h.264 in .mov format, how can I convert it?

[rickard_liljeberg]

I have a Casio Ex-v7 that records in h.264 format (.mov files).

I have a few problems with this to say the least. When I want to edit the movies in Adobe Premiere it doesn't work it stutters like crazy on some computers, on other computers it works after I rendered the timeline (which takes frikkin forever).

But mainly my problem is I can't convert it in virtualdub, in fact virtualdub can't even open the files.

I have been trying with ffdshow that uses libavc (same as vlc - that can play the files) but no luck there.

Any tips or hints at all on how I can handle those darn .mov files are appreciated.

The only luck I've had is using quicktime pro to convert the files, but it's alot of manual work and can only recompress to a few lousy formats.

Thanks !

[audyovydeo]

> When I want to edit the movies in Adobe Premiere it doesn't work it stutters like crazy on some computers, on other computers it works after I rendered the timeline (which takes frikkin forever).

This is perfectly normal for an h264-encoded video (QT or other).

> But mainly my problem is I can't convert it in virtualdub, in fact virtualdub can't even open the files.

this is normal too


> The only luck I've had is using quicktime pro to convert the files, but it's alot of manual work and can only recompress to a few lousy formats.

QuickTimePro is not an editor, you've realised by now. However it can export to a large number of codecs, some of them lousy, some very good.

> Any tips or hints at all on how I can handle those darn .mov files

It's unclear what you want to do with your h264.mov files : editing video then recompressing ? Simply converting to another format ?
There is a QuickTime plugin for avisynth but have not checked if it supports h264.

Avoid editing h264 video, export it to a lossless codec , edit with Premiere then re-encode to whatever.

[rickard_liljeberg]

Hi, Thank you for such a fast response

I think the best I can get is if I somehow can batch it over to another format.

Since I have a lot of files (after a vacation I can have as much as a 100 clips). So If I somehow can batch it into another format that would be great.

I guess the ideal would be if I could batch files (with a batch file - I will then write an app to dynamically create those batch files) into another format like lagarith or to get smaller and easier to handle files something like lightly compressed xvid.

Maybe I should look at avisynth but that would be my dream if I could batch them over to another format without any real loss in quality (yes xvid would loose quality but hardly noticeable if it's good settings).

[Pookie]

That would be pretty easy to do. Very basic idea of the process. Because semi-uncompressed AVI is so large, I wouldn't recommend you do more than a few files at one time.

Apps Needed:

Avisynth
Avs2AVI
Qtsource.dll http://www.tateu.net/software/dl.php?f=QTSource

dir *.mov /b >movfiles.txt
for /f %%i in (movfiles.txt) do call :transcode "%%i"
goto fin
:transcode

echo LoadPlugin("Qtsource.dll") >transcode.avs
echo QTInput("%1", color = 2, quality = 100, audio = false, mode = 0, raw = "yuyv", info = 0, dither = 0) >>transcode.avs

avs2avi transcode.avs "%~n1.avi" -l lagarithsettings.x

:fin


Note: Read the AVS2AVI docs for setup of the codec paramters.
Probably easier if your source .MOV files have short file names.

[bond]

what do you actually want to do with the mov? cut? reencode?