VLC is one of the most popular open source applications that have been installed in many of our personal computers. Many of us know VLC as a media player but it can also be used as a convert, transcode and rip media.
If you wonder why you should use VLC to convert video formats then answer is simple, it is already installed in your personal computer and you don’t need to install any other video converter software’s. If you haven’t installed VLC yet in your PC then probably you might have to consider installing VLC as it is a very useful all in one media playback application.
How to Convert Video using VLC
Step 1 : Open VLC Media Player and select “Convert / Save” option from “Media” menu alternatively you can use “Ctrl + R” shortcut key to access the option.
Step 2 : Select the media file that needs to be converted by selecting “Add” option under File Selection. You can also add the “Subtitles” to Video by checking “Use a subtitles file” and selecting subtitles file through “Browse” option.
Step 3 : Finally hit on “Convert/Save” button which will open a window where we need to select destination for converted output and configuration profile which will have Video/Audio conversion configurations. By default VLC will has dozen profiles, however you can create your own profile and enter your own configuration details.
VLC supports videos of following formats TS, OGG, WEBM, MP4, MOV, PS, MJPEG, WAV, FLV, MPEG-1, MKV, RAW, AVI, ASF, WMV which also means that it can encapsulate video into any of the following formats.
Using Configuration Settings you can
1. Extract only Audio
From the configuration settings you can disable “Video” output by unchecking “Video” option in “Video Codec” tab and select only “Audio” from “Audio Codec” tab to generate only an audio file of your desired format which has to be set using “Codec” drop down options in “Audio Codec” tab and also you can set your own bitrate for the audio file.
2. Scale / Resolution / Compressing the Video
From the configuration settings you can actually scale the video output size so that converted video resolution can be matched with your mobile / PDA device and hence can support the play back of the converted media file. This is done in two steps, First you must encapsulate the video using proper format which can be done from the first tab “Encapsulation” and then selecting the proper resolution. You can also reduce the “Frame Rate” and “Bit Rate” to compress the video.
Step 4 : When finally you are done with configuration settings you can check/uncheck “Display the output” option which will show you the converting output video and click on “Start” option. You can see the status of conversion from the streaming playback bar.
That is all , Just check the destination path that you have mentioned before to access the converted file.
Conclusion :
Although VLC lacks batch conversion but is almost a very useful application for converting videos which many of users who use VLC doesn’t know about this option. Now you know that VLC can convert, compress, extract audio of a video.
Hope this information helps.
