decide on a quality level for your .MOV (aka QuickTime) on your camera you can use QuickTime Pro to convert it to any of the following formats...

And then when you export the new file you'll once again have the option of selecting a compression type (or codec) and level of compression - from drastic to nil. Different codecs handle compression differently.

I hope this helps. I don't think the answer is to buy a new camera. I also realize there's a lot of anti-Apple sentiments for whatever reason. It wasn't my intention to start a conflict, but to simply answer your question.

Regards,
-Jim

PS: The latest MPEG-4 standard is based on Apple's QuickTime MOV format. So you may find that other formats might not look quite as good as MOV.

 

[I Grok NSX]

Wow....sorry. Didn't mean for everyone to get into a big debate, but I did learn alot. Anyway, thanks for the input. Will Quicktime Pro work with and IBM machine? i looked at the Apple website and looks like it's only compatible with Apple computers.

Thanks!

 

[Jimbo]

http://www.apple.com/quicktime/download/

http://www.apple.com/quicktime/download/system_req.html

No, QuickTime and QuickTime Pro work with Macs and PCs.

Some PCs, such as the Sony Vaio, come with QuickTime pre-installed from the factory.

Regards,
-Jim

 

[matteni]

Wow....sorry. Didn't mean for everyone to get into a big debate, but I did learn alot. Anyway, thanks for the input. Will Quicktime Pro work with and IBM machine? i looked at the Apple website and looks like it's only compatible with Apple computers.

Thanks!

I think if you would give us a little more information on your brand/type of camera and if it came bundled with any software we can help.

More importantly - what are you tryint to do with your movies? You said you want to convert them - but why?