Video File Formats and Conversion

by Lee Brannon

2/06/09

Let’s face it.  One of the most confusing aspects of using a computer or a cell phone is figuring out what file formats work.  Every player uses a different format and when you throw a Cell phone into the mix things get even more confusing. Audio and video comes in many flavors and your computer player or cell phone may not like the taste.

I recently received an email from someone who was having trouble with her cell phone.  She said she was moving movies from her computer to the phone and they would play, but all she was getting was audio.  I solved the problem by doing a search on her cell phone maker and model and then replying with a question “What file type are you using?”  It turned out that her phone only worked with 3GP files.

So, how do you solve this dilemma? You learn a little about file types. Today we are going to discuss movie formats and the file types associated with them.

Before you start trying to edit that home movie for burning to DVD, placing it on Youtube, or placing it on your phone you need to know what format to put the movie into.  I can’t cover every file format out there, but I can give you the run down on a lot of them.

First let’s list the file types and what devices or applications they are generally used for:

File format  File extension Mainly used for

File Format	File Extension	Mainly used for
Windows Movie	.WMV	Windows Media Player and other computer players. Some devices.
Quicktime	.MOV	Quicktime players on Most computers and some devices.
DVD NTSC	uses a variety of files	DVD players (US)
DVD PAL	uses a variety of files	DVD players (European)
MPEG	.MPG	CD based MPEG movies and most computer players.
MPEG 4	.MP4	Mostly device media players
AVI	.AVI	Microsoft’s Audio Video Interleave format.  Players on Most computers and some devices.
Real Video	.RM	Real Networks RealPlayer
Flash	.swf	Flash players used in browsers on Most computers.
3GPP	.3GP	Cell phone players based on GSM communications.
3GPP2	.3G2	Cell phone players based on CDMA communications.

Devices are not limited to cell phones.  Some game machines and PDA’s have video players capable of displaying some movie formats.

A note about the 3GPP and 3GPP2 standards:  If you don’t know what format your video capable cell phone uses do a search on the net, but keep in mind that some cell phone models may be used on both types of communications formats, so your search should include the name of your carrier or service provider.  Whether or not your cell phone uses .3GP file types or .3G2 files types depends on what communications format your service provider uses.  In most cases if your phone uses a SIM card then the communication is over GSM and your phone probably uses 3GPP.  If your cell phone does not use a SIM card then your service provider is most likely using the CDMA communications format. Phones on CDMA will most likely use 3GPP2 file formats.

Now this is all a lot to swallow at one time and the variety makes the topic confusing, but the main thing is to know what you have and what you want to put it on before doing anything else.

Once you have an idea of what you have and what you need to go to you can begin the process of converting your movie.  There is an array of video conversion programs out there and you can find some free converters if you have hours of search and download time.  Most “free” converters are clumsy, flawed, don’t work right or stick banners across the face of your video until you send them money. I spent a lot of disappointed wasted time trying to fit all of the pieces together.   If you are going to use a video converter often you should consider purchasing a good one. 

Video conversion Demo.

Most converters do just that.  They convert your video from one format to another.  I am making this distinction because many people seem to confuse video editors with converters.  Video editors are for editing the content of a movie and although many of them will save to different formats that is not what they are intended for.  We are going to stick to the basics of converting.

For the purpose of demonstration I am going to use a converter that is part of a package I lease from AVS4YOU by Online Media Technologies ltd.  Since I was planning to do a lot of audio and video conversions and edits I looked for a package that allowed me to a large variety of what I wanted.  The AVS Video Converter 6 program was part of the lease package. This converter is clean, simple and straight forward.  It does have edit options, but for demonstration on this topic I will stick to the straight conversion. 

For the purpose of demonstration let’s say I have a WMV movie that I need to convert to RealPlayer in order to use it on my PDA. Opening the AVS Video Converter 6 program can be done by opening the application itself, but once installed you also have the option of right-clicking a movie and selecting an option of “AVS convert to…” from the menu.  You can then select the movie format you want to convert the movie to.

Either way  you open the AVS Video Converter 6 program your screen will  look something like this:

Since I used the right click method my movie is already in the list and the button for “to RM” is already selected.  If I had simply opened the program from a program icon or from the Start menu I would have needed to click the browse button and navigate to the movie I wanted to convert and then click the button along the top row to designate which format I wanted it converted to.

Since I want to save the file in RealPlayer format all I have to do in this case is change the name of the file in the Output File Name field.  Since this is a short video of my dog playing in the snow I’ll change the name to SnowDog.rm

Now I just click the Convert Now! Button and the WMV movie is quickly converted to RealPlayer format and saved with the name SnowDog.rm. The bar next to the convert Now! Button will show the conversion progress.

The program even pops-up a box asking if I want to open the folder where the new file is located.

A couple of additional notes: The edit button will let you view your movie and make screen transitions and edit the movie however that is a topic for another time.  Also, there is no 3G2 option button, however I have taken .3G2 movies from my phone and converted them to other formats with this program and it seems to work fine.  If you need to convert a video to the .3G2 file format the Package includes a program called AVS to GO that can be used to convert movies to game console formats, PDA formats and it includes the .3G2 format.

When you convert a movie to DVD with this program and others you do not enter a file name for the movie.  Instead you enter a folder name.  This is because DVD formats use collections of files usually with the .BUP, .IFO and .VOB extensions as well as possibly others.  These are stored into the folder name you designate.  Two sub-folders are created for the files called Audio_TS and Video_TS. Generally for most instances the Video_TS is the folder with your DVD files.  Don’t worry if the Audio_TS is empty.

There are other video converters out there, but for lower than the price of a single application you can lease an array of products from one source. AVS4YOU has trial versions you can download and check out.  If you are interested in checking out the AVS4YOU lease package applications you can use this link AVS4YOU or look for an ad on the GizGadMo website.