Convert QuickTime to avi

January 7, 2006 8:07 AM

How to convert QuickTime movies into a Windows-readable format?

I have a Mac Powerpoint presentation that contains two video-only QuickTime movies. The presentation needs to run on a Windows PC. I have a Mac with both QuickTime Pro and ffmpegX. I know I need to convert the .mov to .avi using one of these programs, but no codec (MPEG1, MPEG2...) produces a file that is actually viewable in Windows Media Player. What lowest-common-denominator format I should convert the QT files to? Is any extra magic involved?

posted by beniamino to computers & internet (6 comments total)

Can you not use the Windows version of the QuickTime player and run them in a separate window from the Powerpoint deck, or do they really need to be incorporated into the PP?
posted by briank at 8:23 AM on January 7, 2006

In my own experience, I've found that MPEG1 is extremely reliable and has a small footprint. AVI is unpredictable due to the huge number of codecs out there, and tends to be quite bloated... I personally hate the format.

I'm kind of astonished that your utilities can't produce a decent MPEG1... I'd toss them out and try something like WinAVI. I think TMPGEnc, which produces the best MPEG1, -might- import from .mov, but I doubt it.
posted by rolypolyman at 8:28 AM on January 7, 2006

Also if you intend to put it up on a server, try the free Microsoft Windows Media Encoder... I am not sure whether it will accept .mov, but it should accept any .avi and produce a .wmv. The quality sucks but it will run in any Windows Media Player and have a tiny file size.
posted by rolypolyman at 8:30 AM on January 7, 2006

Seems to me the pro version of Quicktime supports export to AVI, at least under Windows.
posted by lhauser at 10:20 AM on January 7, 2006

According to this discussion thread at the Apple forums, Flip4Mac is what you need; download a demo version here.
posted by rob511 at 2:17 PM on January 7, 2006

lhauser is correct. At my job, we do what you're attempting all the time. QT Pro is very much worth the $30 if you do any amount of multimedia file conversion.

So:
From QuickTime player select export and select Movie to AVI as the output format. Set up frame rate and compression from here too.

Get the Power Point presentation and new AVI files on to the PC.

Import the AVIs to the slides containing the QuickTime movies.

Extra Credit (from PP help file):

Move a presentation from a Macintosh computer to a Windows-based computer

1. Open the file in PowerPoint for Macintosh, and then click Save As on the File menu.
2. In the Save dialog box, select the Append file extension check box.

Notes

• When you select the Append file extension check box, PowerPoint changes any file name character that can’t be read on a Windows-based computer to an underscore character (_). These characters are the backslash (\), slash mark (/), asterisk (*), angle brackets (<>), and OR bar (|).
posted by Scoo at 2:20 PM on January 7, 2006