Help with converting .avi video files

[Numo]

Edited:

I have a bunch of old .avi videos that I want to convert to a universal format. When I use QuickTime Player to play the avi file, it exports to .mov format, which works well with Quicktime on my Mac, but I’m not sure if it would in Windows. Because I read that MPEG-4 format is the most universal format, I tried using VLC to convert the .mov to MPEG-4, but VLC drops the audio track.

Any suggestions for accomplishing what I’d like to do, preferably for free?

[Rolando]

Maybe upload to youtube? Quality/compression might be an issue

what is AVL.?

Have you tried MPEGStreamclip?

[Lew Zealand]

Convert to h.264 or h.265 using Handbrake. If the audio is in a common format like mp3 or aac, then you can pass that through with no conversion. If it's not in that format, you should consider converting to aac.

[mrbigstuff]

Have you tried VLC yet?

[MrNoBody]

Shutter Encoder https://www.shutterencoder.com/en/

[Numo]

mrbigstuff wrote:
Have you tried VLC yet?

Thank you, mrbigstuff - I was using VLC but had miss-typed it in my OP. Doh!

[rz]

mrbigstuff wrote:
Have you tried VLC yet?

:agree:

VLC plays almost everything. The only time I ever use QT Player for anything is to play the odd MP3 file I find. I could use VLC for that too, but usually don't bother. But if it's a FLAC file, then I definitely use VLC.

[Will Collier]

Depends on what the elementary files in the .avi are. The fastest way is to use ffmpeg to drop them into a .mov or .mp4/.m4v. container while preserving the original audio and video. That assumes the original audio codecs fit within the container specs, if so you're done and good to go. If not you'll need to reencode, Handbrake is the easiest path there.

I put this script in Automator and made a Service out of it for changing containers:

for f in 
$@
do

/usr/local/Cellar/ffmpeg/4.0.2/bin/ffmpeg -i 
$f
 -vcodec copy -acodec copy -f mp4 
${f%.*}.m4v
done

You need to install ffmpeg first, and correct the directory for it accordingly, of course.

[Will Collier]

Oh, and you can find out what's in the .avis using Media Info:

https://mediaarea.net/en/MediaInfo/Download/Mac_OS

[Ombligo]

Handbrake will generally get the job done