I have just bought an imac and am trying to put my movies on to the mac from a microsoft machine. A lot of them are in AVI or MKV formats and I want to know if there is a converter I can download on my imac which will convert these files? Any help would be gratefully received.
iMac
As I know, Mac and Quicktime support MOV/MP4 video well. There are many online apps can do the video conversion for you, such as zamzar, Acethinker Video Converter, mediaconverter, etc. They are totally free, and you don't have to download or install anything. Compatible with both Mac, Windows and Linux. Take Acethinker as sample, here are the steps to convert video.
1) Open your web browser and visit the Acethinker Video Converter, you can google search for it.
2) Click 'select files to start', locate your AVI or MKV video and add it into the app
3) Select MOV or MP4 as output format in the Format drop-down list.
4) Click Convert button and select a folder to save your converted video
5) Click Start to run the conversion, that's all.
Download "Handbrake"* (its free) Great transcoder ! (It does take a up a LOT of RAM when running, so try not to multi - task. In other words, turn off or force quit other Apps before using Handbrake and your transcode will be much faster)
* Download Handbrake from the official Handbrake Site. (And No, I don't have stock in Handbrake, Ive just been using it for years. Those Guys/and or Ladies are brilliant, just don't contact them with dumb requests , they can be a bit touchy about stuff like that. Besides, usage is pretty straight forward, and there is a very comprehensive user guide via Handbrake's App link.
* NEVER download third party apps from unknown sites if you can help it. Especially SOFT TONIC , It's the shadiest! FULL OF MALWARE!
Have you simply tried to open them in QuickTime? The new QT has a built-in conversion for those old codecs it recognizes and will turn them into updated formats it will prefer.
it tries to convert them but then says quick time player cant open it & then gives me an option to tell me more but doesnt tell me how to convert it
There is an app called Filp4Mac. You have to pay for the App itself, but the player is free.
Use VLC media player to play the codecs that Quicktime doesn't support.
If you just want to move these avi and mkv files to play on iMac, you can download VLC player, it plays just every file format.
For converting files to Mac readable format, I use this one all the time:
http://www.appgeeker.com/how-to/convert-avi-to-mp4-mac.html
It supports handling multiple files at a time. one of my cameras record in .AVI format and i bulk convert to .mp4 or h264.
how can i convert an AVI video file to work on my iMac?
