Multimedia Xpert is a graphical user interface (GUI) for the command line program ffmpeg. ffmpeg is a huge library for the processing of video, audio and subtitle files of any format. It is constantly being further developed by countless programmers and is available to the public for free (open source). Currently, it's about 100 MB in size, recognizes about 350 file formats and can write about 170 formats. To be able to do this it knows 270 video coding methods and 200 audio coding methods (codecs).
In the theoretical sense, Multimedia Xpert is a complete GUI for ffmpeg. Although you can graphically configure maybe 90% of the most frequently performed tasks, it has input fields for adding customized options at all important places of the generated command line. You can easily add features or options that are not yet graphically controllable in the current version in text form. In the future, however, Multimedia Xpert is to be expanded anyway, so that the need for manual commands will strive towards zero.
Also when looking at the file formats and encoders Multimedia Xpert is supporting it's a complete GUI for ffmpeg, since the available formats are queried at the start from ffmpeg. If you install a successor version of ffmpeg, new formats and encoders will be immediately available in Multimedia Xpert. So unlike most competing products, Multimedia Xpert does not require you to wait for a newer version.
When installing your ffmpeg package, be sure to install the appropriate version to the corresponding bit width of your processor. Do not install the 32-bit version on a 64-bit processor, take 64-bit. Otherwise you would lose a lot of processing power. It's recommended to always use the static version and a release build, not the "nightly builds" (which have a date in the name). The releases have a simple version number like 4.0.2. These are more reliable. If there is a "full" and an "essentials" version, prefer the"full" one. Simply take the biggest package that is available.
Multimedia Xpert was originally developed and tested with the compilation of Zeranoe. Many tests were made with version 3.3.3. Therefore it probably offers the best compatibility. In principle, however, it should work with any package. After Zeranoe stopped compiling in September 2020, recently the compilation can be downloaded by the links provided on ffmpeg's download page in the chapter "Windows EXE Files" or from SourceForge (topmost link "Released ..."). For 64-bit machines you should get a 7-zip file "ffmpeg-git-full.7z" or "..-Win64-.." or similar, for 32-bit machines the same but "...-win32-..." in the name (got rare these days). The content should then be extracted to a new folder "C:\Program Files\ffmpeg". The location and name of the folder does not necessarily have to be like this. For extracting you will need the open source freeware 7-Zip. After the extraction you can switch to the Settings tab and select 'ffmpeg.exe' inside the subfolder 'bin' for the topmost setting.
Be prepared that there are also several reduced ffmpeg packages on the net, which contain only a few file formats and encoders due to size reasons. Note:
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A complete package should be approximately 100 MB in size and also contain the tool 'ffprobe.exe' next to 'ffmpeg.exe'. If it is a lot smaller, the successful functioning of Multimedia Xpert can not be guaranteed! |
If you attach a significantly smaller package you can do that but a warning box will appear. Please do not blame Multimedia Xpert for conversion problems in this case.
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