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Fx Video Converter Version 7 is
tool for converting movies from one format to another. The term
convert can be a bit misleading insofar as this program does not
actually change the original movie but instead reads the digital
video/audio streams and encodes (writes) those data to another file.
More...
Convert between various MPEG-1, MPEG-2, MPEG-4 and
compressed AVI formats while changing properties such as height,
width and bitrate.
Convert multiple files, unattended with the
included Batch Converter.
More Information:
Unlike movie film which is a
sequence of images with a synchronized (interleaved) sound track
printed on the film, digital movies are data files that contain
complex mathematical information.
Digital movies, like all other computer files,
contain a file name and a file extension. The
file extension, the characters following the last period in the
file name, tell the operating system what software to use to
open that particular file. The first few bytes of the digital
movie file, called the header, tells the software how to open
the movie including what codec* to use.
Herein lies the rub.
If a movie was created using a codec that you
don't have or it was written specifically for a player that you
don't have you can't see it.
Movie Formats and File Extensions
The format of a digital movie is determined by
the standard to which the codec adheres and not by the file
extension thus not particularly useful to the computer user who
has a movie that won't play.
The original audio video interleaved format
(AVI) became complicated from it's birth because the codec was a
separate, custom component and many early AVI files were created
with proprietary file extensions that married the file to a
proprietary player.
With the Moving Pictures Expert Group MPEG-1
standard we saw two new file extensions for AVI files: MPG for
operating systems that supported four character file extensions
and MPEG for operating systems that supported four character
file extensions. To make matter worse, the MPEG Committee's
Layer-1 and Layer-2 audio standards were soon carrying MP2 and
MP3 file extensions.
The MPEG-4 standard was a huge breakthrough for
AVI file compression and Microsoft's MPEG-4 codec was the
vanguard for pay-per view video disks using the DIVX file
extension. The codec was quickly hacked however and the DIVX
movies were pirated sending the industry back to the drawing
board. The existing DIV and DIVX file extensions are used for
the proprietary AVI files compressed using the MPEG-4 codec
produced by DivX Networks. DivX files can usually be played by
most players.
Microsoft created two more MPEG-4 codecs using
the AVI file extension, then switched to the Windows Media
format. The file extensions for Windows media are usually WMV or
WMA.
Real Media and Apple have held their MPEG-4 AVI
files tighter than has Microsoft and neither uses the AVI file
extension. Real uses RM for the original type RMVB for variable
bitrate files and a few other combinations that tell Real Player
what to do. Apple began using AVI, then switched to MOV, then to
QT with numerous iterations of the codec making it the most
difficult to identify.
The MPEG-2 standard was focused on Super Video
CD and DVD disks where the AVI files are sometimes encoded to
include chapter information and additional data such as comments
or languages. MPEG-2 files when not written to a disk are
usually named using the MPG file extension.
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