How to convert .mov to .avi?
September 12, 2010 9:30 PM Subscribe
Please recommend a Mac program that I can use to convert .mov files to .avi. I've found a lot of possibilities online but they all look kind of sketchy and I can't find any reviews that seem trustworthy.
I'm trying to make a powerpoint presentation on my Mac (Office 2008) that will also play on a PC (Office 2007).
I have 3 video files from iMovie that I need to put into the powerpoint. I tried exporting them to .avi through iMovie, but the quality is terrible.
I tried increasing the quality, but then ppt refused to recognize the filetype.
Is there something else I can do?
I'm trying to make a powerpoint presentation on my Mac (Office 2008) that will also play on a PC (Office 2007).
I have 3 video files from iMovie that I need to put into the powerpoint. I tried exporting them to .avi through iMovie, but the quality is terrible.
I tried increasing the quality, but then ppt refused to recognize the filetype.
Is there something else I can do?
I've used Evom to convert things from/to ipod-friendly formats; it's always worked a treat for me.
posted by rtha at 9:48 PM on September 12, 2010
posted by rtha at 9:48 PM on September 12, 2010
2nding ffmpegx although setup is mildly annoying.
posted by singingfish at 9:50 PM on September 12, 2010
posted by singingfish at 9:50 PM on September 12, 2010
I'd suggest first looking up what AVI is and isn't (hint: it's a container format, not a video format), then looking at the various AskMe posts tagged with 'powerpoint' like this, this, this, and others.
(Sorry, I realise that sounds snarky - but the question is deeper and more involved than you think.)
posted by Pinback at 9:58 PM on September 12, 2010
(Sorry, I realise that sounds snarky - but the question is deeper and more involved than you think.)
posted by Pinback at 9:58 PM on September 12, 2010
Seconding Handbrake (but it's very slow). Like singingfish, always found ffmpeg awkward but it's not bad. Also look at VisualHub. And while Pinback is technically correct, it does not really matter for the average user.
posted by TheRaven at 10:47 PM on September 12, 2010
posted by TheRaven at 10:47 PM on September 12, 2010
Response by poster: Okay, so, I don't entirely understand what they were saying in that first question you linked to, but I think maybe I need to convert it to MPEG-1 format?
Will ffmpegx do that?
posted by exceptinsects at 10:48 PM on September 12, 2010
Will ffmpegx do that?
posted by exceptinsects at 10:48 PM on September 12, 2010
Response by poster: Also: I tried converting the .mov to .avi using ffmpegx and it worked--I can play the files using Miro--but it doesn't work in the ppt itself. Do you think this is because I'm on a Mac?
posted by exceptinsects at 10:50 PM on September 12, 2010
posted by exceptinsects at 10:50 PM on September 12, 2010
Ugh, media in PowerPoints...MS makes it so much more tricky than it needs to be!
I could be totally wrong, but I'm pretty sure the movie files need to be .mp4 to be both Windows & Mac compatible (if it was just on a Mac, then you'd want to use .mov, and it it were just Windows, then .wmv's play nice with PPT). I use Handbrake for my encoding, and it's not bad if the clips are short.
And in the off-chance you don't don't already know, a word to the wise when transporting the presentation: create a folder for the PPT and copy the movie files (and any other media if applicable, like .mp3s if you also have audio) into it. Pass along the entire folder to whomever else needs the presentation. Otherwise, if you just send the PPT file, the chances are very, very good that the movies won't play on the new machine--PPT doesn't embed the movie file, it simply links to it. ...At least this has been my experience; YMMV! Good luck!
posted by smirkette at 11:44 PM on September 12, 2010
I could be totally wrong, but I'm pretty sure the movie files need to be .mp4 to be both Windows & Mac compatible (if it was just on a Mac, then you'd want to use .mov, and it it were just Windows, then .wmv's play nice with PPT). I use Handbrake for my encoding, and it's not bad if the clips are short.
And in the off-chance you don't don't already know, a word to the wise when transporting the presentation: create a folder for the PPT and copy the movie files (and any other media if applicable, like .mp3s if you also have audio) into it. Pass along the entire folder to whomever else needs the presentation. Otherwise, if you just send the PPT file, the chances are very, very good that the movies won't play on the new machine--PPT doesn't embed the movie file, it simply links to it. ...At least this has been my experience; YMMV! Good luck!
posted by smirkette at 11:44 PM on September 12, 2010
Check out Perian. It is a (free, open source) package of codecs that will allow you to play pretty much any movie type natively on your Mac.
posted by sophist at 11:46 PM on September 12, 2010
posted by sophist at 11:46 PM on September 12, 2010
I've used Squared 5 to convert movies before. i can't recall if they were .mov, but I think so.
posted by bwonder2 at 12:35 AM on September 13, 2010 [1 favorite]
posted by bwonder2 at 12:35 AM on September 13, 2010 [1 favorite]
IIRC, though, Perian doesn't play well with Powerpoint for Mac - it allows QT to play files, but something about the way MS embeds QT movies in PP restricts the allowable codecs. It might be better in Office for Mac 2008 though.
My point above, though, is that you need to pick a container that's compatible between PC & Mac versions as well as a codec that's available & usable on both. exceptinsects specifies Office 2007, which indicates the target OS is XP, Vista, or 7. MPEG-4 in an MP4 container is fine for Vista and 7 - but not XP, unless you know the relevant additional codecs & container handlers are installed. MPEG-2 in MPG might be OK on XP, as long as WMP10 is installed. But MPEG-1 in MPG is the only thing you can be sure will be available on both OS X and XP/Vista/7.
Sorry, I'm not trying to be pedantic - as the previous posts I linked to have shown, it really is that complicated and messed up!
(Also, I live in the - possibly vain! - hope that the more people understand the difference between containers and codecs [specifically, that an .avi file could contain any bloody thing from Intel Indeo up to H.264], the less this issue will come up…)
posted by Pinback at 12:54 AM on September 13, 2010
My point above, though, is that you need to pick a container that's compatible between PC & Mac versions as well as a codec that's available & usable on both. exceptinsects specifies Office 2007, which indicates the target OS is XP, Vista, or 7. MPEG-4 in an MP4 container is fine for Vista and 7 - but not XP, unless you know the relevant additional codecs & container handlers are installed. MPEG-2 in MPG might be OK on XP, as long as WMP10 is installed. But MPEG-1 in MPG is the only thing you can be sure will be available on both OS X and XP/Vista/7.
Sorry, I'm not trying to be pedantic - as the previous posts I linked to have shown, it really is that complicated and messed up!
(Also, I live in the - possibly vain! - hope that the more people understand the difference between containers and codecs [specifically, that an .avi file could contain any bloody thing from Intel Indeo up to H.264], the less this issue will come up…)
posted by Pinback at 12:54 AM on September 13, 2010
Like bwonder2, I recommend MPEG Streamclip.
posted by planetkyoto at 2:59 AM on September 13, 2010 [1 favorite]
posted by planetkyoto at 2:59 AM on September 13, 2010 [1 favorite]
WMVs play fine in Quicktime if you have Flip4Mac.
posted by fourcheesemac at 4:07 AM on September 13, 2010
posted by fourcheesemac at 4:07 AM on September 13, 2010
Try qtamateur.http://www.mikeash.com/software/qtamateur/
posted by dhruva at 7:13 AM on September 13, 2010
posted by dhruva at 7:13 AM on September 13, 2010
Response by poster: Hi Pinback, pedantic is good!
What I'm trying to do is make a ppt on my home Mac that will play on my work PC. As you guessed, the work PC has XP.
So I think what you're saying is I need to make the .mov file be a .avi with MPEG-1 inside? How would I do that?
posted by exceptinsects at 7:20 AM on September 13, 2010
What I'm trying to do is make a ppt on my home Mac that will play on my work PC. As you guessed, the work PC has XP.
So I think what you're saying is I need to make the .mov file be a .avi with MPEG-1 inside? How would I do that?
posted by exceptinsects at 7:20 AM on September 13, 2010
Does Apple let you export to mpeg? Powerpoint natively supports mpeg video. No need to mess with avi at all.
Also, its worth noting that your avi might be of low quality because transcoding video will always hurt quality. If the mov file is of marginal quality already then any conversion will be unacceptable. You may need to find a better source of your mov file to convert.
Lastly, why not just upload the file to vimeo or youtube and make a link there instead of embedding video? If where you're presenting has internet access, you'll be fine. No need to mess with formats, containers, etc. I find that PPT video looks like crap anyway and its just as professional as linking to vimeo. If you want to get fancy, you can embed flv files into powerpoint with VLC.
posted by damn dirty ape at 8:55 AM on September 13, 2010
Also, its worth noting that your avi might be of low quality because transcoding video will always hurt quality. If the mov file is of marginal quality already then any conversion will be unacceptable. You may need to find a better source of your mov file to convert.
Lastly, why not just upload the file to vimeo or youtube and make a link there instead of embedding video? If where you're presenting has internet access, you'll be fine. No need to mess with formats, containers, etc. I find that PPT video looks like crap anyway and its just as professional as linking to vimeo. If you want to get fancy, you can embed flv files into powerpoint with VLC.
posted by damn dirty ape at 8:55 AM on September 13, 2010
Oh, powerpoint supports mov files, but you'll need quicktime installed on the windows computer to get it to work. The windows machine just needs the proper codec and the quicktime installer should take care of this. Do you have any control over the computer presenting this document? Ask them to install QT and be done with it.
posted by damn dirty ape at 8:57 AM on September 13, 2010
posted by damn dirty ape at 8:57 AM on September 13, 2010
One last thing, powerpoint does not embed the video into the ppt file. Its just a link to the file. So if the video is on c:\movies then on the presentation computer it will need to be in c:\movies. Not sure how this translates with a mac's filesystem. You can probably have the video and the ppt in the same folder, zip the folder, and send it to the recipient.
posted by damn dirty ape at 9:05 AM on September 13, 2010
posted by damn dirty ape at 9:05 AM on September 13, 2010
Things to understand about quicktimes and avis:
they are what's called Container files. They are just wrappers that take a video stream (that's the part of your video file that has all the actual video and audio information in it) and tells a program like quicktime or Windows Media Player (or powerpoint, for that matter) how to play it. Now, AVIs and Quicktimes can have different types of video streams within them. The name for a type of video stream is a Codec. There are many many different types of codecs, and you can make AVIs and Quicktimes that support most of them. However, that doesn't mean the program you're going to be using these AVIs or Quicktime files with will support them. So even though you can make an AVI that uses (for example) a codec called DivX, that doesn't mean that PowerPoint supports that codec.
note: you can use quicktime files in Powerpoint. however, it does not support all of the codecs that quicktime supports, so Microsoft "suggests" that you convert to Avi. This is microsoft's way of making everyone use their formats even though you can encounter, as you have, the same problem with a .avi file.
so what you need is to convert your file to either a quicktime or an avi (just for simplicity's sake, make it an avi) but you need to pick the proper codec when you do.
as others have, I recommend using mpegstreamclip. The important thing is to make sure you adjust the settings in whatever program you choose so that the video is compressed using a codec powerpoint supports. here is a list of codecs Microsoft recommends for Powerpoint. (scroll down till you see the header "Standard compression formats.") Oftentimes this setting is called "Compressor." So you need to change the "compressor" to one of the formats listed in the above link. Pick whichever one looks nicest to you, I guess. Then it should work.
posted by shmegegge at 1:22 PM on September 13, 2010
they are what's called Container files. They are just wrappers that take a video stream (that's the part of your video file that has all the actual video and audio information in it) and tells a program like quicktime or Windows Media Player (or powerpoint, for that matter) how to play it. Now, AVIs and Quicktimes can have different types of video streams within them. The name for a type of video stream is a Codec. There are many many different types of codecs, and you can make AVIs and Quicktimes that support most of them. However, that doesn't mean the program you're going to be using these AVIs or Quicktime files with will support them. So even though you can make an AVI that uses (for example) a codec called DivX, that doesn't mean that PowerPoint supports that codec.
note: you can use quicktime files in Powerpoint. however, it does not support all of the codecs that quicktime supports, so Microsoft "suggests" that you convert to Avi. This is microsoft's way of making everyone use their formats even though you can encounter, as you have, the same problem with a .avi file.
so what you need is to convert your file to either a quicktime or an avi (just for simplicity's sake, make it an avi) but you need to pick the proper codec when you do.
as others have, I recommend using mpegstreamclip. The important thing is to make sure you adjust the settings in whatever program you choose so that the video is compressed using a codec powerpoint supports. here is a list of codecs Microsoft recommends for Powerpoint. (scroll down till you see the header "Standard compression formats.") Oftentimes this setting is called "Compressor." So you need to change the "compressor" to one of the formats listed in the above link. Pick whichever one looks nicest to you, I guess. Then it should work.
posted by shmegegge at 1:22 PM on September 13, 2010
« Older Is AVCHD an editing dead end ? | How to build a wire frame for rice paper lampshade... Newer »
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by tmcw at 9:43 PM on September 12, 2010 [1 favorite]