I’m spending WAY too much time converting sponsor videos from wmv (or mov) to flv… My process is insane… If it’s a wmv I first have to open it with QuickTime Player (using Flip4Mac) and export to mpeg/h.264. But that isn’t something that can be properly read by ffmpeg, so I then have to open it in iMovie and essentially resave it. This time it ffmpeg can read it and is able to convert it to flv. But the flv that ffmpeg creates has the meta data in the wrong location and the slider bar on my player doesn’t work properly until the video is completely loaded, so I then have to use a command line tool (flvtool2) to move the meta data. And then, and only then, do I have something I can use.
Obviously, I want something I can use on a Mac that can open a wmv (assuming Flip4Mac is installed) and save a properly formatted flv. It should be a one step process. Is Final Cut Express adequate for the job, or do I need Final Cut Pro?
i hear your pains and i am on windows, but i edit a lot of wmvs and if they are HQ it’s fucking hell, even small ones suck, sound drops out etc, and i market thru tubes so i edit a lot of consumer made wmv not dv-avi which kicks ass.
And i also do a few hosted tubes for sponsors one gives me the dv-avi so its fine but others i have to work from hi-wmv and it is fucking hell is all i can say.
I have no answer for you just sharing your pain and i am not on a mac.
I am always on the lookout to make this shit easier so if i find something that will work pn pc and mac i will post
As you know I recently switched to MAC. I am actually considering using Parallels to use Windows just for the Pro Version (It has a batch feature that I like.)
Not sure how powerful the one is for the Mac. But, I will say that it has one feature that is missing in many of these programs outside the video editors; the ability to crop a movie file.
DON’T use Parallels unless you absolutely have to. OS X solutions are FAR better. While it’s impressive to run two OSs at the same time it’s inefficient and clumsy…
I agree with Milivanili… Parallels was killing my Mac. Thankfully I got over my desire to continue running Windows programs and moved on. I suspect Sorenson would be a good choice too.
BTW… am I the only one who thinks Milivanili looks hot in that little Avatar?
Parellells gives me no trouble whatsoever, but then I only use Windows for a single program that has no Apple version. Just run it when you need it and not all the time. But resources are going to be taxed so if you don’t have a lot of power, prepare to wait.
But back to the question I asked earlier, encoding seems to be the problem, not editing. As for Sorenson, I wouldn’t touch them. I was strongly encouraged to buy their software 3 years ago. It was bug ridden; no watermarking, green artifacting on WMV files, crashes for MOV files etc. Their response was “We hope to address those issues in future versions” Not patches to that version, but future versions.
The quality of files that are being recieved is going to have a huge impact on what can even be done. Is it really worth the purchase of a $500-$1000 encoding package to do that?
Look at the Telestream products. Get something that was made for your machine.
Well, I did some trials and I’m completely unimpressed… The process improved, but the videos that come out are either horribly pixelated or way bigger than they should be…
My test was using one of the latest Jake Cruise videos which comes in wmv format. They’re pretty typical of what I have to deal with. The bitrate on it is good (1949kbps), but the size is smaller than what I need - it’s 448x252 and I need a width of 640, so I would normally just resize it and lower the bitrate down to around 750 or 800 kbps - since there’s plenty of bitrate to work with in the original that’s not usually a problem for me…
The video produced with MacVide (one of Squirt’s recommendations) was badly pixelated. So I tried Sorenson. At the HQ setting the video quality was good, but the file size was 24 MB which is double what I’d produce normally for a 2 minute video. The original WMV was 15 MB. The Lg setting created one that was 14 MB but all the edges were badly pixelated…
The MacVide one doesn’t surprise me - it’s what you get for $39.95.
When it comes to Sorenson I don’t get it - I thought Sorenson was supposed to be good. I didn’t expect a product called “Squeeze” to create bloated files… Plus the interface of Sorenson sucks - all I could find were preset profiles. I couldn’t get in and tweak the dimensions or bitrate…
For Jake Cruise & Cock Sure Men I’ve used the .mov file they provide. When using Flash Video MX Pro, it seems to produce a better file after the conversion.
I know they’re not crystal clear, but in my opinion, good enough for a free preview blog:
[QUOTE=Seth;41966]For Jake Cruise & Cock Sure Men I’ve used the .mov file they provide. When using Flash Video MX Pro, it seems to produce a better file after the conversion.
I know they’re not crystal clear, but in my opinion, good enough for a free preview blog:[/QUOTE]
The mov files they provide are typically (not always) 1/3rd the size of the wmvs - so they’re much lower quality. Besides that I need a solution for files like those wmvs since that’s all other sponsors provide.
