MPEG Streamclip is a superb example of zero cost software - yes it is free! The software allows you to transfer and encode video clips easily into various formats and codecs. It is available on Mac and the various Windows packages.
This software was created by Squared 5 and can be down loaded from their website.
Also you can use MPEG Streamclip to open up, play and edit videos with cut, insert and duplicate attributes.
The recognized input types: M2V, M1V, MPV, AIFF, M1A, MP2, MPA, AC3, MPEG, VOB, PS, M2P, MOD, VRO, DAT, MOV, DV, AVI, MP4, TS, M2T, MMV, REC, VID, AVR,...
I personally use MPEG Streamclip to transcode the H264 videos rendered by my Canon 5DMk2 to Pro res LT prior to importing to Final cut pro 7. It's well worth observing that despite the fact that MPEG Streamclip does indeed have a whole bunch of codecs built in, the Prores codecs employed by apples Final Cut Pro are only obtainable if Final Cut Pro is installed on your computer. And this also is applicable to Avid's codecs - DNX is only readily available if Avid Composer or an alternate editing software package by Avid is running on your computer system.
I'm mostly a Final Cut Pro User, and FCP absolutely does have the power to encode H264 files right into ProRes incorporated within the software package, but I have tested and determined it to be much slower than MPEG streamclip and even just a little erratic - sometimes bizzarely cutting the bottom end of a portion of my video clips when transcoding, so my favourite option is to batch import into MPEG streamclip and save all these files over to my Raid drive, these modified files will be then brought in into Final Cut Pro.
I additionally choose MPEG Streamclip to accumulate details on a specific video file that could include frame rate, frame size and codec. A bit of of this detail is available just by right clicking on on a video data file and acquiring info but a lot more data is freely offered in Streamclip by using the 'file 'menu thereafter hitting 'show stream info'.
Occasionally, I'm asked to clone DVD's for editing and enhancing, especially when ever a client is going to need a showreel. I used to manage this by playing the DVD into Final Cut Pro using a firewire hookup, it's a sluggish and laborious approach which unfortunately leaves you with a large amount of editing to clear out the leading frames and end frames of the file. Also you need to park yourself there and watch it, as otherwise Final Cut Pro will just keep ingesting the DVD menu once your presentation has ended.
But by using MPEG streamclip, transcoding a DVD becomes significantly easier - simply load the DVD directly into the computer (and then discourage it from playing with the internal DVD player). Start MPEG Streamclip and navigate to the files of your DVD disc. Import the largest video file in to the MPEG streamclip system. It will inquire if you would prefer to construct a video stream - Yes! Decide on your file format and codec and decide on the place you choose to save it and you can let it start working while you go have a cigar. Easy.
So to sum up, MPEG streamclip is highly recommended piece of free software that I could not do without. Did I point out it's free!
The Author, Michael Barnes runs a video production Cardiff company and the main website can be found here.
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