Digital video file conversion is a crucial component of many a filmmaker's workflow these days. Since footage can be taken from so many different cameras, using specific formats, they often have to be altered into something that their editing package will accept. But they're not the only ones who need to transform files to make their content compatible with a different system than the one they were originally meant for. Take Flash video for instance: it's well known that this format won't work on an iOS device because it's deemed to be too much of a drain on battery life. Most websites now offer alternatives, so it's not a major problem. But what do you do if someone sends you a Flash video that you'd like to enjoy on your iPad, for instance?

The digital media boom has led to numerous file formats for audio and video content of varying quality and ubiquity, whether you consume your media on desktop, smartphone, tablet or dedicated. Free vs For-Pay Audio Converter Software The most glaring and important difference between free and for-pay software is speed of conversion. During testing, Freemake, the best free audio converter software, took four times as long as the fastest program, Switch, to convert a 625MB WAV file to MP3.

This is where video converters come in. Transforming a video file is a complex process, which often leads to a degradation of the image - the trick is to limit this loss of quality by as much as possible. Technology's moved on in leaps and bounds since the early days and this is epitomised by the proliferation of such conversion programs online. Do a quick search for them on the Mac App Store and you'll be faced with too many to make a reliable decision on, which is why we've decided to test six of the most high-profile apps (be they available on the Mac App Store or elsewhere) and see which one is the best when it comes to ease of use, available options, speed of encoding and output quality. Those six apps are Apple's own Compressor, the venerable Squared5's MPEG Streamclip, HandBrake, Systemic's Smart Converter, Elgato's Turbo.264 HD and Wondershare's Video Converter. Test one: Ease of use Having many options is not always a good thing The programs we've tested that are available through the Mac App Store have the easiest interfaces.

Top Audio And Video Converters For Mac

Surely a testament to Apple's design leadership? Although, interestingly enough, Apple's own Compressor is actually the most complex one - but that's because it also offers the most options. The two packages available as web downloads - MPEG Streamclip and HandBrake - are also feature-rich and, as a consequence, end up looking a little complicated to the uninitiated. But they both try hard to simplify the available options by offering presets (for HandBrake) and extensive menus (for MPEG Streamclip). Try as they might, they can't beat the simplicity of just dragging a file and clicking on 'Start'. There's actually more than one app designed with simplicity as its motto: Turbo.264 HD and Smart Converter take the crown here for a clean interface and easy options to choose from to select the right file format for your needs.

Test two: Available options How easy is it for the user to tweak their app? Not surprisingly, the simplest programs are the ones who offer the fewest options. Take Smart- Converter for instance: aside from the row of icons at the bottom, you have no customisation features available to you. Video Converter looks simple, but you can modify each preset. You can also crop your footage, trim it and apply simple effects to your clip - although this may be that program's least-used feature as you'd most likely be applying effects with your video-editing package.

Turbo.264 HD's option may appear limited, but select the Edit command and you'll be graced with numerous options, even embedding subtitles to your converted file (as long as they were present in the original). HandBrake is incredibly flexible: you have access to either basic parameters to improve the quality or speed up the conversion, preserve chapter markers or subtitles, but if this isn't enough, there's also an Advanced tab. Test three: Encoding speed If you've got a lot of work on, speed is of the essence For our tests, we've used a 34-minute Flash video and transformed it into a file that can be played back on an iPad. We've chosen the standard settings when available, then used each converter in turn on the same hardware (a 2.8GHz Intel Core 2 Duo MacBook Pro with 4GB or RAM) to see which one came out on top. Some apps have a system so when a file is finished, it'll start another.

Turbo.264 HD and Video Converter allow you to do this prior to the start of a conversion, but HandBrake and Compressor let you add, reorder and remove files as they're encoding. The fastest was Smart Converter at just over a minute, but that's because it was clever enough to recognise that the embedded content within the Flash file was already formatted as H.264, which is compatible with the iPad, so it simply updated the audio and it was good to go.

None of the others figured this out. Test four: Output quality After the conversions, how good did the results look? Speed may be an important factor when judging a video converter, but if the resulting file looks awful, then you've just wasted your time and your Mac's processing power. In order to test this fairly, we've had SmartConverter process a different type of file since it cleverly avoided altering the video in the previous test. In this test, we did our best to compare the original with its copy and see if we could discern any imperfection.

Top Audio And Video Converters For Mac Download

The conversions made with MPEG Streamclip and Video Converter were quite blocky when having to render large sections of the same or similar colour. Smart Converter's results were disappointingly poor, which means that app may be best suited to turn H.264-based Flash videos into proper H.264 ones. HandBrake's encoding was outstanding and even bested others whose converted files were twice as large, which means that the program's compression algorithms are truly excellent. The winner: HandBrake is king Despite its odd choice of name and the mysteries around the pineapple and cocktail as its choice of icon, HandBrake is the best video converter on the market. It's one of the fastest available, and its quality, even when using presets, is remarkable. But what makes this program stand out from the crowd is the sheer number of options at your disposal, which helps you create even smaller-sized files while preserving the quality as much as possible (even at half the standard quality, the results were still impressive).

It has a powerful queuing system so you can set up a series of files and let HandBrake work through the night for you, it can convert non-copy protected DVDs, and, best of all, it's free.

Kinds of reasons can be covered to get a free video converter for Mac. You might get a new movie on Mac but can't play it. You're likely to need to compress your video smaller so as to store and play on a limited storage device. You might expect to change a recorded video from a strange format to the one that can be more easily shared with others. Or you just want to encode your HD videos to HEVC codec on High Sierra for playing on your iPhone 8/X and or other modern HEVC players. Whatever the reasons, a free Mac video converter can make all things done.

However, many people put off converting videos since it's always mistaken to be complicated. We will get you through the best free video converter Mac 2018 to convert videos into various formats including MP4, MKV, FLV, MOV, DivX, AVI, AVCHD, WMV, MTS, M2TS and more. It serves as 2018 best free video converter to convert videos to MP4, MOV files playable on QuickTime and iPhone iPad iPod or any video audio format.

The not only lets you convert videos, but also trim, crop video, add watermark and external subtitle to the videos, customize the video quality. Fast converting speed and best video audio quality guaranteed. With the multi-core CPU (up to 8 cores), high quality engine, you're able to convert videos 15 faster with almost original quality reserved, even if you up to 50%. 100% clean and easy to use. The whole converting process can be done within 3 simple steps.

Best free video converter for macOS High Sierra. It's perfectly compatible with the latest macOS, including High Sierra, Sierra, El Capitan etc. Handbrake I bet is proverbially known to everyone who has ever been interested in video conversion.

The superiority of the open source and comes to function of both converting video files. Converts video from nearly any format to MP4 or MKV for playback on a number of popular devices, including iPhones, AppleTV, Android tablets etc. It features an abundance of video-editing tools for splicing, adjusting frame rate, and adding subtitles and assorted video effects.

You can also view the results in a live preview window before they officially take effect. A multi-platform video converter - compatible with Mac, Windows and Linux. BTW, you need to convert videos with other free video converter macOS High Sierra since Handbrake isn't available on High Sierra currently. DivX Converter never lets you down on converting videos to a number of formats. It comes equipped with DivX profiles for creating DivX, H.264 and HEVC videos compatible with more than 1 billion DivX Certified devices, including DVD players, DVD recorders, portable media players and even mobiles. It offers a simple way to convert digital videos like MOV, FLV, WMV, MP4 to/from DivX media format in high quality.

You're able to transcode videos on your own terms with the, such as set bitrate, limit video resolution and file size, combine multiple clips or rotate video before you convert. Canon eos d60 digital photo professional. It provides four modes to, which gives you even more control over when to maximize quality or prioritize speed. By adding MPEG-2 Plug-in on the free video converter Mac 2018, you'll be able to convert non-encrypted DVDs to DivX for a better digital backup of your personal video collection.

MediaCoder MeidaCoder is a universal free video converter on Mac which features with most cutting-edge audio/video technologies into an out-of-box transcoding solution with a rich set of adjustable parameters. No matter how old and obscure the format of that video you have lurking on an ancient hard drive, MediaCoder should be able to bring it bang up to date in next to no time. It delivers sheer speed to convert videos, thanks to the (QuickSync, NVENC, CUDA). It enables us to, MKV, AVI, FLV, WMV, MOV, etc.

Converters

Formats and enhance audio and video contents by various filters. This free Mac video converter 2018 attaches with extra features such as video joining, sound syncing, aspect ratio adjustment, and much more. Ripping BD/DVD/VCD/CD and capturing from video cameras. MediaCoder is also available on cross platforms, from Mac, Windows to Linux. Online-Convert (Based on Web) Online video converters always come to the popular choice for the free video converter.

And it cannot be omitted in 2018 as well. Throughout various free online video converters, is definitely qualified within the range of best free video converter Mac 2018. It can, AVI, WMV, TS, Mac's default QuickTime Player format MOV, M4V or other mainstream formats.

Both available to convert local video files and online videos from YouTube, Facebook, Vevo, Dailymotion, Myspace and more. The 2018 free online video converter also works well on edit videos like crop, cut, flip, rotate videos and, frame rate, size etc. Items MacX Video Converter Free Handbrake DivX Converter MediaCoder Video File Converter Input & Output format 180 video formats and 14 popular audio formats Popular video formats, DVD disc input, MP4/MKV output Popular video formats, Blu-ray disc, videos from cloud storage 70+ audio and video formats, storage media and streaming input Over 50 source formats Supported Devices Yes Yes No Yes No Parameter Adjustment Yes, change bitrate, resolution, frame rate, codec Yes, adjust parameters like codec, frame rate, quality etc.

Yes, change frame rate, bitrate Yes, change bitrate, resolution, frame rate, codec etc. Yes, adjut bitrate frame rate, codec etc.

Top Audio And Video Converters For Mac

Video Editing Features Yes, trim, crop, rotate, flip, merge, add watermark/subtitle Yes, but quite complicated Yes, crop, rotate, cut, watermark, subtitle Yes, crop, effect, subtitle Yes, rotate, cut, flip, crop video Batch Video Conversion Yes Yes Yes Yes No Pros 1. Convert any videos to any formats, devices; 2. 100% clean and safe for the converting process; 3.

Fast speed and best quality 1. Free and open source; 2. Convert video from nearly any format; 3. Windows, Mac and Linux supported 1. Blazing fast speed to encode/ videos; 2. Transcode HD videos, up to 4K 1.

H.264/H.265 GPU accelerated encoding 2. An extremely rich set of transcoding parameters for adjusting and tuning 1. Very ease-to-use; 2. No need to install any third-party applications Cons 1. Cannot import DVD, CD, Blu-ray disc; 2. No bonus functions like download video, record video, make slideshow etc.

Compared with Pro version. Limited output formats and devices; 2. / not in sync with the picture; 3. Program crash. Some ads are built in the program; 2. Recommends users to install upgrade version all the time 1.

The official page contains ads download button which is easy to be click errorly. Not safe enough, sometimes with adware, malware; 2.

Video Converter For Mac

You must login first; 2. Not so fast, it all depends on the Internet.