[::maroma::]

I'm looking for an application that will convert .avi movie files into a more Quicktime-friendly mpeg format. Anyone have any favorites? I don't want to change the size or quality, but just a straight over conversion. Any suggestions?

Thanks.

[mduell]

FYI, what you're trying to do is called changing the container. VLC's wizard can do it, or you can just play the files in VLC instead of QuickTime.

[::maroma::]

Originally Posted by mduell 

FYI, what you're trying to do is called changing the container. VLC's wizard can do it, or you can just play the files in VLC instead of QuickTime.

Oh, never knew of that term. I'll try to figure out how to convert it in VLC. The reason I'm trying to do this is because I download a lot of TV shows and such, and most of them are encoded in avi format. I have Front Row at home and would love to be able to use it to browse my collection, but of course it uses Quicktime and doesn't play nice with all my avi's. Also I like to give certain vids to coworkers and such and most of them aren't savvy enough to deal with anything other than double clicking the file and watching it. So they don't like to deal with using other apps, etc.

Anyways, I'll try to figure VLC out. Does it do batch conversions?

I tracked down an app called iSquint, which it seems is mainly used for converting vids to iPod format, but seems to also do straight conversions. The first file I tried, Quicktime didn't like it for some reason. I'm trying again though.

[cybergoober]

Perian - The swiss-army knife of QuickTime� components has allowed me to play almost every AVI video I have thrown at it in Quicktime Player. Dunno if that would translate into being able to playback these files in Front Row though.

[::maroma::]

Originally Posted by cybergoober 

Perian - The swiss-army knife of QuickTime� components has allowed me to play almost every AVI video I have thrown at it in Quicktime Player. Dunno if that would translate into being able to playback these files in Front Row though.

Cool, thanks for that, I'll give it a try.

So I converted one of my files using iSquint. And it seems to have worked quite well. But something I've noticed is that the mp4 file I ended up with is less than half the file size of the original avi I started with. Is this normal? The quality seems to be pretty close to similar, with the mp4 colors being slightly darker (maybe due to Quicktime playback, compared to VLC). But I don't understand why the file size would be that drastically different.

Original AVI = 700.8MB
Converted mp4 = 294.1MB

Color me confused.

EDIT:
A little more info on each of the files:

AVI
STREAM 0
Codec: XVID
Type: Video
Resolution: 512x384
Frame Rate: 29.970030

STREAM 1
Codec: mpga
Type: Audio
Channels: 2
Sample Rate: 48000 Hz
Bitrate: 187 kb/s
-----------------------------

MP4
STREAM 0
Codec: mp4v
Type: Video
Resolution: 512x384
Frame Rate: 29.980000

STREAM 1
Codec: mp4a
Type: Audio
Channels: 2
Sample Rate: 44100 Hz
Bits per sample (not listed on AVI info): 16
Bitrate: 1411 kb/s