all-purpose file converter

[Mark Suszko]

Try SUPER converter.

[Rich Rubasch]

Episode by Telestream is the one. Paired with Compressor and or MPEG Streamclip you won’t need anything else…well, Handbrake once in a while for a fussy file.

Rich Rubasch
Tilt Media Inc.
Video Production, Post, Studio Sound Stage
Founder/President/Editor/Designer/Animator
https://www.tiltmedia.com

[Shane Ross]

That hardly makes an “ALL IN ONE” app. I count four.

HA!

Shane
Little Frog Post
Read my blog, Little Frog in High Def

[Bill Davis]

I’m not sure anything “does it all” perfectly.

On the import side I use VLC as my typical “go to” tool since Thorsten has a hugely active world wide client base and he updates the software extremely frequently – but there are still holes in its ability to parse ANYTHING and convert it to Anything.

On the export side, I agree that Episode is a great “go to” tool.

I suspect that will get you 80% of everything. But not 100% cuz there are just too dang many proprietary niche codecs out there.

FWIW.

“Before speaking out ask yourself whether your words are true, whether they are respectful and whether they are needed in our civil discussions.”-Justice O’Connor

[Jeremy Garchow]

I don’t know what you need exaclty but Adobe Media Encoder is pretty bad ass, albeit quirky at times.

Jeremy

[Bob Cole]

Thank you all very much. I knew going in that “all-in-one” was ambitious, but there are some things which should be as automatic as possible, and file conversion is one of them. I like the idea of software vendors keeping up with changes in the file formats too, because that’s the reality.

A related question: what do you use (Mac or PC) to download video from YouTube or other online sources? This is another case, like those ever-evolving file formats, in which the “source file” — the browser — keeps changing, and my old technique stopped working.

Bob C

[Mark Suszko]

I like clip converter.cc

[Jeremy Garchow]

[Bob Cole] “A related question: what do you use (Mac or PC) to download video from YouTube or other online sources? This is another case, like those ever-evolving file formats, in which the “source file” — the browser — keeps changing, and my old technique stopped working.”

I still use MPEG streamclip but the process is highly convoluted. I’m sure there are better ways.

[Bill Davis]

[Bob Cole] “A related question: what do you use (Mac or PC) to download video from YouTube or other online sources? This is another case, like those ever-evolving file formats, in which the “source file” — the browser — keeps changing, and my old technique stopped working.”

I’m kinda conservative in this, but I just don’t “download videos from YouTube” at all.

I watch them there. But I simply don’t ever think of downloading or capturing them in a permanent state. To do so creates a tracking nightmare at best, and at worst copyright risks that I simply refuse to tolerate.

Particularly today. A fellow producer was telling me that he went to post a client review video via YouTube exclusively for just their client to comment on before it was finished and locked down – and inside two minutes they had a received a bounce back email telling them the clip had been blocked from distribution because the metadata attached showed that there was a brief segment of copyright music embedded in one of the edited clips. He had to go back and figure out where the clip in question was – and swap it out. He said it took him two extra hours of work to correct cuz he didn’t even have a CLUE which source clip had the problem embedded in it.

Using ANYTHING that I haven’t sourced and KNOW is completely cleared to use I consider to be a massive potential miss-step with clients – cuz if it goes wrong, I’ve just signaled to them that I’m not experienced enough to avoid these kind of legal complications.

Again, my personal view. YMMV.

“Before speaking out ask yourself whether your words are true, whether they are respectful and whether they are needed in our civil discussions.”-Justice O’Connor

[Bob Cole]

I appreciate the caution, Bill. My first reaction to your post was a bit defensive, but on the Internet nobody really knows you, so I put that aside. fwiw, I buy or verify everything I use. It ain’t worth the hassle.

But we shouldn’t be “cows,” except here. This is a whole different topic, but I believe that we need to defend the “Fair Use” concept, when we can. I admit that I’ve been intimidated by the lawyers before (notably, when one mega-corporation supplied me with a great image showing someone using their product, but wearing a shirt with another mega-corp’s logo, I didn’t use the image). It was the right call in a purely practical sense (there was no budget in this particular documentary project for my own lawyer), but I still rankle at being prevented from making a “fair use” of the logo.

Your friend’s experience with the embedded metadata is interesting, and confusing. There is so much material on YouTube that seems to incorporate copyrighted material.