Ubuntu – Convert .mov files to Home Theater compatible MP4

12.04ffmpeghome-theatretranscodewinff

I have bunch of mov files and I want to play them on my Sony DVD Home Theater (Xvid/HDMI capable) but I cannot. I have tried different configuration in WinFF (ffmpeg frontend) but does not work. The player complains video frame rate is not supported.

Here is some information from mplayer:

Detected file format: QuickTime/MPEG-4/Motion JPEG 2000 format (libavformat)
[lavf] stream 0: video (h264), -vid 0
[lavf] stream 1: audio (aac), -aid 0, -alang eng
VIDEO:  [H264]  720x576  24bpp  29.970 fps  1249.0 kbps (152.5 kbyte/s)
Clip info:
 major_brand: isom
 minor_version: 512
 compatible_brands: isomiso2avc1mp41
 creation_time: 2006-12-22 01:43:44
 encoder: Lavf53.21.1
Load subtitles in .
Failed to open VDPAU backend libvdpau_nvidia.so: cannot open shared object file: No such file or directory
[vdpau] Error when calling vdp_device_create_x11: 1
[ass] auto-open
==========================================================================
Opening video decoder: [ffmpeg] FFmpeg's libavcodec codec family
Asking decoder to use 2 threads if supported.
Selected video codec: [ffh264] vfm: ffmpeg (FFmpeg H.264)
==========================================================================
==========================================================================
Opening audio decoder: [ffmpeg] FFmpeg/libavcodec audio decoders
AUDIO: 48000 Hz, 2 ch, s16le, 112.0 kbit/7.29% (ratio: 14000->192000)
Selected audio codec: [ffaac] afm: ffmpeg (FFmpeg AAC (MPEG-2/MPEG-4 Audio))
==========================================================================
[AO OSS] audio_setup: Can't open audio device /dev/dsp: No such file or directory
AO: [alsa] 48000Hz 2ch s16le (2 bytes per sample)
Starting playback...
A:   0.0 V:   0.0 A-V:  0.000 ct:  0.000   0/  0 ??% ??% ??,?% 0 0 
Movie-Aspect is 1.33:1 - prescaling to correct movie aspect.
VO: [xv] 720x576 => 768x576 Planar YV12 
A:  44.1 V:  44.1 A-V:  0.001 ct:  0.000   0/  0  3%  3%  0.5% 0 0 

Exiting... (Quit)

Best Answer

My recommendation would be to install & use Ffmpeg not WinFF.

sudo apt-get install ffmpeg

Once Ffmpeg is installed, open Terminal and paste the command:

ffmpeg -i input.mov -sameq output.mp4

Where input.mov & output.mp4 Change the filenames accordingly.

That command encodes the video into an .mp4 format but keeps the same quality as the original.

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