Video conversion options for GNU/Linux

Sean Diggity

For users of GNU/Linux operating systems (Ubuntu, Debian, Fedora, SuSE, etc.) I'm trying to gather information on video conversion for the miniPlayer in one place. Some of this may also apply to Unix-based operating systems like Mac OSX with the right configuration.

Here's a short list of options and my experiences with them:

MZ Video Converter - runs well on Ubuntu 7.10 with WINE installed. Presumably, it'll run as well on any system with WINE or Crossover installed. For those who need a GUI for easy miniPlayer video conversion, this is probably the best choice.

However, not all of the programs of the bundled "K-Lite Codec Pack" install without errors. I don't think most of these programs are necessary, so I would go with the default install and ignore any errors.

BatMan - installs without any errors in Ubuntu with WINE. However, the drag/drop interaction with the Desktop icon doesn't work, which makes the program useless (unless someone knows a way around this?)

iriverter - a frontend for mencoder that runs natively on GNU/Linux (and apparently also Windows). Less scary than the command-line interface of mencoder, but still requires some knowledge of encoding.

bash script - a shell script for mencoder by parena. May be a good alternative to a frontend like iriverter but will probably need tweaking to work on each distribution.

Feel free to add information

BobbyQ

Hey, regarding BatMan you could have just asked me ;-) Of course you can use it without drag and drop by simply passing one or more files and folders in a command line : BatMan.exe "a_file_or_a_folder" "another_file_or_folder"
But you're the first who seems to have it successfully running under WINE. Could you please test if it works ?
By the way, it's a nice idea to summarize the opportunities for Linux users the way you do.

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mfb

I use mencoder straight from the commandline, which works quite well. Basically all the converters you mention are frontends for mencoder. It would be a lot simpler if someone could program a quick GUI, than run Windows GUI's with Windows-compiled mencoders through WINE.

Unfortunately I still haven't learned any Qt4 because of a lack of time, so I can't be of much help with that.