Freemake video converter mkv to avi

[marknoo]

I am trying to convert some mkv to avi files using Freemake Video Converter. In the past this has worked just fine. Now I am getting the audio but the picture looks like a pulsing outer space planet or something.
The videos to be converted are on a hard disk and play fine when there, but show the outer space thing when I load them into Freemake and after I have converted one of them.
It did this before and after I updated Freemake Video Converter.

[roma_turok]

Why you converting to AVI?

[Baldrick]

Yep. Why? Avi divx/xvid for a dvd player? or an avi for editing?

But I would just try another converter like Xmedia Recode. Use the dvd player preset if you want avi xvid/divx.

[marknoo]

I have to convert it to play it through an old DVD player. It will only play AVI stuff.

The weird thing is that it has converted mkv to avi before. So I wondered if there was something with this file.
Anyway,

Xmedia Recode it is.

Thanks

[marknoo]

OK, so I converted one and it doesn't show the pulsing star thingy. But it also doesn't play the movie.

What is a setting for (I think it said screen size). My Freemake Video is set to 720x402 and that setting works. So I set the XMedia Recode Resolution Height and Width to that and it doesn't show video but the audio works fine.


BTW
This is pretty old technology I am working with here. It doesn't have an HDMI hookup. It does have an S-video and some RCA jacks though. But I don't have anyway to hook up a computer to that. So I have to convert these videos to that.

Is there a standard setting for old technology like this.

[KarMa]

An easier option might be to use an old version of Handbrake before they stopped supporting AVI (Xvid/MP3). The last version of Handbrake to support AVI was v0.9.2

Not too many places have 0.9.2 so I found it at filehippo.
http://filehippo.com/download_handbrake/tech/4756/

[Baldrick]

The old Handbrake 0.9.3 has also Avi output support,
https://www.videohelp.com/download/HandBrake-0.9.3-Win_GUI.exe

from https://www.videohelp.com/software/HandBrake/old-versions#download

But it might not support latest mkvs though. It's from 2008.

[KarMa]

Doing a quick google search before my #6 post, told me version 9.2 was the last one. But I did not verify that myself. If 9.3 supports AVI then even better.

It should support MKVs with H.264 video and just about any common audio. If the MKV contains H.265 video (aka HEVC or x265) then it won't support it.

[Baldrick]

marknoo: Did you choose the dvd player preset in xmedia recode? And under the video tab can you try choose Codec: Xvid. And yes, resize to below 720x480 pixels.

[marknoo]

Got it to work with Xmedia Recode but I will still look into Handbrake.
Thanks to everyone who helped.

Additional:
Is there a way to mark solved or answered or anything like that so people with a similar problem can tell that this thread solved the problem for at least one person.
If not, this was short and sweet so it can be scanned quickly.

THanks again.
I am going to look at Handbrake and hope it will do the job and have the simplicity of Freemake.

[Baldrick]

How did you solve it with Xmedia Recode? Changed to xvid?

[marknoo]

I went into "Filters/Preview" and switched the Width and Height but when I would check it again it had reverted to 1920x1024. So I saved the right H x W in settings and applied that saved settings to a list of videos and it worked.
I don't know how to make it work by setting the HxW for each project.

Thanks again for the help.
BTW, I downloaded Handbrake but I have not tried anything with it.