I Never Said It Was Fast

If you read this blog for my religious, political, or environmental perspectives, this post is dangerous for you and you should just move on. If you worry that a program you don’t understand will screw up your computer, move on. This post is to share a pre-alpha batch file. You’ve been warned.

Problem:
Some smartphones, camcorders, and cameras record video in a format that cannot be viewed on the iPad. Viewing 720p on the iPad is awesome.

Solution:
If those videos are in any of the containers listed below, Bat Converter will convert them. “Bat” comes from “batch file” and does not in any way promise that the conversion will be fast. In fact, this program is pre-Alpha and may smoke your entire computer. I have tested it in Winows XP on a netbook. Some development work was done in Windows 7 on a proper computer but the project in its currrent state has not be tested on the platform.

Converts from:
wmv
avi
mpg
dvr-ms
mp4
flv
3gp

If you are the “dealer” to an iPad video addict, this tool may help. If you can improve it (shouldn’t take much) please share that back here with us.

1. Download Bat Converter
http://blog.trlong.com/wp-content/resources/BatConverter.zip

2. Unzip Bat Converter placing the folder in your “Program Files” directory

3. Download ffmpeg for Windows
http://ffmpeg.arrozcru.org/autobuilds/

4. unzip ffmpeg into the /BatConverter/batconverter-data/ directory

5. Place videos to be converted into the “Videos2Convert” directory

6. Run “setup.bat” once

7. Run “BatConverter.cmd” from hence forward until such time as you wish to change the paths where things are stored (in which case loop back to 6). If you’d like, set Windows to run it on a schedule.

I’m not that adept with ffmpeg parameters and am open to suggestions for improvements. I’m just happy this works for Joy’s iPad. I make no promise to develop this further since it works fine for me and I have a day job. Consider this a gift rather than a commitment (-:

For a more robust and user-friendly approach, check out Lifehacker’s iPad preset for Handbrake. I preferred my program because I can schedule Windows to run it on a regular interval and just “have my iPad videos appear.”

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