Convert Videos, Audios and Subtitles

Multimedia Xpert can convert between a massive number of video, audio and subtitle formats. If your player can't play a format, no problem, Multimedia Xpert can fix that.

At this time it supports

• 352 input file formats
• 172 output file formats
• 270 video codecs
• 205 audio codecs
• 222 pixel formats
• 26 subtitle formats

and the numbers are constantly growing. What is most important: The algorithms work reliably! Here are some of the most frequently used conversions:

• H.265 to H.264 (somtimes called HEVC to H.264 or x265 to x264)
• Video to HEVC resp. H.265 resp. x.265
• MKV to MPEG-4 (Matroska)
• AVI to MPEG-4
• WMV (Windows Media Video) to MPEG-4
• FLV to MPEG-4 (Adobe Flash)
• MP4 to TS (Dreambox resp. VU+ MPEG-2 Transport Stream)
• 10-bit or 12-bit color to 8-bit color conversion (eg. Amazon Video)
  
• Flac to MP3 (Lossless audio coding)
• AAC to MP3 (Advanced Audio Coding)
• WAV zu MP3 (Waveform Audio File, Windows native)
• ALAC to M4A (Apple Lossless)
• EAC to AAC (Exact Audio Copy)
• M4A to MP3 (MP4 AAC, ie. produced by the Android app 'Voice Recorder')
• WMA to MP3 (Windows Media Audio)
  
• ASS subtitles (Advanced Substation Alpha) to SRT (SubRip)

Complete list:

Multimedia Xpert is at the same time a universal video converter, a universal audio converter and a universal subtitle converter. It's near to converting anything to anything correctly. It can be extremely frustrating if you just get a black screen or an error message after one long hour of processing. Also, not everybody would like to install one program for each single format whereas there is one program than can do it all, and with high reliability.

Mass conversion

Multimedia Xpert is specifically designed to convert many files in a single pass without user input. In the Output Specification, a pattern can be specified as to how the output path name is to be compiled from the input path name. In extreme cases, for example, all media in a folder can be converted to a destination folder elsewhere without manual intervention. As a speciality Multimedia Xpert can also convert files directly in place. More info about this in Overwrite Management.

Making non-playable media playable

A conversion to the most common format currently in use, which is "Video MP3 Audio AC3" or "Video MP3 Audio AAC" can solve about any problems of non-playable video. The same goes for converting audio to MP3 and subtitle files to the format SubRip. There are even single chips in devices that are solely constructed for playing these formats.

• If your current video player only says "EAC3 not supported", this solves the problem
• If your player only says "gstreamer can't decode 'xyz' codec" see this solution here.
• In case your video has a HE-AAC audio stream, check out this text here.

Making file sizes smaller / Reducing the MB size

A conversion can be used for making file sizes smaller to bring down upload/download times. To achieve this you can reduce the bit rate, frame rate or image size of the video. Read more about that here.

Repairing partially damaged files

Somtimes media files get damaged during the transfer or transport by USB stick or other medium. If the damages are not too big there is a good chance that a file can be repaired. Just convert it to the same format. The conversion algorithms are quite tolerant and will recover whatever possible. You will end up with a file that has some parts skipped but at least it's a fully valid one which can be played by every media player without any problems.

Such a repair conversion can also help if your player exhibits playback problems. For example, if it takes a long time for the movie to continue when jumping forward or backward, or the current position is not saved at a stop, it may be because the producer program did not produce the file format correctly after the specifiactions. Such problems can be solved by re-encoding with Multimedia Xpert.

Multimedia Xpert simplifies such repair conversions by a built-in Inplace Replacement method that doesn't require entering a new name.

Converting the audio only

Multimedia Xpert has the possibility to just convert the audio (and/or subtitle streams) and transferring the images (video stream frames) unmodified to the destination 1:1. This will speed up the conversion by a huge factor. See here how to achieve this.

Converting the subtitles of a video

The input video may also contain subtitle streams, depending on the format. To do this, you should know that the output file format you are producing sometimes only supports other subtitle formats or, in some cases, no subtitles at all. In the Format Info tab there is a 'Video Comparison' link in the upper right corner that shows this in the form of a table. If a format does not support subtitles, you should check the 'No subtitles' box in the corresponding output specification. This tells Multimedia Xpert to ignore all subtitle streams. Second, on the Convert page, there is a box 'Try to convert subtitles'. If it is checked, it will try to convert all selected subtitle streams to the format specified in the output specification, or if there is nothing there, it will try to copy them 1:1 to the output. If then the output format cannot accommodate this subtitle format, an error is thrown out in the Log. The expert in Multimedia Xpert recognizes this error and then reports that probably the subtitles are the problem. Then you can simply turn off 'Try to convert subtitles' and try again. Usually the conversion succeeds then.

Extracting Audio

This processing page can be used to extract audio tracks of a video into an audio file. This can be useful especially for music videos. It's also used by many people to convert lectures in front of an audience from video to audio. In many cases there is very little to see and they are therefore very good suited as podcasts during sports activities or travel. By making use of the extraction range in the output specification it's also possible to extract just a part, eg. a nice song in the credits of a movie. A step-by-step tutorial on how to do this is here.

Trimming Video, Audio or Subtitles (Extracting a part)

You can use the conversion tab also for removing a part at the start or end of a video, audio or subtitle file without even having to recode it. More on that here.

Selecting and/or adding Streams

In the past streams were called "tracks", but today the word stream is more common. During the conversion, you have the option to pick some streams/tracks from the input and at the same time add new ones (Button ). To just add some streams to a media file without converting please read here.

Removing Streams (Deleting Streams)

If you would like to remove one or more streams from your video or audio follow the instructions here.

Extracting Subtitle Streams

If your input file contains subtitles streams you can extract all of them with a single click. Each subtitle stream will be put in a single file beside the input file. A step-by-step tutorial on how to do this is here.

Adding Subtitles to a Video

You can add subtitle streams to a video, sometimes even without converting the video stream inside. See more info here.

Modifying the subtitles of a video

In most cases you can modify the subtitles of a video. Follow this step for step guide.

Viewing the converted media

After a conversion the green buttons in the grid will perform some functions on the converted output. We recommend VideoLAN Client (VLC) as a player because it can play nearly any format and is a free Open Source community solution. Here some tips for VLC:

• On a 65-bit compure be sure to install the 64-bit Version. Note that the download button has a dropdown arrow on the right which allows you to select "Installer for 64-bit version". But if you press only the big part of the button you will get the installer for the slower 32-bit version.
  
  
• You can stop the opening of its main window on a unsuitable location with an unfitting size by unchecking the checkbox 'Resize interface to video size' in the section Interface.
  
  
• You can set your preferred subtitle language priority in the Preferences dialog in the section Subtitles. The languages are specified by a list of three letter iso codes separated by comma, eg. "ger,eng". You can carry over the content for this box directly from the corrsponding field in Atlas Subtitler's Language Preferences. Atlas Subtitler is the best tool for downloading subtitles to about any movie on the planet.

Solutions for conversion problems

• If your player is an older hardware device like a video box the solution could be to just convert the video to MP4 (H.264 AAC or H.264 AC3). This is currently the most used format on the planet and there are even especially dedicated hardware chips that can play these formats. So your chances to play the video or audio will get maximized.
  
  
• If you need customized options for the input and/or output file you can specify them in the fields 'Input Options' resp. 'Output Options' of the Output Specification.
  
  
• If you get an error message please examine the Log output. Multimedia Xpert contains an A.I. expert which analyzes the error output and automatically adds a text with the solutions to common problems colored like this. For example some output file formats allow subtitles streams in them but others not. In such cases try switching off the checkbox 'Try convert subtitles' and/or unselect subtitle streams in the 'Stream Selection' combobox. You can also enable the checkbox 'No Subtitles' in the Output Specification.
  
  
• If you have converted something from H.265 to H.264 and then neither the length nor the picture can be displayed by the player, the pixel data could be encoded in the newer 10- or 12-bit color format (pixel format). Older players don't support this (eg. older Dreambox or VU+ models). To have the video converted to 8-bit, please follow this instruction here. To convert MPEG videos to other color formats in general, this tutorial here will help you.
  
  
• How to convert between other color depth, either down or up, is described here.
  
  
• If you see only an inferior, pixelated image after a conversion, it is usually because either no bitrate or a too low one was specified in the output specification. Without bitrate each codec selects a bitrate by itself. Unfortunately, in a some cases this value is much too low. This problem can be solved by entering something around 2500 in the Video Bitrate field.
  
  
• For conversions from m4a to mp3 it was observed that the Lavc codec used by ffmpeg can have problems for 'Audio Bitrate' less than 96 kB/s. It can get into an endless loop or produce an unplayable output. Please use at least 96 kB/s.
  
  
• If you get the error "Channel layout change is not supported" this could mean that there are some audio channels that can't be transferred to the format of the output file. Try specifying the number of channels that the output should have, for example by entering '-ac 5' in the Output Options box of the Output Specification. Another solution might be to attach another ffmpeg build, eg. this here. We have seen differences in the processings of the multiple builds in this area. Such differences might vanish if newer builds are published in the future.
  
  
• If you hear the sound of a video only with interruptions, but the video otherwise runs normally, first look at the format info. If you see "50 fps" (50 frames per second) for the video stream, it may be that the player needs too much time to process the many frames. In this case, it may help to set the Frame Rate value to 24 in the Output Specification.