Converting video software

[Bruinator]

What software do you recommend to convert video from mp4 movies to avi format that is reasonably fast?  Yes, I know it depends on PC specs so plz ignore those facts.

[Bruinator]

2 hours ago, Brandon H said:

according to what was posted above your DVD player doesn't support .MKV containers

It supports the MPEG-2 codec but not the .MKV container itself or .MP4 for that matter either.

 

If looks like you'll need a program than can encode to .AVI

 

edit: P.S. Your confusion with MPEG-2 likely stems from it being both a codec and a container itself. though it's less used as a container.

 

-----

 

from personal experience there are a couple things you can try.

 

1. You can use ffmpeg as I mentioned early in this thread. it's a super simple command line tool and is what most GUI apps use as the back-end as it is
   command example is "ffmpeg -i input.mp4 output.avi"
    
2. You can also use VLC though there's a bit more playing/configuration needed here
   https://www.google.com/search?safe=strict&source=hp&ei=H0CeXP_nNcyItQXdpKzwBw&q=convert+to+avi+vlc&oq=convert+to+avi&gs_l=psy-ab.1.4.0l10.573.2964..9267...0.0..0.158.1954.0j14......0....1..gws-wiz.....0..0i131.SrzhfAyh2bs

Ok, this is what i did so far: I downloaded ffmpeg.exe and copied it to the following path c:/program files(x86)
/ffmpeg standalone so it looks like this c:/program files(x86)/ffmpeg standalone/ffmpeg.exe.

 

Then I opened up a dos prompt and typed cd c:\users\my name\desktop\movies>mmpeg -i my movie.mkv my movie.avi and it says

 

'ffmpeg' is not recognized as an internal or external command, operable program or batch file. What am i doing wrong?

Plz pardon me about this as I am a newbie at it. 

[Jim K Global Moderator]

Sorry, trying to write this on the phone.

 

Anyway, the error is telling you it can't find ffmpeg ... because the executable isn't in c:\users\my name\desktop\movies ... ffmpeg is in that Program Files directory. 

 

So, you can either move the movie files over to the ffmpeg folder or from within the desktop folder run <path to ffmpeg> ffmmpeg -i my movie.mkv my movie.avi

 

You can also add a system path ... which would probably be the easiest if your going to do a bunch of conversions and don't want to be typing a bunch of paths or moving movie files back and forth.  Basically this would allow you to run ffmpeg from any folder that contains your media...without needing the path to ffmpeg.

https://www.howtogeek.com/118594/how-to-edit-your-system-path-for-easy-command-line-access/

Don't jack up your current paths though.