How do I convert and edit Sanyo digital camera video?

March 16, 2008 3:56 PM

I just bought a Sanyo Xcati Digital Video Camera. It produces .MP4 files, which don't seem to be convertable for use in ULEAD 7 or Windows Movie Maker video editing software.

The camera came with Sanyo CDs full of ULEAD file managing, DVD creating software and Quicktime. My assumption was, since Quicktime was on the Sanyo CD, that is the format the video plays in and can be edited in. And I thought since ULEAD programs were on the CDs, they would naturally work with the ULEAD 7 video editing software I already had. But I can't edit the video and I can't seem to convert the video from Quicktime or .MP4 to .AVI files or anything else. Windows offers a video encoder/converter and that doesn't convert the video either. I can play the video with the Quicktime player, but whenever I try to import video to either video editing software, or convert video to another format, I get an error message that says "Unable to Open File. File Format Mismatch." When I select the folder with the video, none of the video files in that folder appear even when I select Quicktime or MPEG files from the dropdown menu. Those video files only appear when I pick "All Files," and that is when I get the error when I choose one. Is there a simple way I can take the excellent video off this camera and easily edit it with some video editing software; either what I already have or something else?

posted by CollectiveMind to media & arts (4 comments total)

Try mediacoder
posted by A189Nut at 4:13 PM on March 16, 2008 [1 favorite has favorites]

VLC also has some (less than intuitive) transcoding options.

You can look at Handbrake for some transcoding capability but it's designed for DVD ripping / encoding, might not work for MP4.

Finally, a great resource for all things video is Doom 9. Good luck!
posted by ZakDaddy at 4:21 PM on March 16, 2008 [1 favorite has favorites]

Try MPEG Streamclip. It's free, and one of the best "swiss army knife" transcoder/converter/demuxer/ripper tools you'll ever use.
posted by melorama at 5:00 PM on March 16, 2008 [1 favorite has favorites]

For quick and dirty edits, when all you want to do is something like chop out the video from second 11 to second 53 as a separate file, try YAMB. It can do limited manipulation of MP4 files in their native format; you can't do very much with them, but it's lightning fast and loses zero quality.
posted by dansdata at 10:40 PM on March 16, 2008 [1 favorite has favorites]