Conversion TO .mov ???

[siriusfire]

Please excuse me if this has already been asked - but a fair search of the site has left me without an answer...

Is there any way of converting a movie from MPEG (1 or 2) to .mov? Ideally a shareware or freeware option as I don't have a huge budget!!
I'm running on Windows (XP) I have QT Player (v6) but can't find a way of doing it on that!! I know this appears to be 180 degrees out from what everyone else is doing but I need it to put video on Macromedia Director (MX) and only have 26 days of free trial left!!!!

Thanks in advance!!

[/b]

[MOVIEGEEK]

You could D/L VideoStudio7(30 day free trial)
www.ulead.com/vs/

[yongkuk]

a prog called streambox action, you need quicktime installed

[siriusfire]

Thanks very much - I'll try them both....
Why do I have to finish all my projects within 30 days.... (Cheapskate!!!!????)

Cheers

[kitty]

I believe Pinnacle Studio does mov also - many of the low to middle editor programs will save to quicktime. If it is a project then why not buy a low end product - Studio is <$100. Videostudio is also excellent and a new version is out. Even Arcsoft Showbiz can save to quicktime if you have it or can find it.

[siriusfire]

Thanks again...

By the way, for 'newbie' read 'completely clueless and incompetent' but who are the distributors of these products and are they available to buy/download on-line???

[kitty]

www.ulead.com (Videostudio demo available)
http://www.pinnaclesys.com/ProductPage.asp?Product_ID=577&Langue_ID=7 (I don't see a demo)
http://www.arcsoft.com/products/software/en/showbiz.html (no demo?)

To find websites in general: www.google.com

[David K]

I have a copy and Pinnacle Studio 7 will not save to mov. Vegas 4 will save to Quicktime 5. This is an expensive program but you can get a demo (look up Sonic Foundry homepage on Google).

The most obvious solution is to upgrade your Quicktime viewer to Quicktime Pro which will then unlock its ability to import and export file formats. This cost about $50. The basic Pro upgrade covers mpeg 1 but not mpeg 2. It costs another $50 to get a special mpeg 2 plugin. Go to the Apple home page and look for the Quicktime link for more information. If you know that you are going to be working with Mov format in the future it might be worth the investment.

All that being said, converting from mpeg 1 or 2 to mov is awkward even when you have Pro. It cannot directly convert the audio. So you first have to convert the mpg to AVI and then convert that AVI to mov.

[siriusfire]

OK - I'm getting somewhere - but not very far!!!

I've coughed up for Q-Time Pro, and it took about 20 minutes to convert a MPEG 1 to MOV. Firstly (as predicted earlier in this thread) there was no sound - secondly the picture quality was very poor, compared to MPEG 1.. Is this normal???

I downloaded streambox action and the trial version nicely puts Streambox's website address and "Upgrade now" etc messages all over my professional video presentation!! (You spend all this money on a free download and what do you get huh????)

OK so I have to cough up for the full version but - is a MOV file really supposed to be quite poor quality compared to an MPEG1???

Thanks again everyone whos offers pearls!!!

[MOVIEGEEK]

I experimented with MOV using ArcSoft Showbiz and Ulead VideoStudio6 and didn't like the results.I found the best picture bitrate for bitrate was:
1)WMV(<1000kbps it's the best)
2)MPEG(>1000kbps)
3)MOV("Video" setting looked good but file was enormous)

[David K]

Sirusfire,

You should re-post your issue in Mac section of the forum because those people will know Quicktime settings.

You can get good results with Quicktime but it is a complicated creature with lots of settings. Think of Mov as a kind of box which can hold different kinds of codecs and each codec can take different settings (the same as AVI). Go to export, then options, then compression settings, there right above the quality bar you can click and you can choose from about 15 different types of codecs, and you can configure each of them. Sorenson is one often used. then somewhere in all this you can set the bitrate - and as with all codecs the higher the bitrate the easier to get good results.

Anyway, start fooling around with Quicktime settings, go to the Appleweb site and take advantage of their support library, and repost in the Mac section. You can get excellent results with Quicktime but it is a whole different language, and like any new language you have to spent a little time upfront learning the basics.