Nowadays it is important that you’re able to convert the formats that your videos are in. It is the best way to ensure that you can play videos in any format, and on any of the devices that you use. On top of that it can be especially useful if you intend to publish videos online or distribute them in other ways.
That being said if you are going to be converting video formats, it is important that you avoid several mistakes that are all too common and could impact your videos in various ways:
Not using a format with hardware support
For a video to be compatible its format must be able to be decoded and played on the device. However what most people don’t realize is that video formats can be decoded in two ways: Software or hardware.
While software decoding will let you play the video, it is processor intensive and will consume a lot of power. On the other hand hardware decoding (i.e. hardware acceleration) is more efficient and requires less power.
Ideally you should use formats that have hardware support – especially on battery-powered mobile devices.
Converting the same video file repeatedly
Every time you convert the codec that the video is stored in the data will be decoded and then recompressed using the new codec’s compression. Because in most cases you’ll be using lossy compression – some data will be discarded.
That can start to add up if you keep converting the exact same video file over and over again between various formats. Eventually it will start to affect the video quality.
In order to avoid this issue, you should always convert copies from the original video – so that you never get to the point where the quality deteriorates in this way.
Altering the video settings
As far as possible you should avoid altering the other video settings when you convert your video, as it can have unintended side effects. Adjusting the video resolution can make it look blurry, adjusting the frame rate can make the video seem to skip frames or stutter, and reducing the bitrate will cause the appearance of compression artifacts.
If you do need to adjust the video settings – it should be done carefully. Even then some settings such as the frame rate are notoriously difficult to alter without affecting the video itself.
It is important that you try to avoid all of these mistakes when you are converting videos between any formats. In fact it would be worth trying it in practice, and for example you can use Movavi Video Converter to convert videos based on the steps at www.movavi.com/support/how-to/how-to-convert-mov-to-avi.html.
If you are able to ensure that you don’t make the mistakes described above, you should be able to preserve the quality of your videos more effectively. Additionally you will be able to convert videos into a format that is not only ‘compatible’ but has hardware support and is perfect for mobile devices.