Simple AVI to MPEG4 conversion, help please

[AdverseSolutions]

Guys what is a GOOD, free and watermark-free AVI to MPEG4 program??? I spent like an hour on the net tonight looking for something I could use for free...

UGH.

[NoAffinity]

VLC (http://www.videolan.org/)

Nothing beats it for free and efficient transcoding.

[tolkien]

Virtualdub?

[AdverseSolutions]

tried vlc but i'm not sure where the avi to mpeg4 option is located? any help?

also tried virtualdub but although this is a good program it doesn't seem to be able to write to mpeg4.

trying to youtube some junk. why is this so hard? lol

[NoAffinity]

VLC:

File->Open File
In the "Open..." box, click the 'Browse...' button
Browse to the file you want to convert and click 'Open'
Click on the 'Stream/Save' check box, and click on 'Settings...'
In Outputs, click on the 'File' checkbox, then 'Browse...'
Browse to the location where you would like to save the converted file, create a filename, and click 'Save' (advice: if you have more than one hard drive in your system, save to the drive that the source file is not located on)
In Encapsulation Method, choose 'MP4'
In Transcoding Options, check 'Video Codec' and 'Audio Codec', and change them to 'mp4v' and 'mp4a' respectively*
Click 'OK' to accept the settings in 'Stream Output', and 'OK' to accept settings in 'Open...' to start the process.

*The output bitrate will depend on your source, but generally you can get a way with 1/4 of the original bitrate for video, and 128 or 64 kb/s for audio. You can watch the source file with VLC, and click on View->Stream and Media Info, to see info about the source, such as video bitrate and audio bitrate. If this information is not displayed, you can view the source in VirtualDub or Real Alternative (you will have to figure out how to view media info in either of these programs on your own ;)). You may have to experiment some here, as too low of a video bitrate will produce 'macro blocking', or very blocky video...but at the same time, you want the lowest bitrate that you can get away with without sacrificing quality. While there are pull-down menus for the video and audio bitrates, you can also manually enter numbers in the pull-down box.

If transcoding starts successfully, you will see the VLC progress bar move in the same manner as you would when watching a video or listening to audio (or both). Beware that MP4 encoding/transcoding is a resource-hungry process, so the more compression you are using (lower bitrate for output), the more time it is going to take. If the progress bar never starts, or VLC errors out, I would suggest trying MP3 for the audio. If it still craps out, you may want to try MPEG PS as the encapsulation method.

[Demon Dash]

I tried your method and it was unsuccessful. Any sugestions?

[NoAffinity]

I just did it, and it works fine. Make sure you have latest VLC (0.8.6). Use MP4 for encapsulation method, and MP4v and MP4a for video and audio codecs, respectively. This, of course, does not guarantee compliance with any given format (such as iPod), but does give confidence that it works. If it needs to adhere to a particular format, then you need to know what that format consists of and ensure you are transcoding to the necessary container, codecs and bitrates.

[Demon Dash]

Well I done it and it scrolled through as if it was playing, like you said. But when I came back to it the save file wasn't changed and was only like 1.5MB.

[NoAffinity]

What do you mean by "the save file wasn't changed"? How big was the original file? Possibly you are trying to compress it too much.

Another thought: I think I had a similar issue previously, which was resolved by uninstalling and re-installing. Make sure you have DirectX 9.0C, as well. You are running Windows XP?