How can I batch process AVI files and overwrite the originals? Please help!

[DrivesALot]

Hello,

Thank you for reading.
I have over 100 old home-videos where I need to:
a. decimate the framerate (possibly reduce resolution by half if needed)
b. massively increase compression (XVID, maybe FLV)
c. direct-stream-copy the original (WAV) soundtrack, if possible OR compress to mono MP3
d. automatically overwrite the original AVI file!

The real challenge is, that most video files are in their own directory, and I don't want to move the files out of their directories, as the directories have been descriptively named, and not the video files!

The second challenge is, that I wish to list all the files in a search, then select them all and drag-drop them into the batch-capable app, unless the app itself can recursively search for the desired AVI files.

I'm hoping for 350Mb per hour with an emphasis on sharpness, not smooth playback - I know that's approaching thumbnail-size resolution. I'd like to keep resolution in the 3xx X 3xx range.

In case you're wondering why I want to overwrite family videos: I have edited the videos and losslessly saved only the parts I want to keep. Everything else just takes up way too much space, and will be whittled down to a small size because I don't want to delete it entirely.

I'm guessing AviSynth can be used for this, but it's been years since I've used it and now I really need help.

[DrivesALot]

-snip-

[DrivesALot]

I forgot to mention I have a Windows PC and am willing to try any software.

The type of software I'm after is like the Irfanview (for images) batch mode as it allows one to select multiple files from multiple directories and save/overwrite the originals.

[freebird73717]

You could probably do everything you want with ffmpeg. Except the overwriting the original file part. Well I don't know even that might be possible. Not very smart mind you but perhaps possible. There could be problems during the conversion/compression process. If you overwrite your original file and you a problem arises causing your file to be messed up you are screwed as your original would be overwritten.

It could be automated using a batch file calling ffmpeg from the command line. Search the forum for examples on using ffmpeg via command line. Or you could go the gui route and use winff. For better compression look at x264.

[Ai Haibara]

Yes. And, since your step b mentions:

b. massively increase compression (XVID, maybe FLV)

...along with possibly reducing the resolution by half, you may end up with one or more videos that are little more than a blocky mess. Better to check each converted video before deleting the originals, especially since, as you mention, these are home movies - which you probably don't want to lose.

[DrivesALot]

Thank you, Superman. I am your biggest fan! I had forgotten about FFmpeg and would have stuck with AviSynth, which would have probably taken longer to configure. The GUI I went with is called SmartFFmpeg, and it's the only one (as far as I could tell) to automatically write back into the originating directory, and also accept input via drag-and-drop from the files search window. I used a SmartFFmpeg binary optimized for speed and not quality and converted the files into MP4. I was then able to search for all the new MP4 files, check them to see if the quality was good enough and then delete the originals from the other search window. Thank you for the concern both of you. Perhaps I was overly keen to overwrite them at first, true. I would have checked the quality of one or two files before overwriting the lot, but it was safer to convert them into a different format inside the same directory. The most important thing to me was getting this done as quickly and easily as possible, as dealing with 100s of files individually would have taken me weeks. Thanks for all the help. I hope this helps someone else (using Google, etc.) in the future.