Batch COnvert Video Files

August 17, 2011 12:50 PM

I need a program that will BATCH convert .wmv files to mpg or mp4 with the exact same quality as the original .wmv . Free or Paid.

If the original .wmv is WhateverPixelsWide x WhateverPixelsHigh at a certain bit rate and fps the resulting mpg or mp4 should be the same pixel dimensions/bit rate/fps

Batch processing is a must. Watermarking is a no-no.

Any ideas, gang?

Thanks in advance!

posted by sandra_s to Computers & Internet (12 answers total)

FormatFactory.
posted by royalsong at 12:52 PM on August 17, 2011 [1 favorite]

I've had great luck with MPEG Streamclip. It does everything you want and more, it's free, and it's widely used by professional filmmakers.
posted by drjimmy11 at 12:59 PM on August 17, 2011 [1 favorite]

Platform? User experience level?

'cause if you have access to it and can grok command lines, ffmpeg can trivially be made to batch convert things. Finding the right command-line switches might not be trivial if you're not into video. (Disclaimer: never used it for WMV to MPEG specifically, but have used it for all manner of other conversions.)
posted by introp at 12:59 PM on August 17, 2011 [1 favorite]

leaving aside the matter of bitrate not equalling quality, you should be able to do this with one of the batch converter script creators for VirtualDub (note: I've used VirtualDub, and was really happy with it, but never its batch processing functions).
posted by xbonesgt at 1:07 PM on August 17, 2011

Zencoder works wonders. It's encoding as a service and it can take just about whatever craziness you throw at it.
posted by ftrain at 1:07 PM on August 17, 2011

In Linux or OSX, you would use this command:

ffmpeg -i /home/mark/Desktop/filename.wmv -f mp4 -acodec mp2 /home/mark/Desktop/filename.mp4

If you like this solution, I'd be happy to whip up a quick batchfile for you.
posted by Invoke at 1:12 PM on August 17, 2011 [2 favorites]

You might try SUPER. It's a GUI front end for FFMPEG and some other stuff.
posted by gregr at 2:39 PM on August 17, 2011

To add another to the mix automating is cake with handbreakcli, got some awesome Mac/Linux bash scripts I cooked up in a few minutes to suit my needs.
posted by Brian Puccio at 2:43 PM on August 17, 2011

Use FFMPEG. Everything else is just a wrapper, and if you're working in batch you can create your own wrapper and just repeat the commands for every file. On Windows I like to use BatchEnc with pretty much any command-line program to avoid having to remember for syntax and the like; it'll create batch files that you can run directly or save and run later.
posted by Inspector.Gadget at 5:57 PM on August 17, 2011

Winff is another wrapper for ffmpeg (I use it to strip audio from fraps .avi's). It has fields where you can enter command-line options, if you want something a little friendlier than doing batch files.
posted by marble at 6:12 PM on August 17, 2011

I've used SUPER and these days i'm using MediaCoder - both have worked great at batch conversion/transcoding.
posted by alchemist at 12:46 AM on August 18, 2011

MEncoder is a companion project to FFMPEG that has a command-line interface - I don't know the advantages of using raw FFMPEG over MEncoder or vis versa, but it is pretty easy to use.
posted by Canageek at 7:29 AM on August 18, 2011