Quote Dashcam produces .MOV files - large - GPS data included - and probably better on Apple kit - but I am Windows - no need for GPS data so looking to convert .MOV to AVCHD (mts) to save a lot of space - not to mention helping PD16 create its shadow files a darn sight faster.

Thinks - CL make Power2go which boasts file conversion - download free trial - sorry this feature not available in trial version.

Reluctant to spend £40 just to convert files, as all other features already covered by different software.
Anybody recommend a nice neat simple fast was of converting just .mov to .mts? Please.

Be nice if it had batch features.

Am prepared to pay for the conversion function - but not something anywhere near as complex as Power2Go - where 99% of its features would be wasted.

Alan.

Try TSMuxer Panny TM10, GH2, GH4,

Thanks - I will investigate

Alan.

For every type of conversion or something else, ffmpeg is the swiss army knife for video.
It is a command line interfaced program, but very powerful.

Hatti Win 10 64, i7-4790k, 32GB Ram, 256 GB SSD, SATA 2TB, SATA 4TB, NVidia GTX1080 8GB, LG 34" 4K Wide, AOC 24" 1080

The free movavi converter, it uses HW acceleration for Intel and Nvidia GPU's.

https://www.movavi.com/videoconverter/

Quote

Quote Dashcam produces .MOV files - large - GPS data included - and probably better on Apple kit - but I am Windows - no need for GPS data so looking to convert .MOV to AVCHD (mts) to save a lot of space - not to mention helping PD16 create its shadow files a darn sight faster.

Thinks - CL make Power2go which boasts file conversion - download free trial - sorry this feature not available in trial version.

Reluctant to spend £40 just to convert files, as all other features already covered by different software.
Anybody recommend a nice neat simple fast was of converting just .mov to .mts? Please.

Be nice if it had batch features.

Am prepared to pay for the conversion function - but not something anywhere near as complex as Power2Go - where 99% of its features would be wasted.

Alan.

Try TSMuxer

Does this look better - on others I tried to delete some of the quoted part to reduce the size - seems like somthing got upset.

The gist of my reply is clear however - hope you can understand it.

Alan.

PS all my last 2 replies are now displaying hard against the left border on this topic - are you seeing this post centred like all the rest? Don't know whats going on. My first few posts and my original message are correctly centred.

Quote For every type of conversion or something else, ffmpeg is the swiss army knife for video.
It is a command line interfaced program, but very powerful.

Hatti

I think my problem on this topic maybe a strange control character got inadvertently typed and ruins all page layout thereafter.

I cannot find any way of deleting a post - is there?

I have just viewed a different topic I made a reply to - and all looks good layoutwise.

Quote For every type of conversion or something else, ffmpeg is the swiss army knife for video.
It is a command line interfaced program, but very powerful.

Hatti


I think my problem on this topic maybe a strange control character got inadvertently typed and ruins all page layout thereafter.

I cannot find any way of deleting a post - is there?

I have just viewed a different topic I made a reply to - and all looks good layoutwise.

Layout problem solved - as you see above I just deleted all the content - and the layout now looks good.

Please bear with me as I will now go back and read all contributions and re-answer your posts I have replies to.

Forum admin notified and hopefully they may be able to tidy this mess.

Checked it out and find that although the dowload is free, it will only convert half a video file in the trial version, and requires purchase of the full version ($40) before it does anything useful.

$40 too much for just one function.

Thanks for your input.

Alan.

If you go back and delete those quotes on your last 2 posts then the formatting should be fine.

Quote If you go back and delete those quotes on your last 2 posts then the formatting should be fine.

That shouldn't happen. On my phone's Firefox the forum acts up strange too. On computer is OK.

Quote

$40 too much for just one function.

Thanks for your input.

Alan.

I agree, sorry for that. This one says it's really free:
http://www.freemake.com/offline/offline_all/

Or the famous Handbrake (supports encoding in Hardware with Intel QuickSync):
https://handbrake.fr/

Quote If you go back and delete those quotes on your last 2 posts then the formatting should be fine.

Hi Tomasc - yes you are correct - what i thought was I had accidently typed something - but it turns out the forum software has a bug that seems to manifest itself when I reply to and quote the first message from SoNic67 despite his post looking innocent.

Hit max three messages on community thread last night so have not yet been able to pass this latest discovery to admin. Will keep trying until I can.

Alan.

Quote
I agree, sorry for that. This one says it's really free:
http://www.freemake.com/offline/offline_all/

Or the famous Handbrake (supports encoding in Hardware with Intel QuickSync):
https://handbrake.fr/

Any success with those?

Quote

Quote
I agree, sorry for that. This one says it's really free:
http://www.freemake.com/offline/offline_all/

Or the famous Handbrake (supports encoding in Hardware with Intel QuickSync):
https://handbrake.fr/

Any success with those?

Downloading FreeMake as I type this.

Found that VLC player also has built in convert function, works quite nice and achieves over 50% reduction of filesize. But no batch facility which would be nice.

One other discovery regarding Movavi converter is that if you get to the checkout stage and then close down without ordering, the site says Sorry to see you go, would 40% discount change you mind, so if I'm still looking I may investigate that further.

Your help appreciated.

Alan.

Quote

Quote
I agree, sorry for that. This one says it's really free:
http://www.freemake.com/offline/offline_all/

Or the famous Handbrake (supports encoding in Hardware with Intel QuickSync):
https://handbrake.fr/

Any success with those?

Tried Freemake - until you pay $40 it adds branding (watermark) and on the small run I did the speed looks slow albeit batch facility looks possible.

Now going to look at Movavi again for speed and batch capability.

Alan.

Format Factory is well regarded by members here.
Format Factory HP Envy Phoenix/4thGen i7-4770(4@3.4GHz~turbo>3.9)
Nvidia GTX 960(4GB)/16GB DDR3/
Canon Vixia HV30/HF-M40/HF-M41/HF-G20/Olympus E-PL5.
Tape capture using 6 VCR, TBC-1000, Elite BVP4+, Sony D8 camcorder with TBC.
https://www.facebook.com/BarryAFTT

Quote

Quote

Quote
I agree, sorry for that. This one says it's really free:
http://www.freemake.com/offline/offline_all/

Or the famous Handbrake (supports encoding in Hardware with Intel QuickSync):
https://handbrake.fr/

Any success with those?

Tried Freemake - until you pay $40 it adds branding (watermark) and on the small run I did the speed looks slow albeit batch facility looks possible.

Now going to look at Movavi again for speed and batch capability.

Alan.

Installed Movavi video converter - heavy boasts about how fast it is - setup 2 .mov files as input and set mp4 as output - clicked convert - a few seconds later was all done - albeit only half a file (trial limitation) - was very impressed with the speed - then I noticed filesize was almost exactly half the .mov version - fair enough its half a file - plays perfect under WMP.

I am going down this route to save space and although fast - this looks like saving no space - further reading and Movavi reveal its effectively a remux job, same video different container, quality is the same - size is the same just the container that changed, fast this may be but its not giving the space I desired.

Now going to test VLC with the same task

Hi Alan et al -

I just did a little test here, since we're weighing up using converted files or PDR's shadow files. I understand from Alan's posts that the .MOV files from his dashcam take "too long" to generate shadow files... hence considering conversion in a separate application.

I don't know what the camera is so I don't have sample files to test. Instead I used 6 short 4K/UHD .MOV clips from Canon DSLRs - 5D MkIV, 6D MkII & C200. The clips range in VBR from 520 - 2,298 Mbps (so they'd be demanding to edit in that form). Total duration of the 6 clips is 00:01:57:26.

In Handbrake (free & does batch conversion), the 6 clips were converted to 1080p MP4. It took 5:50, after an initial scan time of ~30sec.

I imported the same clips into PDR, with shadow files enabled. It took 5:55.

From that little test, there is no time advantage. Other converters may do the job faster.

Alan - for your final production, do you intend to use the original clips or the converted ones? If original, you can do that with file substitution shown in this little tutorial. If not, don't click that link

Cheers - Tony
Visit PDtoots. PowerDirector Tutorials, tips, free resources & more. Subscribe!
Full linked Tutorial Catalog PDtoots happily supports fellow PowerDirector users!

Quote Hi Alan et al -

I just did a little test here, since we're weighing up using converted files or PDR's shadow files. I understand from Alan's posts that the .MOV files from his dashcam take "too long" to generate shadow files... hence considering conversion in a separate application.

I don't know what the camera is so I don't have sample files to test. Instead I used 6 short 4K/UHD .MOV clips from Canon DSLRs - 5D MkIV, 6D MkII & C200. The clips range in VBR from 520 - 2,298 Mbps (so they'd be demanding to edit in that form). Total duration of the 6 clips is 00:01:57:26.

In Handbrake (free & does batch conversion), the 6 clips were converted to 1080p MP4. It took 5:50, after an initial scan time of ~30sec.

I imported the same clips into PDR, with shadow files enabled. It took 5:55.

From that little test, there is no time advantage. Other converters may do the job faster.

Alan - for your final production, do you intend to use the original clips or the converted ones? If original, you can do that with file substitution shown in this little tutorial. If not, don't click that link

Cheers - Tony

Hi Tony - thanks for getting involved - just to add a little background info - my primary motivation was to reduce the size of the raw materials, as my dashcam makes .mov files that were about twice as large as equivalent duration .mts files I am used to working with. Really impressed with the HD quality of the dashcam footage - and as such see it becoming an interesting part of our holiday movies providing an insight into what we are driving through to get where we are likely to be filming. Never thought of that at purchase time. PD16 is an ideal tool to speed up video over the boring (motorway) parts.

So - reduced filesize of raw material is the prime mover. Reduced shadow file creation time is a welcome bonus - which triggered off this task as I had not really noticed how much larger .mov clips were until I started playing in PD and noticed the longer shadow file creation times. If you see what I mean.

On holiday I need to reduce filesizes as dashcam will not hold all we will film so I will need to upload dashcam footage to laptop and whilst I am not sure how much storage we might need by the end of a 2 week motoring holiday I am in with a fighting chance if I can reduce the storage required by dashcam footage. All worked well last year with Canon footage over 10 days, but this year we are off for two weeks and have dashcam adding to storage requirements.

You know I just had to click "that link" despite not planning file substitution - neat little technique though.

See next post for detailed results of VLC player conversions.

Thanks for your input - much appreciated,
Alan.