Quick Media Converter lifehacker.com most popular free windows app 2008 ?

[CaseyComb]

Okay, why is it that the minute I load this program the webcam on my computer comes on and my internet connection starts pinging off of this IP address 87.98.172.9:80?

What the hell is going on here? Seems rather fishy.

[balou]

Nothing fishy there the connection is to check for updates on our server
We also explain it on our forum and website . You will be advised on your application when a new version is available.
We have nothing to hide.

And for the webcam activation it is activated by default to enable you to capture your flux and record it .

Does that answer your question ?
Have a nice day.

[CaseyComb]

I suppose... It just seems weird.

Other than that the program seems to work great.

[rwmol]

Thought I'd give this ap a ride. I downloaded from three different sites. I got the download but it won't install. All I get is a small progress bar titled _WDINST. Then...poof. nothing. Tried to log on to the english forum. That link is dead. What's up?

[balou]

Hello

If you tried last night we were doing maintenance on our mainserver so possibly you could not reach our forum .

Should be back up by now and you can view the install topic to see if your problem is talked about there. .

Make sure your download the latest version 3.5.7 and you have administrative rights on your computer to install.

You can download latest version 3.5.7 on videohelp.com cocoosoftware.com download.com and tucows.com and many more...

Have a nice day

[rwmol]

Thanks for your reply. I did get through to the forum and found the exact issue reported in March. There is two pages of posts and no resolution. I will join the forum and post to that thread and see what happens.

I guess the original starter of that thread gave up.

[balou]

Hello ,

You are welcome to do so and I will be glad to see with you what the problem might be .

Have a good day

[gll99]

Glad to see you got that divx/xvid and mp3 problem solved. Gspot showed mp2 with the last version and virtualdub wouldn't play the audio.

I'm now using the latest version v3.57:

1) When I convert a file using the presets for xvid or divx or even in expert mode and specify mp3 44100, 128, I get vbr audio. The audio gets out of synch on my divx player with vbr audio. I would prefer cbr mp3. Is the vbr default based on a "lame mp3" default setting at my end or is that the default set by your program?

2) I'm in North America (NTSC) the xvid/divx presets are using 720x576 on the converted output, although the original 29.971 framerate is kept. Shouldn't there be an option for 720x480 simply based on locality?

3) This program generates a lot of messages on startup. It does get irritating after a while to keep saying no to a program. For example, a normal startup involves 3 requests for access to the network. I know I can block those permanently in my firewall but that shouldn't be necessary. Next it wants access to my video capture device which is always in use by another app but your program complains by sending a long message entitled "Video Device Already in use" to which I have to press "ok". Then it allows the driver's "video source" menu panel to popup anyway forcing me to cancel that one too. Shouldn't it just ignore that part of the code when the driver is in use and not bother the user with those 2 unneccessary interactions. I'm sure most people would be able to figure that this program can view or capture video once the app is open and activate that feature manually if they want it.

So far that's 6 things just to get the application window to appear. When I drop a video on the conversion panel there's another request for the internet.

To play nice a program should have a "settings" menu where optional features start off turned off but can be activated by the user. Version updates and cam device options needed only for "special camstudio conversions" or using/not using certain features of a program should only be activated on request not automatically every time the app is loaded and especially not at startup.

This gui is very good and makes good use of core code previously posted in another programming forum. You've done a good job with it.

Thanks / Merci.

[balou]

Hello and thank you for your complete report and nice comments,

It does help us improve our product and we always welcome them when they are as constructive as yours.

You are getting very technical for me lol
I will ask Gilles my friend and developper of QMC to take a look at your post also and we will look with him to see what can be done to solve these small issues in a future update.

For the webcam: I mentionned it to him before and if I remember correctly. he told me there was not much to do because we use activex to view the webcam drivers (I may be wrong ) so it had to be launched on start up and detect them.

As for VBR CBR there is probably a possibility to add a CBR VBR option in expert mode in future updates personnally I do not believe it is very complcated to do. We would probably not place it in easy mode as it would make things too complicated for most users and therefore go against our main idea (simple for all) .

For the size issue in NTSC ; 720x480 it is probably a code mistake that we didn't see upon testing and we will see if it is suitable to correct it also as you requested .

Messages on startup :

Personnally I do not get all these messages locally on my pc .
Your firewall protection must be set to very high. But as explained before the application is regularly checking for new version availability in order to display the latest version or patch message on it when available on our server, this was done to avoid forcing updates as we did during beta testing so everybody could test but with the same version.

With regards to general settings options I personnaly think it is a very good idea and I will discuss with Gilles to see how it can be done efficiently to meet your request and I am sure quite a few people will apreciate this also .

Apolagies for the few remaining little bugs here and there but as you may imagine even though we did extensive testing before release , it is still very difficult to test all the possibilities and needs of our users , as our application is in fact, far more complicated than its simplicity may suggest . But you seem to be aware of what we have done

The video device should probably be activated directly in the settings options and if unselected should not ask you anymore next time you would start your appllication as you suggest thus preventing those repetitive messages.

I hope I did answer correctly most of your questions,
Have a nice day.

PS anymore suggestions are welcome.

[GideonK]

gll99 wrote:

a normal startup involves 3 requests for access to the network

Balou wrote:

Personnally I do not get all these messages locally on my pc

For what it's worth, using v3.5.7 I'm not getting a single network access message at startup. Must be a PC specific issue.

[gll99]

gll99 wrote:

a normal startup involves 3 requests for access to the network

Gideon wrote:

For what it's worth, using v3.5.7 I'm not getting a single network access message at startup. Must be a PC specific issue.

If you are not getting the messages for internet connection it's because either you don't have a firewall or you have given permission to the program and its support resources and your firewall now lets the connection through all the time. As a general practise I never let a program have access to the internet in the beginning unless it's absolutely necessary for the functioning of the tool. Even then it's only usually granted for single session access until I'm convinced the program and dll's are non intrusive.

I'm not blaming or accusing this developer of any other software author but since many programs use 3rd party support dll's, exe's and other resource containers, the programmer may not even be aware that there could be hidden portals, information gatherers etc.. which could compromise your security. That's why it's best to let the user adjust settings to decide if they want to grant internet access.

@Balou
Beta testing is important but sometimes it doesn't reach the right audience.

I would provide more feedback on broader areas of the program but my interests are in producing a standalone divx compatible output to play on my Philips so I concentrate my efforts on that aspect.

In my case all I'm looking for is the option to build a profile which will take a variety of source video (flv,avi,mpeg,vob etc...) and convert them to divx/xvid simple profile, convert the resolution (frame size) to a standard 4:3 640x480 at roughly 1500kb, mp3 audio 128kb cbr, 44100 kHz, 2 channels. As things are right now most of that is working fine except for the cbr audio. I can actually replicate those in my ffmpeg code but you're program is far more advanced than the simple code I'm playing with as a pastime

As far as the cbr mp3 goes, it looks like your program is using the audio options in ffmpeg and not directly from the lame dll so it may be a bit more complex to change.

Just looking at ffmpeg these are the audio options I see but none seem to address the cbr issue:
Audio options:
-aframes number set the number of audio frames to record
-ab bitrate set audio bitrate (in kbit/s)
-aq quality set audio quality (codec-specific)
-ar rate set audio sampling rate (in Hz)
-ac channels set number of audio channels
-an disable audio
-acodec codec force audio codec ('copy' to copy stream)
-vol volume change audio volume (256=normal)
-newaudio add a new audio stream to the current output stream
-alang code set the ISO 639 language code (3 letters) of the current audio stream

Advanced Audio options:
-atag fourcc/tag force audio tag/fourcc
-absf bitstream filter

Subtitle options:
-scodec codec force subtitle codec ('copy' to copy stream)
-newsubtitle add a new subtitle stream to the current output stream
-slang code set the ISO 639 language code (3 letters) of the current subtitle stream

On the other hand using the lame.dll these related options (partial list) are available:

CBR (constant bitrate, the default) options:
-b <bitrate> set the bitrate in kbps, default 128 kbps
--cbr enforce use of constant bitrate

ABR options:
--abr <bitrate> specify average bitrate desired (instead of quality)

VBR options:
-v use variable bitrate (VBR) (--vbr-old)
--vbr-old use old variable bitrate (VBR) routine
--vbr-new use new variable bitrate (VBR) routine
-V n quality setting for VBR. default n=4
0=high quality,bigger files. 9=smaller files
-b <bitrate> specify minimum allowed bitrate, default 32 kbps
-B <bitrate> specify maximum allowed bitrate, default 320 kbps
-F strictly enforce the -b option, for use with players that
do not support low bitrate mp3
-t disable writing LAME Tag
-T enable and force writing LAME Tag

I may have missed something in ffmpeg but it may not be as simple a change as you believe. Barring an easier method within ffmpeg, it might be possible to tell ffmpeg not to convert the audio using the -an option and then do the conversion using lame after which the output from lame could be added back in using ffmpeg's -newaudio parameter. All this would be seamless to the user. I haven't tried this myself but I'm looking at it strictly for personal use and pleasure.

Keep up the good work and I look forward to seeing what can be implemented in future versions

[balou]

Hello again and thanks for your complete report and comments,

I have discussed with Gilles (DVP) and asked him to come here and have a look at your posts , we briefly discussed what was talked about here and are already thinking about possible solutions to implement in a future version.

As I said we are now discussing way ( I must admit ) above my head , so Gilles will come here and discuss this matter with you guys , just forgive his english as like me he is not english speaking native.
As for easy mode settings, we must be very carefull because we adress all sorts of users , for instance we have many Us users ( NTSC) and Many Europeans ( Pal ) in case of mpeg output.
Basically our idea is to provide users with a tool that is accessible to most by remaining very simple and straight forward , if we do include too much settings it might become confusing for a lot of people who do not have enough knwoledge in video conversion.

Nevertheles the kind of information and feedback you give us is always very useful and we will do our best to include any changes if neccessary or usefull to the community as a whole. Beta testing is now over and as you mentionned it is another kind of users we are now facing.

But beta testing did help a lot .

This is only a beginning and we hope to be some day the best free solution to video conversion in general .


Have a nice day ,

[Seeker47]

As for easy mode settings, we must be very carefull because we adress all sorts of users , for instance we have many Us users ( NTSC) and Many Europeans ( Pal ) in case of mpeg output.
Basically our idea is to provide users with a tool that is accessible to most by remaining very simple and straight forward , if we do include too much settings it might become confusing for a lot of people who do not have enough knwoledge in video conversion.

Design-wise, I think the way to handle that is to offer certain things under "Advanced" settings, and in such a way that the more simple or casual user never needs to deal with them unless they want to, but those who know what they are doing and want that added control can access it.

[balou]

Yes Seeker47 , it is exactly what I meant when I wrote that.

We might include more features in the advanced mode or even perhaps do a specific version for those more experienced and advanced users ..

We will see because we do have quite a task on our hands and we are only two of us for the whole project.

Have a good day.

[balou]

Yes Seeker47 , it is exactly what I meant when I wrote that.

We might include more features in the advanced mode or even perhaps do a specific version for those more experienced and advanced users ..

We will see because we do have quite a task on our hands and we are only two of us for the whole project.

Have a good day.

Hello to all ,

Great news , we are about to finish the latest release of Quick Media Converter V3.6.0 currently under thorough testing and bringing final touches to code issues.

We have taken into account a lot of what was discussed here and elswhere on the internet . For general users (easy mode) some coding has been reviewed for output quality optimisation (FLV bitrate was increased)


single channel audio bug has been corrected and is now working fine .

Several new languages have been added including Brazilian Portuguese , spanish , german, dutch.

FLV conversion improved , swf conversion added , zune and mkv support.

Expert mode has received a face lift and include more features among which (many users here will apreciate ) a functional ffmpeg command line and the possibility the save your settings as well as using presets and change only some values in the command line.

Two passes conversion is also added for those with sync problems.

QCELP and KIDD support still not available yet (mobile phones in the US and Some other countries using them).

More modifications have been added and we hope we have adressed most requests not all sure but hey we do what is possible ..

If you have QMC already you should be told by the application to download the latest version . ( freeware )
If you do not have 3.5.7 yet and want to wait one or two more weeks ( release is for the end of this month (after all the testing is done and satisfying)

Thank you all for using our application .

Have a nice day

[balou]

Hello to all,

Back too late to annouce the release of our Latest Release of Quick Media Converter 3.60 looks like you guys outran us

We hope you all will enjoy it as we do .

Here are some glances at what it looks like :

Easy Mode


Expert Mode

Now includes a very unique function for you users of ffmpeg you may now include you ffmpef command line directly in the expert mode of Quick Media Converter . This way for you addicts you will be able to share with your friends your commands and fine tune them.

Also you will be able to save profiles . We havn't had the time yet to update our website for more information and support but it will be done within the next few days.



New PSP compatible format works with old and new firmware.
-h264 4:3 and 16:9 (new firmware)
-XVID 4:3 and 16:9 (Old firmware)
-Automatically imports in the PSP's memory card .

New Audio formats :
-OGG
-zune
New Video Formats :
-Zune
-SWF
-MKV
-DPG ( Nintendo DS) 4:3 /16:9
H264 Qt Redim
-Removed Divx 4 :3 ->16 :9
-Divx are formatted to support Home DVD players edition 4 and Virtualdub

-removed Xvid 4 :3 ->16 :9
-Divx are formated to support Home DVD players edition 4
-WMV : Ms compatible format 4 :3 redimensionned to 320x240 to support almost all formats
-Errors corrected in encoding Xbox and Ps3 in HD

New languages :
Spanish
Brazilian Portuguese
German
Dutch

Enjoy and thanks for letting us know your opinion

Have a nice Day

Team Quick Media Converter

[balou]

Yes we are planning to do so but it seems to slow down the loading of the application , we are working to solve this little issue also you are all welcome to vote for us as Lifehackers most popular free windows applications of 2008
here is the link enjoy and thank you all for your support since our first beta release and at the same time discover some other interesting applications.

http://lifehacker.com/5110552/most-popular-free-windows-downloads-of-2008

We also hope to release a new reviewed version before the end of this year...

Vote QMC

[tendra]

I have been learning to use the quick media converter in expert mode and i need a little bit of guide line.
1.What is the fformat in video encoding screen and how many should i fill
2.what is the 2 pass encoding
3.what is CMD
4.how many frequency rate should i choose in audio encoding option
5.what is the channel in audio option
and the 7th is the most important,what kind of video format is match with which audio format .It always give me error every time i try to convert it .So it would be nice if you have a list of them.
Thanks!!!!!!!