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AVi to MP4

SnowLeopard2008

SnowLeopard2008

macrumors 604
Original poster
Jul 4, 2008
6,772
19
Silicon Valley
I have an AVI file in DivX format. I need a MP4 file. Does HandBrake work for file conversions or just ripping from DVDs? Also, what other apps can I use to convert AVIs to MP4s, other than Quicktime. I'm currently trying VLC to re-encode it. Thanks!

EDIT: Just thought, since I sometimes use my camera to record videos for YouTube, and the output is AVI. I use iMovie 08 to export to MP4. Will that work with DivX or no?
 
To my knowledge, going from .avi to .mp4 makes the file unnecessarily huge.

I assume you have something that won't play in iTunes that you want to play there. I know from trying that it more than doubles the filesize... or am I doing something wrong?
 
Wait, isn't .avi raw video format? .mp4 should make it smaller, thats always been the case when I convert .avi from my camera into .m4v with iMovie. But yes, I want that file to be in iTunes, which doesn't play .avi to the best of my knowledge.
 
Keep things simple and just use QTAmateur. You can re-encode to mp4 and even do batch encodes. A similar question is just a few threads down... people must like to encode stuff at night :p
 
^
All the above programs work well. I use VisualHub, but iSquint is the free version if you just want quick iPod conversion. The file size should be close to the same if you set the quality the same.

DivX, Xvid, and many others are just an implementation of MPEG-4 part 2, which is ten years old. AVI is a Microsoft audio/video container that supports video and audio using many, many, numerous codecs, which is where problems can arise with certain players.

That said, Perian can add support for many codecs to Quicktime / iTunes. But if you want videos to play on an iPod, get one of the free converters.
 
dolphin842 said:
Keep things simple and just use QTAmateur. You can re-encode to mp4 and even do batch encodes. A similar question is just a few threads down... people must like to encode stuff at night :p
Click to expand...

Oops. Sorry I didn't see that. A little too tired tonight. Lol, I think we have a lot of nocturnal people. :rolleyes::D

EDIT: VLC = FAIL. I'm going to try iMovie.
 
Heh, no worries... I'm about to head to bed myself :)

I would take a look at QTAmateur before messing about with iMovie though... it's just a matter of loading the file like you would in QuickTime Player, except you now have an Export feature and can just re-encode straight away.
 
Thanks guys/girls! I downloaded QTAmateur and it worked like a charm. We'll see how good it encodes, but it was a small and extremely light program. And free to.
 
QTAmateur just utilizes the QTKit framework in OS X, so it uses the same encoder that iMovie/QuickTime Pro/etc do. It's usually a bit slower than, say, VisualHub, but I've not noticed a quality difference... it's all about the bitrate and the source file you're working with.
 
dolphin842 said:
QTAmateur just utilizes the QTKit framework in OS X, so it uses the same encoder that iMovie/QuickTime Pro/etc do. It's usually a bit slower than, say, VisualHub, but I've not noticed a quality difference... it's all about the bitrate and the source file you're working with.
Click to expand...

yea you are right saying it's slow. but then again 2 hours of video can take some time to encode.
 
SnowLeopard2008 said:
I have an AVI file in DivX format. I need a MP4 file. ...
Click to expand...
Why do you "need" a MP4 file? As many others have said, .avi is a container format much like .mov. It may contain audio and video tracks with any number formats. DivX is based on the rejected Microsoft draft of MPEG-4. A DivX .avi file contains an MP4 video track and a MP3 audio track. Official MP4 uses AAC audio rather than MP3.

There are several options to handle DivX .avi files on the Mac. The official DivX Codec is the best. Many love Perian because it also handles many other formats, as well. There is also the 3ivx codec.

To convert files, you may use QuickTime Pro with the proper codecs, DivX Doctor II, VisualHub, ffmpegX, or others.
 
If you want to be cheeky and don't necessarily need a fully compliant MPEG-4 file, you also have the option of changing the video fourcc to mp4v and then export from QTAmateur using the video passthrough while encoding the audio to AAC.

(This might not work or screw up the video in some cases, but since the encode is so much faster there's not much time lost there. This method also requires that you have installed a codec that takes over the video decoding from Quicktime's decoder, like 3ivx or Perian.)
 
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