MPEG-4 H.264 (with AAC audio) to AVI for free?

Hi all,

I've got some .mp4 files in H.264 with AAC audio (from a Sanyo VPC-CG9) and I need to convert them to AVI preferably for editing in Vista Movie Maker.

However, I'm not a codec/converter guru so I'm having some problems. I've tried a trial of AVS and also ffdshow but no joy, real mixed results, usually great audio but no video.

Using ffmpeg (quality, and I prefer cmd line !) I get an mpeg I can edit in movie maker but the quality suffers and some of the transitions are glitchy.

Anyway, thoughts welcome on the best way to edit this format, preferably on Vista.

Cheers all !
LW.

Isn't your problem that you are re-encoding the video, which you'll be again encoding again as you edit it?

I guess the best option would be to take your mp4 and create an uncompressed version with which to edit. That way, you'll only be encoding it once more afterwards, and hence the quality dip won't be as bad.

Remember that re-encoding lossy-compressed video over and over is like copying a video-tape... for each copy, you lose a little of the original.
That's why, if you can, work with uncompressed. - you might want to get yourself a bigger HDD ;-)

Get VirtualDub.

Hi,

Thanks for the replies, but that's the problem, I can't find a tool to create an uncompressed version, most of them convert 'ok' but when you play the AVI there is no picture, just audio, or the other way around. I wondered if there was a nice simple 'convert_mp4_to_avi' problem I'd overlooked ;-), that handles AAC also of course.

Ps. I don't think VirtualDub has the right support built in, you need to install directshow filters for the format I'm after? But I'll have a look, remember VD from years back.

Cheers,
LW.