Can I convert mp4 file to use in iMovie without buying software

can I convert mp4 file to use in iMovie without buying software

Niel wrote:
Use MPEG Streamclip to convert it to DV.
.. only if the mp4 contains SDef content.
mp4 is a container, no 'format'.
could contain HDef too (Streamclip should convert to QT/AppleInterediateCodec)
could be imported to iM without conversion
could be handled instantly with usage of perian.org plug-in
could not be handled on MacOs anyhow ...
.. depends on, what's inside the mp4 ............

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How do you convert .AVI files for using in iMovie without losing the original clip time and date

Hi everyone! does anyone know how to convert .AVI files for using in iMovie without losing the original clip time and date? Handbrake, MPEG Streamclip and Evon all replace the original timecode with the date of modification. This is very frustrating when you are trying to keep the chronology right. I know that if you upload the files to iMovie from one device the chronology isn't a problem, but I'm adding video files from a couple of iPhones and a couple of camcorders. any help much appeciated.
paul

Hi everyone! does anyone know how to convert .AVI files for using in iMovie without losing the original clip time and date? Handbrake, MPEG Streamclip and Evon all replace the original timecode with the date of modification. This is very frustrating when you are trying to keep the chronology right. I know that if you upload the files to iMovie from one device the chronology isn't a problem, but I'm adding video files from a couple of iPhones and a couple of camcorders. any help much appeciated.
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How can I convert .mov files for use with other apps?

When loading movies taken on a friend's digital camera to my PC, the video files were saved as Quicktime .mov files. I am now unable to pull those files into any other software program (I want to put them onto a CD or DVD and play on external players.) How can I convert .mov files to a .wmv or .avi or mpeg?
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Kodak Digital Camera QuickTime MOV Problems
After battling a number of serious problems with the videos taken by my new Kodak Digital Camera, I decided to write up this page so that anyone searching the web would find out the true answers without as much grief!
I’ve also made some other comments about my experience with the camera, in case anyone was considering buying a Kodak camera in the near future.
I bought the camera just before Christmas 2004 in the US. At the time of writing, it is a pretty good model for domestic use—about 5.2 megapixels, costing about US$400 (or AU$600 back here in Australia). From a company as reputable as Kodak, I expected no problems.
The first disappointing thing was that the spring inside the spring-loaded battery clip, inside the camera, came loose within days. It proved impossible to reattach it without completely dismantling the camera, which (despite my engineering qualifications) I was not willing to do. This would usually have been a warranty item, but Kodak’s warranty does not extend to other countries. I’ve since had to jam cardboard in to keep the battery clip engaged, and have taped the battery bay shut to avoid it opening accidentally when taking the camera out of the case. This works fine with the docking station (an extra AU$100!), but it means I can no longer charge the battery without the docking station (since you need to take it out to charge it). I was not impressed!
The camera takes good photos, and I have no complaint with that. The controls and camera menus are well-designed. The large display is excellent.
The EasyShare software is not as easy to use as it looks, has a habit of crashing, has a web update program that is always running in the background of Windows, and transferring images is nowhere as easy or quick as it should be. I’ve now uninstalled it completely, and simply copy the photos directly from the device. (If the camera memory is nearly full, and you just want to transfer the last few photos, then it’s impossible to use the EasyShare software to browse the camera’s photos without it actually downloading the whole lot through the USB cable—and it takes forever! Copying from the device directly doesn’t hit this bug.)
The capability to take video using the camera was a great attraction when I selected it, and, if it worked properly, it would make it quite a handy little camcorder in its own right. With a 512 MB memory card in it, over an hour of video can be recorded at Video-CD quality (320 x 240 24fps video, 8 kHz audio). It’s not full digital video, but it would still be a pretty good feature for a US$400 camera. If it worked.
The first disappointing thing about taking videos is that the optical zoom cannot be adjusted while the camera is recording. It can only be adjusted between video sequences. I don’t know why this restriction was made in the design.
The real problems, however, start when you try to do anything with the video clips captured by the camera. Kodak has chosen to capture the videos in QuickTime format. This is fine—QuickTime is, technically, excellent—except that there is no simple way to convert QuickTime MOV files to AVI or MPEG or VCD. The Kodak software comes with a QuickTime player, so you can see the video clips on the computer you installed the software on—and they look good. Problem is that you can’t just dump those MOV files onto your Video-CD creator (it will usually want AVI or MPEG files).
It takes some time to realise that Kodak have not even bothered to include any software with the camera that can convert these MOV files to a more useful format. This is a serious PR blunder, and anyone bitten by this is unlikely to go near the Kodak brand ever again.
After some web searching, owners of these cameras generally find that the best (only?) freeware solution to convert MOV to AVI is Bink and Smacker’s RADtools program.
RADtools is amazingly powerful for the price (i.e. free), but it hits two fundamental problems with Kodak Digital Camera MOV video files, that are the fault of the Kodak camera, not RADtools. (I know this because every other MOV converter hits the same problems—except one, as you will see below.)
The first problem is that the sound cannot be converted properly. When you convert any Kodak MOV files, there is an “aliasing” of the sound at the upper frequencies. This is a technical description—you get a whispery, tinny, C3PO type of echo to everything. It really destroys the quality of the video clips (especially bad when I am trying to capture priceless memories of my 4- and 7-year-old sons—I don’t want their voices destroyed for all time).
Every conversion program I tried ended up with the same audio problem. I concluded that it is something strange in the way the Kodak cameras store the MOV files.
Strangely enough, I noticed that the QuickTime player didn’t distort the audio like this. The audio sounds just fine through QuickTime. More on this shortly.
The second, more serious problem is that RADtools could not properly convert some of the video clips at all. (This problem only affected less than 10% of the clips I originally filmed, but most of those clips were very short—less than 20 seconds. It seems that the probability of this problem gets worse, the longer the clip.) RADtools would misreport the number of frames in the clip, and would stretch out a small number of frames of video (in slow motion) to match the length of the audio.
Again, I confirmed that this is a property of some of the MOV files stored by the camera. Other conversion tools also had problems with the same MOV clips.
After more angst, I found a number of websites in which frustrated owners of these Kodak cameras have reported the exact same problems.
It was only then that I discovered that QuickTime itself can convert MOV files to AVI. Believe it or not, it’s built into the QuickTime Player that Kodak supplies, or that you can download free from apple.com. The problem is that you can’t use it unless you pay Apple to upgrade to QuickTime Pro.
After realising that this would probably be the only way to get decent audio for these clips, I paid the AU$59 to Apple Australia to get the licence key that enables the extra “Pro” menu options in QuickTime.
Sure enough, you can “Export” any MOV file to a number of formats, including AVI. And guess what? The audio comes out fine!
So, the first piece of advice I can give is: pay Apple the US$29 (or whatever amount it is in your country) to upgrade QuickTime to QuickTime Pro.
From here, however, there are still a few snags to untangle.
The first is that the default settings for Exporting to AVI don’t give a great result. It defaults to the Cinepak codec, medium quality. This looks terrible compared to the original QuickTime movie. Even on maximum quality, that codec just doesn’t give good results.
I finally found that the best option is to use the Intel Indeo Video 4.4 codec, set on maximum quality. This creates AVI files that are 10 to 20 times larger than the original MOV files, but the quality is there. If (like me) you only want the AVI files so you can dump them into your Video-CD program, then you want to keep the quality as high as possible in this first step. The extra hard disk space is not really a concern. When your VCD program converts the AVI files to MPEG, it will compress them to the usual VCD size.
Now for the biggest snag: those problem MOV files are still a problem, even for QuickTime Pro. Unbelievably, these Kodak cameras are spitting out MOV files which have some sort of technical flaw in their data specifications. QuickTime is able to play them back fine—and that seems to be all that the Kodak engineers really checked. However, if QuickTime Pro tries to export them, then when the progress bar gets to the end, it never finishes. It just keeps going. If you check the output folder with Explorer, and keep hitting F5 to update the file listing, you can see the file getting bigger, and bigger, and bigger. It never stops.
That this happens even for QuickTime itself (the native format for these files) confirms that the problem is with the software built into these Kodak cameras. It would be nice it they issued a patch or a fix. I couldn’t find one.
Fortunately, there is a “workaround” for this problem. I found it when trolling the net trying to find solutions to all these problems. The workaround is to use QuickTime Pro’s cut and paste facility. Open the problem MOV file, then press Ctrl-A (the standard key combination for “select all”—in this case it selects the entire film clip, as you can see by the grey selection of frames at the bottom of the player). Then hit Ctrl-C (i.e. copy, which in this case copies all the frames, but not the incorrect data structure in the original MOV file). Now hit Ctrl-N (i.e. new, in this case a new MOV file or player). In this new player, press Ctrl-V (i.e. paste). Now you have a new version of the MOV file with the bad data structure exorcised. You can save this under a new name, but make sure you specify “Make movie self-contained”—otherwise, it will simply be a link to the original (bad) MOV file, which you are probably going to delete once you save the exorcised version. (You also cannot overwrite the original file, because it needs to access that to make the “self-contained” movie. You need to give it a slightly different name, save it “self-contained”, then delete the original and rename the new copy back to what you wanted it to be. A pain, I agree, but at least the **** thing works—finally!)
The exorcised MOV file can now be used to Export to AVI format. (I also keep all the MOV files on a separate CD, in case I want to reconvert them to a different format in the future. I figure it’s better keeping the exorcised ones than the haunted ones.)
So I hope that all this answers a few of your questions. No, you weren’t being incredibly stupid.

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I don't want to use DV because these .m2t files are from an HDV camcorder and I want to preserve the aspect ratio and resolution in the files. What other "flavor" of HD would you suggest that I convert them to since (a) I can't bring the files into FCP6 or Compressor (b) I don't see any other flavors of HD to use in VisualHub.
The whole business of converting .m2t files to a FCP6 compatible format, i.e. a Quicktime format, would seem to be one that is commonly encountered, and yet I have never found a thread on this forum that really answers this question: What is the best workflow for converting .m2t files for use in FCP? Surely, one of the pros who frequent this forum must have dealt with this issue and have an answer.
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I can't convert mp4 files to prores...

Hey guys...
I can't seem to convert h246 file to prores...with mp4 file...
I don't know what to do...but i had no choice but to work with it for time being..
I went to media manager and set prores and all that...but it said there was some conflict...
It won't let me convert to prores...i went to youtube and all that..and I had no problems with mov. file...
but this is bugging me out..i'm using gopro to record...any help will do. thx.

Depending on how new you are to FCP and like youtube, this is very short and sweet.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nEAxjVZgqV4
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Pocket Playlist- how to convert mp4 file to use on pocket playlist

I have an mp4 video that i would like to use on my pocket playlist, but not sure how to convert the file?

Hello Andy,
I do not have an HP Pocket drive but according to the manual...
The pocket acts as any other drive to store files on. Its the media player that you use that has to support the type of file you are playing.
This is cut from the manual.
"File types supported by HP Pocket PlaylistYour playback device may not support all of the following formats. If your playback device does not support a format, use the ArcSoft MediaConverter 7 computer application to convert (transcode) the files into a format that will play back on your mobile device.
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Music: .aac, .ac3, .adts, asf, .lpcm, .m4a, .mp3, wav, wma
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Using the HP Pocket Playist to Play Media Files
Converting Media Files Using Arcsoft MediaConverter 7
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Convert .mpg files to use in iMovie HD6

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You need to convert the VOB files in the TS-Folder of the DVD back to DV which iMovie is designed to handle. For that you need mpegStreamclip:
http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/video/mpegstreamclip.html
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http://www.apple.com/quicktime/mpeg2/
which is a mere $20.
Another possibility is to use DVDxDV:
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which costs $25.
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Is there a quick way to convert mpg files for use in imovie?

Prefferable a way I can select a group of files to import into imovie, which is not much of a hassle to do.
thanks

Get MPEG Streamclip (which is free).
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I usually use FILE/EXPORT TO QUICKTIME/Apple Intermediate Codec, but you could also use DV, h,264, etc.
Drag your completed clips to a new folder in Movies/iMovie Events. (Or to multiple folders if you want to make multiple events)
Or if you want to store them on an external drive which is formatted as Mac OS Extended (journaled), drag them to a folder inside a Folder at the top level called iMovie Events.
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Converting .AVI files to use in iMovie using Quicktime Pro

Hi, does anyone know if the current version of Quicktime Pro converts .AVI movie clips into a format that can be used and spliced together in iMovie? If so, is both the sound and video maintained to the same quality?
Finally, if the answers to the above are a "yes", is the same true for iMovie 07 and 08?
Many thanks
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http://perian.org will help QuickTime Pro open nearly any AVI.
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How can I convert .voc files to use on my Mac?

I bought a little RCA audio recorder which works great... except that my iMac doesn't seem to recognize the .voc files that the recorder produces. I tried "Switch", but it didn't do any better. I tried "Sox", but immediately got a message that it quit unexpectedly. WHAT MIGHT WORK??????
Thanks,
Ted

This should do the trick:
http://www.bigasoft.com/articles/how-to-convert-voc-to-mp3-wav.html

Converting .avi files for use on ipad without using a laptop

Hi, I have a head cam (for use on the slopes and on my bike) that records .avi files to an sd card. I was wanting to know before I buy the sd connector for the ipad if there is any easy way (I appreciate that there are some complicated ways) to convert then edit the video with a movie editor. I was thinking about buying iMovie but I understand it doesn't recognise .avi files so would need to convert them beforehand - I don't intend to take my laptop though so need to do it all on the ipad - qu therefore is can it be done, in a simple straightforward way, with full knowledge that I am not a techie ?

Here is an article that will help you and has links to some software to help convert your wma files to a usable format.
http://www.everymac.com/systems/apple/consumerelectronics/ipodfaq/ipod-supported-music-formats-good-sound-quality.html

Convert udf files to use in imovie 09

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You need to convert the VOB files in the TS-Folder of the DVD back to DV which iMovie is designed to handle. For that you need mpegStreamclip:
http://www.apple.com/downloads/macosx/video/mpegstreamclip.html
which is free, but you must also have the Apple mpeg2 plugin :
http://www.apple.com/quicktime/mpeg2/
which is a mere $20.
Another possibility is to use DVDxDV:
http://www.dvdxdv.com/NewFolderLookSite/Products/DVDxDV.overview.htm
which costs $25.
For the benefit of others who may read this thread:
Obviously the foregoing only applies to DVDs you have made yourself, or other home-made DVDs that have been given to you. It will NOT work on copy-protected commercial DVDs, which in any case would be illegal.

Converting mpg files to use in imovie?

Hello,
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MPEG Streamclip.
Free.

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Karsten Schlüter wrote:
.. those sourceforge projects remind me of Lego
I know what you mean It must be to do with the copyright on the codecs - many can't be downloaded with the codecs ready installed.
... you need all kind of tiny 'snippets' of code & add-ons... sorry or being vague, but there was/is some 'realmedia' code to be added to make MPlayer run
Could be from the Helix project - I'm still looking.
(I had a link, but Spotlight doesn't find it on my drives... ) .. sorry for being no help
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Thanks,
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How can I convert MPEG files (stored on a PC) to use in iMovie on my Macbook Pro?

How can I convert MPEG files (stored on a PC) to use in iMovie on my Macbook Pro?

Get a free app called MPEG Streamclip.
Available here.
http://www.squared5.com/svideo/mpeg-streamclip-mac.html
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Can I convert mp4 file to use in iMovie without buying software

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