media conversion Archives

Winsage

May 8, 2025

6 reasons I want Microsoft Plus back, even though I never had it growing up

Microsoft's evolution of Windows has included various enhancements and features over the years, originally exemplified by the Microsoft Plus! add-on package. Key features that could be included in a modern add-on pack are: - Ad-Free Experience: An option to eliminate advertisements from the Windows experience, addressing user frustration with prompts for subscriptions like Microsoft 365 or Game Pass. - Engaging Games: The potential to reintroduce classic games or develop new titles that provide a more engaging gaming experience without microtransactions and ads. - Dynamic Desktop Themes: The ability to create dynamic themes with animated wallpapers and custom frames, allowing for more personalized desktop experiences. - DVD Playback and Codec Support: Inclusion of DVD playback functionality and enhanced codec support for modern formats like H.265 and AV1, along with a transcoding tool for media conversion. - Enhanced Video Editing: Development of a robust, native video editing application similar to Windows Live Movie Maker, with advanced features and support for 4K exports.

Winsage

February 3, 2025

Windows 11’s new feature converts audio and videos for you via PowerToys

PowerToys is enhancing its Advanced Paste feature with a file transcoding capability that allows users to convert media files into mp3 and mp4 formats. The new options, Transcode to .mp3 and Transcode to .mp4 (H.264/AAC), will include custom keyboard shortcuts and aim to simplify the conversion process for media files copied to the clipboard. Users will see a progress bar during transcoding and can customize which options appear in Advanced Paste. The feature supports extracting audio from files to save as .mp3 and converting video files to .mp4 while preserving quality settings and metadata. It utilizes the Windows.Media.Transcoding API for these conversions.

Winsage

December 19, 2024

I used the command prompt to convert my media files on Windows, here’s how you can too

Windows Command Prompt can be used to convert media files into various formats using FFmpeg, an open-source multimedia framework. To set up FFmpeg on a Windows system, users must download it from the official FFmpeg website, extract the files, and create a folder for FFmpeg. The path to the FFmpeg "bin" folder must then be added to the system's Environment Variables to allow global access from the Command Prompt. To convert files, users can navigate to the folder containing the media files and use specific commands: - For images: ffmpeg -i Image.OriginalFormat Image.NewFormat - For audio: ffmpeg -i Audio.OriginalFormat Audio.NewFormat - For video: ffmpeg -i Video.OriginalFormat Video.NewFormat - To extract audio from a video: ffmpeg -i Video.OriginalFormat Audio.NewFormat FFmpeg supports various formats: - Image Formats: JPG/JPEG, PNG, TIFF, BMP, GIF, WebP, ICO, PPM, PGM, PBM, TGA - Audio Formats: MP3, AAC, WAV, OGG, FLAC, AC3, ALAC, WMA, AMR, AIFF, Opus, MP2, PCM, M4A, DTS - Video Formats: MP4, MKV, AVI, MOV, WMV, FLV, WebM, MPEG, OGG, 3GP, RM, TS, M2TS, VOB, DIVX, HEVC If the error "ffmpeg is not recognized as an internal or external command" occurs, it usually indicates a problem with the path configuration in the Environment Variables.