I’ve recorded a lot of video clips on my older digital cameras, including a Casio EX-S600. These older video clips are stored in MPEG-2, AVI, and other older video formats. Newer video editing programs (like iMovie for the Mac) don’t support most of these older video formats. This week I decided that it was time to solve this problem. After about 2-3 hours of research I got lucky…read on…
You can buy commercial programs, e.g.,
- Quicktime Pro, including MPEG-2 playback ($29.99 - available for Mac and Windows). Seamless support for import and export of different video formats using Quicktime.
- Flip4Mac (WMV Player Pro) is another Mac option ($29 for the download and $49).
After reading the following Apple Discussions message I opted for a free program called, MPEG Streamclip. So far I’ve been able to convert AVI, MPEG-1, and MPEG-2 video files. The great thing is that you can also do this in batch mode! MPEG Streamclip is available for both Mac and Windows.
Here are the steps that I follow:
- Located your old video files. You can search for .avi, and .mpg files. (If they are still on tapes, well then you’ll have to wait for a future post.)
- Add these files to MPEG Streamclip’s batch list. Use menu path: List->Batch List. Select the files you want to convert. Set the options. I exported all my files to DV format.
- After the files are converted, I import them into iMovie ‘08. Use menu path: File->Import movies…
- Now you can edited your files and enjoy them in iTunes, on youtube, on your .Mac web gallery, or on your AppleTV.
- As a last step I usually archive my old video files.
