Converting Canon Powershot Movies to AVI / BATCH converting...

FuTz wrote on 4/12/2004, 9:53 AM

I, like a few others here in this forum, have a Canon Powershot camera that can make video clips but as we all know, the format Canon uses for these clips is not compatible with Vegas. We have to convert these files to AVI files. For that purpose, we can use Windows Movie Maker (with XP).
Question: does any of you actually knows a way to *batch* convert these MVI_AVI files to AVI ? I mean, I found the way to do this one by one but was unable to find a way to convert a bunch of these files at once that would produce separate clips / copies of "originals" produced by my G2 cam. All I can do now is do them one by one or place the whole bunch on the MovieMaker timeline and produce a long AVI file but then I have to "re-separate" the files to return to the original clips in AVI format...
Thanks

Comments

ScottW wrote on 4/12/2004, 10:04 AM

Well, it's not a batch method, but if you install one of the many motion JPEG codecs that are available on your system, you can use the files directly in Vegas. A number of different companies sell this codec, and you may be even able to find it in the internet someplace for free.

dvdude wrote on 4/12/2004, 10:32 AM

If push really came to shove and this was something I really needed, fast and for free - I'd download the Windows Scripting Host and write a VB script to automate your existing manual method by emulating keystrokes.

Do you know VB?

cacher wrote on 4/12/2004, 3:16 PM

It's not with Vegas, but I do it with Virtualdub (using job control for the batch part) all the time, it's pretty straight forward.

FuTz wrote on 4/13/2004, 6:59 AM

dvdude:
I don't know about VB. What's this? Is that complicated? (I'm not an ounce of a programmer...)

cacher:
How do one uses job control in Virtual Dub? I have no experience of Virtual Dub but noticed lately that a few of you guys seem to use it quite a lot...

I don't want to invest any money into that since I use it here and there, not quite frequently.
However, I did write to these guys at Canon to ask them for codecs that are compliant with "every day" formats, politely telling them that for the price they sell their cams, they should provide these codecs on the CD-Rom that comes with the cams, or at least implement it as an upgrade in Zoombrowser...

cacher wrote on 4/13/2004, 7:40 AM

Futz:
It's pretty easy:
1. Go grab a copy of Virtualdub (it's free).

2. Open VD and select "open video file" and point it to one of your Powershot avis.
3. Press F7 to convert it to uncompressed avi and select a name and destination folder for it. Notice that at the bottom of the screen there is a checkbox that says "Don't run this job now, add it to job control...", put a checkmark on that box.
Repeat step 3 for all your avis.
When you are done, select File/Job Control from the main menu and click Start.
That's it, all your avis will be converted in batch mode.

Another thing that's been useful a couple of times was that I was dumb enough to record an avi in portrait mode (I use a Powershot S30). All you have to do is add a "rotate filter" in VD and your avi is fixed!

cheroxy wrote on 4/13/2004, 9:27 AM

futz,
if/when you get an answer back from Canon, please post what you hear. I am interested to see how that goes.
thanks,
Cheroxy

FuTz wrote on 4/13/2004, 1:01 PM

thanks cacher! I'll use this option!

Cheroxy: actually they DID answer me: to sum it up, the guy said he would forward my request to the appropriate department... yes, shi++y answer anyone would have expected from any big unconcerned company... but I still like my G2!