Convert video formats on your Mac for free

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Earlier today I received a dinosaur JVC camera with a truck load of video clips. We are traveling to Lebanon to have our annual seminar on the beautiful mountains of Farya and somebody had to make a fun video intro for our office. Since I still did not learn to say “no” easily, it ended up on my desk.

After opening the files, I found out the files are MOD type, needing to be converted before importing into iMovie. A quick search revealed  that I need to pay around $35 for a decent video converter, but I just remembered using HandBrake for DVD ripping long time ago. And the rest is history.

Let’s see how you can convert a host of different video formats to each other in few easy steps and more importantly for free.

Getting started

HandBrake is an Open Source video converter application with 21 vitamins and minerals (must be French humor). It works on major platforms but all we care is Mac OS 10.5 and above. It supports all major video formats (even MOD), which is great for a free package.

To get HandBrake, logon to their website at www.handbrake.fr or directly download the latest release (as of this writing) from here. It runs only in 32bit mode and is unlikely to leverage the 64bit features of Snow Leopard, but it is pretty responsive.

To install HandBrake, after downloading the DMG file, mount it and drag the application file and drop it in the Applications folder. You are ready to go.

Using HandBrake

The UI (user interface) looks a bit cluttered at first but it takes a minute to master (Figure 1). The main window contains all you need, so let’s start converting a video right away.

Figure1. Main Window

1. Click Source on the toolbar and choose a video file (e.g. a MOD file). HandBrake reads the file and creates a destination path in the Destination box.

Note: When you open HandBrake it automatically shows the Open dialog for you to choose a video file. One click less.

2. Click Browse if you want to change the default folder (Desktop) and choose a new destination folder for the converted file.
3. In the side bar (Figure 2), choose a settings template. Normal is pretty much the best choice. It will create a M4V file, readable by iTunes/iPod/iPhone with a good quality. You can however, change the settings manually (in the main window) for optimal results.
   

   Figure 2. Sidebar

4. Click Start if you have only one video file to convert. It starts the conversion process immediately.
5. For converting multiple files, click Add to Queue for each file to add them in the queue (Figure 3). Once finished with the queue, click Start to begin the conversion process for all video files in the queue and go on a coffee break.
   

   Figure 3. Queue

The bottom line

Video conversion is a time-consuming process but HandBrake does a fairly good job with an easy to use and responsive UI.

It also keeps the things simple and there is not much settings to be configured, but you can always click HandBrake > Preferences in the menu-bar to to tweak the available options.

Note: The latest version (0.9.3 as of this writing) is pretty stable and although it crashed on me once (kinda’ was my fault) it could reload the pending queue and resumed the job successfully.

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