Converting from MP4 (1280x720 x264 AAC) to AVI or WMV

[darkdestiny]

I have been trying to convert a large load of videos from the format as stated in the title to WMV or AVI WITHOUT losing any quality in the video itself. I have been trying SUPER Video Converter to do so, but for some reason I keep finding my video playback crapped up (the playback is no longer smooth).

Actually I wanted the videos in preparation of video production. I tried uploading the original videos to Windows Movie Maker or Sony Vegas 9 but the lagging in the video playback causes constant crashing of the programs. What I intended to do other than the conversion is to downsize the video a bit (it's too large).

Suggestions are much appreciated.

[Midzuki]

[s:32f9a01b0e]Drop SUPER, drop Windows Movie Maker --- both are cr@p.
Try Avidemux if you'll feel happy with XviD or H264 in an AVI file.
Or take the time to learn some Avisynth, then re-encode with
WMNicEnc or WMVmuxer.

None of these approaches will be "very-easy" though. [/s:32f9a01b0e]

[Baldrick]

You WILL lose quality when you reconvert but if your editing applications doesn't support mp4 h264 that well it might be the only solution.

What video codec(s) did you try in super? for editing it would probably best to use mjpeg, lagarith, huffyuv...but it will be HUGE video files.
What is the source frame rate? be sure to use same as the source like 24fps.

[darkdestiny]

@Baldrick: I use DivX as the Output Video Codec for Super. I haven't really tried the rest of the codecs while attempting to convert. But would be glad to try other

As for the source frame rate, the following was what I got for the source analysis:

Frame Rate Mode: Variable
Frame Rate: 25.932 fps
Min. Frame Rate: 19.980 fps
Max. Frame Rate: 59.940 fps
Original Frame Rate: 29.970 fps

Which would you guys suggest I should follow?

[s:4f495ddede]P.S. Something I just realized while converting a while ago: the first video that I had tried converting played too slowly. But the second video I converted went too fast with the same configuration. Have tweaked the frame rate & bit rate, but no change to the second video as it continues to have the same playback problem.[/s:4f495ddede]

EDIT: Appears the problem is fixed when I changed MEncoder to FFmpeg in the section above VIDEO.

EDIT2: Also looking for some suggestions to what Bit Rate settings I should put. Below is the information of the video bit rate.

Bit rate mode : Variable
Bit rate : 1 505 Kbps
Maximum bit rate : 11.3 Mbps

[darkdestiny]

Just to show the settings that I have originally set for the video conversion.

encode.bmp

[darkdestiny]

Bump.

I really look forward to any replies with regards to the Frame Rate & Bit Rate settings. They are both Variable as you can see in the above post.

[Baldrick]

I guess you tried 29.97fps?

I would also try use xvid4psp to convert to avi xvid or some other codec.

[darkdestiny]

EDIT: OK never mind. I think I get it for setting the frame rate. I just don't quite understand about the bit rate settings & whether or not it'll affect the quality or any other things in the video. Hope someone can answer me.