Digital video file conversion is a crucial component of many a filmmaker's workflow these days. Since footage can be taken from so many different cameras, using specific formats, they often have to be altered into something that their editing package will accept. But they're not the only ones who need to transform files to make their content compatible with a different system than the one they were originally meant for. Take Flash video for instance: it's well known that this format won't work on an iOS device because it's deemed to be too much of a drain on battery life. Most websites now offer alternatives, so it's not a major problem. But what do you do if someone sends you a Flash video that you'd like to enjoy on your iPad, for instance? ![]() This is where video converters come in. Transforming a video file is a complex process, which often leads to a degradation of the image - the trick is to limit this loss of quality by as much as possible. Technology's moved on in leaps and bounds since the early days and this is epitomised by the proliferation of such conversion programs online. Do a quick search for them on the Mac App Store and you'll be faced with too many to make a reliable decision on, which is why we've decided to test six of the most high-profile apps (be they available on the Mac App Store or elsewhere) and see which one is the best when it comes to ease of use, available options, speed of encoding and output quality. Those six apps are Apple's own Compressor, the venerable Squared5's MPEG Streamclip, HandBrake, Systemic's Smart Converter, Elgato's Turbo.264 HD and Wondershare's Video Converter. Test one: Ease of use Having many options is not always a good thing The programs we've tested that are available through the Mac App Store have the easiest interfaces. Microsoft excel templates for mac. 5 Best Video to MP3 Converter to Extract Audio from Video Files. Converting videos to MP4 is quite easy since there are many Video Converter to MP4 on the market, like Gihosoft Free Video Converter or other video conversion programs we’ve introduced. However, you might need to extract audio tracks from video files for playback on your music players. Surely a testament to Apple's design leadership? Although, interestingly enough, Apple's own Compressor is actually the most complex one - but that's because it also offers the most options. Apple keyboard and mouse usb for mac mini. Make sure your new wireless keyboard is in discovery mode (by pressing the power button until the green flashing light appears) and you will see in the setup screen that they found 1 keyboard. The two packages available as web downloads - MPEG Streamclip and HandBrake - are also feature-rich and, as a consequence, end up looking a little complicated to the uninitiated. But they both try hard to simplify the available options by offering presets (for HandBrake) and extensive menus (for MPEG Streamclip). ![]() Try as they might, they can't beat the simplicity of just dragging a file and clicking on 'Start'. There's actually more than one app designed with simplicity as its motto: Turbo.264 HD and Smart Converter take the crown here for a clean interface and easy options to choose from to select the right file format for your needs. Test two: Available options How easy is it for the user to tweak their app? Not surprisingly, the simplest programs are the ones who offer the fewest options. Take Smart- Converter for instance: aside from the row of icons at the bottom, you have no customisation features available to you. Video Converter looks simple, but you can modify each preset. You can also crop your footage, trim it and apply simple effects to your clip - although this may be that program's least-used feature as you'd most likely be applying effects with your video-editing package. Turbo.264 HD's option may appear limited, but select the Edit command and you'll be graced with numerous options, even embedding subtitles to your converted file (as long as they were present in the original). HandBrake is incredibly flexible: you have access to either basic parameters to improve the quality or speed up the conversion, preserve chapter markers or subtitles, but if this isn't enough, there's also an Advanced tab. Test three: Encoding speed If you've got a lot of work on, speed is of the essence For our tests, we've used a 34-minute Flash video and transformed it into a file that can be played back on an iPad. We've chosen the standard settings when available, then used each converter in turn on the same hardware (a 2.8GHz Intel Core 2 Duo MacBook Pro with 4GB or RAM) to see which one came out on top. Some apps have a system so when a file is finished, it'll start another. Kitchen and bath design software for mac. Turbo.264 HD and Video Converter allow you to do this prior to the start of a conversion, but HandBrake and Compressor let you add, reorder and remove files as they're encoding. The fastest was Smart Converter at just over a minute, but that's because it was clever enough to recognise that the embedded content within the Flash file was already formatted as H.264, which is compatible with the iPad, so it simply updated the audio and it was good to go. None of the others figured this out. Test four: Output quality After the conversions, how good did the results look? Speed may be an important factor when judging a video converter, but if the resulting file looks awful, then you've just wasted your time and your Mac's processing power. In order to test this fairly, we've had SmartConverter process a different type of file since it cleverly avoided altering the video in the previous test.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |