Convert QuickTime Videos to AVI for Free

Posted by Matt Deimel on 03/12/06 in Freeware, Software, Tutorials

After taking some short video clips with my Nikon Coolpix 4300 I wanted to splice them together into a small production. The problem was that my camera only records in QuickTime, and my editing software doesn’t accept that format. So the seemingly simple task of converting the .MOV files to a workable format (such as .AVI) began. I quickly learned that most conversion programs are not free, and the demos typically have a banner at the bottom of the converted file advertising their product. When all seemed lost I happened to stumble across RAD Video Tools, a piece of software that makes the conversion of QuickTime videos to AVI fast and easy. The best part is, it’s free!

RAD Video Tools

The RAD Video Tools consists of a conversion program that will quickly convert QuickTime video to a multitude of different formats, most importantly .AVI. This article will cover:

  • a quick overview of how to use this software
  • conversion format comparison
  • extra features

How To Use The Software

Obviously the first step will be to download the software at RAD View’s Site. Install, and open the application. Here you will be able to enter several file types, but this article is geared towards QuickTime conversion. So select your .MOV file and click ‘Convert a file’.

Rad View Convert

Now select the ‘Output type’, here we’ll use ‘AVI file’, but the list gives a foretaste of the extra features section.

Rad View Output Type

Rad View Output Selection

Then click ‘Convert’. Another window will be pop up requesting the Compressor to be used for the output video. The details of each option will be discussed shortly.

Rad View Video Compression

Click ‘OK’ to begin conversion.

Rad View File Done

Conversion Format Comparison

The original test video I used was 10.2 MB in size, and contained no sound. I then ran the same file through all of the compression types. The compression type, time, and output file sizes are below. Keep in mind that these tests were run on a Toshiba Satellite Laptop with a Pentium III processor, 196MB of RAM, running Windows 2000…not a stellar machine by any standards.

Conversion Ratios:

Rad View Compression Tests

If you look closely through the list, you’ll see not all of the compression formats are listed. That is because they didn’t work for me, for one reason or another, probably due to missing codecs.

Extra Features

The RAD Video Tools offer features well beyond the scope of this article. A few noteworthy features include:

  • Outputing to image files (e.g. BMP, GIF, JPEG, TGA, TIFF, PCX, PNG). Although this process is extremely time intensive, it will convert each frame into that file type. This is a much better approach to retrieve good quality individual frames from a movie, instead of taking a screenshot of a paused video. If you’re only looking for a specific shot, I recommend cutting the video down to the shortest form possible to save on processing time.

  • “Tweakability” of the converted video. RAD allows the following features to take place while the conversion is occuring:

  • Cropping of the frame size
  • Selecting the beginning and ending frames
  • Adjusting contrast and brightness

  • Changing the quality of the sound

  • Several of the compressions also allowed for a manual quality setting. In the above list some examples are given. This is particularly nice if you want to get an internet/streaming video down to the smallest acceptable size.

Closing Thoughts

While this article only touched the surface of RAD Video Tools’ usefulness, it does give an introduction to one feature that is usually difficult to accomplish with most other software packages. It was accomplished with minimal effort, and had surprisingly good results.

I have no ties with the company that produces this product, but it’s worth mentioning that if you do use the RAD Video Tools application and feel inclined to support it, they do accept donations on their website.

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71 Comment(s)

  1. Eric | Mar 16, 2006 | Reply

    This is a great program tha I use in my box of tools. Quick time is crap for people that video edit. But for what reason I do not know it seems that every digital camera maker use it.

  2. Anonymous | Mar 16, 2006 | Reply

    You know, FREE was the queue word there.

  3. Anonymous | Mar 16, 2006 | Reply

    I was wondering how to convert those crappy quicktime videos my digital camera makes. Thanks for taking the time to post this.

  4. Anonymous | Mar 17, 2006 | Reply

    two other free programs that can do the exact same thing

    -blender 3d (non-linear video editor function) -virtual dub

    and i’m sure there’s more out there.

  5. Anonymous | Mar 18, 2006 | Reply

    sooooooooooooo lame and old… eo video is better… go check it out

  6. Anonymous | Mar 18, 2006 | Reply

    QuickTime is fine for people who video edit. Unless you’re using a badly designed peice of software such as windows movie maker.

  7. Anonymous | Mar 18, 2006 | Reply

    Thanks, now I can finaly watch quicktime videos on my Axim.

  8. nicola | Mar 28, 2006 | Reply

    this really helped i had been wanting to convert my quicktime videos for ages , thanks alot!

  9. TommyGirl | Mar 30, 2006 | Reply

    This is a great program! Thank you so much for sharing..

  10. Anonymous | Mar 30, 2006 | Reply

    said its free , but where is the link to download?

  11. Matt Deimel | Mar 31, 2006 | Reply

    There is a hyperlink on the first line under “How To Use The Software”, but for extra ease, here it is again:

    http://www.radgametools.com/bnkdown.htm

  12. Sora H. | Apr 4, 2006 | Reply

    Thank you. I was trying to find a way to convert without paying for Quicktime Pro, and all I was finding were these lame demos. =P This really helped. Thanks.

  13. Donna L. | Apr 8, 2006 | Reply

    Hi, I’m having no luck emailing a quicktime video that my digital camera shot at a concert. AOL says the files too big and can’t send and Outlook Express keeps dropping the connection when I try to send it. I tried to zip it, but it seemed to stay the same size. Any suggestions?
    Do I need to convert it? Great helpful article if you are looking to convert. Thanks for any help you can offer.

  14. Matt Deimel | Apr 17, 2006 | Reply

    Donna, unfortunately converting your QuickTime video to AVI will make the file larger, and even more difficult to send in an email. QuickTime is a compression for video, it is similar to using a program like WinZip for files.

    As for emailing the current video, you have a couple of options. 1) Cut up the video into smaller pieces and send each of those to the recipient (time consuming), or 2) Use a third party to send the file, such as http://www.yousendit.com/ This service will allow you to send 50mB files to someone else for free. I have never used this service, so I can’t speak to its usefulness or validity, but I would recommend reading the terms of agreement before trying it. Occasionally a service like this will give themselves rights to use anything you upload for their own purposes.

    Hope this helps.

  15. Andy Atkinson | Apr 17, 2006 | Reply

    You could also try Box.net. Matt Thommes wrote this review of box.net, and concluded that the service is great (and free!). Once you create an account at box.net, you could upload your video and make it a public or private share, depending on your needs.

  16. Blakes20 | May 8, 2006 | Reply

    Totally great tutorial. Nice and easy software. Helped me crank on a project. I appreciate it! Blakes20

  17. Anonymous | May 23, 2006 | Reply

    Livid’s BEU does this and more http://lividinstruments.com/software_batch.php

  18. Rhett Maxwell | Jun 29, 2006 | Reply

    I’ve written an automator action that will convert movies to any format that quicktime pro supports. You can use it to create workflows that will convert movies and then email them to someone, or upload them somewhere. It could also be used to convert movies to iPod format.

    QuickTime Export Automator Action

  19. Stacey | Jul 20, 2006 | Reply

    I tried to convert a 20 minute long video [151MB] and it only converted 1 minute and 7 seconds of it. Is there a file size limit?

  20. Robin | Jul 23, 2006 | Reply

    Thanks for sharing. I’ve just downloaded and runned it. It works very good.

  21. RichK | Jul 28, 2006 | Reply

    This software works great,better than some I paid for previously.Got one problem,how to SPLIT a MOV clip but leave it in QUICK TIME format.

  22. José Carlos Hernández | Jul 28, 2006 | Reply

    Great !!, Perfect !!!

    Thank you very much….

  23. Michelle | Jul 30, 2006 | Reply

    Did everything you said to…but it didn’t convert it. Not even a little :D I’m probably doing something wrong. I need to convert them to use in Windows Movie Maker and after i convert them they still won’t work in it. Any ideas…?

  24. Anthony | Sep 4, 2006 | Reply

    Thanks for article to convert Quicktime files. I’m trying to convert a 3GPP file taken on my SonyEricsson phone. It came with Quicktime but have tried RAD Video Tools and it doesn’t see this format. Any ideas?

  25. Mark | Sep 5, 2006 | Reply

    I tried this program several times and all my converted files have choppy sound and video. Anyone else had this issue? Any way around it?

  26. Matt Deimel | Sep 5, 2006 | Reply

    Can you provide some more information, file size, hardware specs, how long the convert process is taking? This might shed some light on what the issue is. If you want me to try converting the file you can send it to mdeimel@gmail.com (if it’s under 10 mb).

  27. travis | Sep 16, 2006 | Reply

    same thing happend to me. it only converted 2 seconds of my 1:30 long video. and i’ve tried everything only to get the same result.

  28. Dave | Oct 10, 2006 | Reply

    When I convert the quicktime file to avi, it converts only five minutes of it. The original file is just under 30 mins. Help?

  29. Bill | Oct 21, 2006 | Reply

    Since the conversion results in a much larger file, you may be running into a 4GB file size limitation of a FAT32 partition. You could try using an NTFS partition if you’re not already.

  30. Greg | Oct 22, 2006 | Reply

    I’ve used the conversion to avi no problems but the file size is huge - when using the compression options you loose quite a bit of quality - I’ve only tried a few, is there one you would recommend for best quality?

  31. Anonymous | Oct 31, 2006 | Reply

    Thank you so much for this post!!! It did everything you said! And best of all it’s 100% free! I actually paid for converters to do the same exact thing, and half of them didn’t work! THANK YOU SO MUCH!!!

  32. littlegeekyguy | Nov 3, 2006 | Reply

    Thanx man, that was just wat i was looking for, awesome. thanx a bunch, i have the same problem with my camera. quicktime sucks!

  33. midwest | Nov 9, 2006 | Reply

    after i convert a video from quicktime to avi. The quality of the video is really blurry.? and it is not good enough blur to even use in adobe premiere pro! HELP

  34. Anonymous | Jan 2, 2007 | Reply

    Hey Old Lame, What part of free don’t you understand?????

  35. WhiteWolf | Jan 3, 2007 | Reply

    Does anyone know if this can convert real player ? and if not does anyone know a program that can ? can anyone help ?!?

  36. Matt Deimel | Jan 4, 2007 | Reply

    I did a little searching, and found the following programs. I haven’t tried any of them yet, but they all appear to be free, so there’s no harm in giving them a shot.

    MediaCoder http://mediacoder.sourceforge.net/

    MMConvert http://mmconvert.sourceforge.net/en_us/

    SUPER (C) http://www.erightsoft.net/SUPER.html#Dnload

    Real7ime Converter (R7C) http://r7cproj.euro.ru/indexe.htm

  37. Anonymous | Jan 7, 2007 | Reply

    I have tried to convert a quick time file which is about 1 minute and 43 MB. The AVI file after the conversion lags a lot. The audio is quicker than the video and it doesn’t play smoothly. Can anyone help?

  38. Kornelia | Jan 8, 2007 | Reply

    Thanks for the great advice which I found googling desperately for a program that could quickly convert my mov files into avi. It is great!

  39. Warren | Jan 8, 2007 | Reply

    Thanks - This program workes well for me and has been easy to use.

  40. Liane | Jan 17, 2007 | Reply

    THANK YOU SO MUCH !!!! I can’t afford to pay for the other converters. My Digital Camara is broke and I can only take movie clips on my cell. they are in Quick time format. Well after 28 years I finally found my sister in germany , we’ve been sending Pictures and they also send me a video, I wanted to do the same now Thanks to you, I can. I downloaded the clips from my phone provider and after QUICKLY converting them pasted them together in moviemaker. now I can send the file to my sister. Again, Thank you for your awesome gift! Big Hug, Liane

  41. Marcus T. | Jan 25, 2007 | Reply

    I converted the files to AVI But it still wont play on Windows Media Player Or Windows Movie Maker because it says the file is not valid or corrupted. How do i get it to work?

  42. Steve | Jan 28, 2007 | Reply

    Thank you for the suggestion, the program is exactly what I was looking for!

    A quicktime video (100Mb) has been converted in few minutes in a DivX video (18Mb) with a single pass high quality setting.

    :-)

  43. Anonymous | Jan 31, 2007 | Reply

    Can I take just the audio part from a .mov file to import into my nano? TIA

  44. Etripp | Feb 20, 2007 | Reply

    You can extract the audio from any .mov file by using iMovie - video editing software found on any Mac with OSX. Simply select Advanced -> Extract Audio from the menu in iMovie.

  45. Marius | Mar 9, 2007 | Reply

    Hello people!

    I had a question about this program. I converted a quicktime movie to a .avi. In quicktime format the movie was 84,4 mb after I converted it it was 1,9 gb. Can i change that, to a smaller avi format or is that just the effect of making a .avi

    i hope you guys understand me.. :)

    Thanks, Marius

  46. some guy | Mar 22, 2007 | Reply

    I am using a Toshiba satellite, and when i convert quicktime files to avi the sound qualty is bad… its soooo choppy. what do i do? If I convert it to WMV the sound is perfectly fine, and thats good and all, but ofcourse, theres no picture.

  47. Peter | Mar 29, 2007 | Reply

    I had a Kodak camera and the conversion was with all kinds of problems. Now I have a Nikon camera, tried again and it is perfect for me.

  48. Anonymous | Mar 29, 2007 | Reply

    There is a lot of ignorance on this Forum. QuickTime is not crap, it is the tool many professionals in the movie industry use. Nothing wrong with .avi, but you are being led astray if you think its better just because MicroSoft is trying to control formats to suit themselves.

  49. Stephy | Apr 3, 2007 | Reply

    Thank you so much! i had this stupid program that came with my camera that did this but it took hours and im not even joking! i have been wondering if there was a program like this for ages. thanx again!

  50. Jearl | Apr 18, 2007 | Reply

    I recently bought a Panasonic VDR-D230 video camera. After recording a video onto a mini-DVD, I can get it to play in Windows Media Player, but I can’t figure out how to save the file to a place on my computer so that I can download it into the RAD video tool to convert the Quicktime File into AVI for editing. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Thank you.

  51. Moni | Apr 25, 2007 | Reply

    This is so nice that you made this possible. Finally I can put some more files at youtube, and get motion and audio in sync. I hate that when you film it’s made as a qiucktime file. This program really works! Nice!!!! Thank you!!!!

  52. Q | Apr 30, 2007 | Reply

    Does exactly what it says on the tin.

    thankyou

  53. Anonymous | May 10, 2007 | Reply

    SUPER is a GREAT program. By far the most powerful transcoder I’ve used, it just takes some time to find the download link on their site and then to get used to the interface. I’ve been looking for a Mac OSX build or alternative to this, but cannot find one.

  54. Mark | May 11, 2007 | Reply

    Downloaded but crashes when I try and convert quicktime files from my Pentax Optio camera, but works fine with files from my old Nikon. Tried various files from the Pentax. Any thoughts?

  55. Anonymous | May 12, 2007 | Reply

    when i click “convert file” it just quits….anyone know how to solve that?

  56. Anonymous | May 22, 2007 | Reply

    OMG -same! it keeps quitting on me everytime i click “convert a file”. gahhh. what do i do? in dire need of converting the files! =/

  57. Anonymous | May 28, 2007 | Reply

    Quicktime is used so much because it’s good software, easy to program with and very advanced at the same time. Too bad there are too many scrwd people around because to them quicktime is just Quicktime Player. Quicktime is a collection of things such as video and audio standards, applications and formats. A lot of programs use it because they’ll never use crappy windows/microsoft things for audio/video. Some of you might say: ‘well, then have everyone use open-source audio/video things’ however that cannot be used since the license does not allow usage within a closed-source application.

  58. larissa | Jun 1, 2007 | Reply

    it converted my MOV to AVI… but as the sound is going at a normal rate, watching the frames are going WAY too slow. Am I converting it wrong, like the wrong Coversion Format or something? thnx

  59. X | Jun 7, 2007 | Reply

    AVI video lags? Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on January 7, 2007 - 9:25pm. I have tried to convert a quick time file which is about 1 minute and 43 MB. The AVI file after the conversion lags a lot. The audio is quicker than the video and it doesn’t play smoothly. Can anyone help?

    I had the same problem as above…and wanted to know if there is a solution!

  60. Anonymous | Jun 19, 2007 | Reply

    Any idea can this software convert quick time to Mp4? OR any free software that does it?

  61. jared | Jun 19, 2007 | Reply

    ok so heres what hapens i convert my quiktime file into an avi but it duzt work or somthing or duz it double its self and go into another file can some 1 help me?

  62. Anonymous | Jun 20, 2007 | Reply

    I have the same problem

  63. Gary | Jun 20, 2007 | Reply

    Does anyone know any software that can convert avi to mp4 or quick time straight to mp4?

  64. Anonymous | Jun 23, 2007 | Reply

    what i did was change the format to Xvi DMPEG-4 Codec and everything worked fine afterwards!

  65. Denis | Jul 7, 2007 | Reply

    Great program - very powerfull and though very fast! I was fascinated how fast Bink Video converted my .mov’s to .avi - probably 2-3 times faster than other tools I tried and it is free! I personally want to donate them.

  66. RONALD MOUNT | Oct 9, 2007 | Reply

    I have tried it but the file size is huge after conversion and the computer cannot handle it. Jerks and out of sync. However I read somewhere that if you just change the end of the filename .mov to .mpg or .avi it will play perfectly but for some reason it cannot be loaded into the editor. I do it now because it takes less than a second [clips]to start instead of 3 seconds when showing with gphotoshow, also, when labeled as mpg or avi the thumbs show unlike the move files which don’t [in windows explorer] The mov files tend to hesitate on flowing water with my machine and I have heard that the quicktime codec uses a lot of processor time and causes this effect.

  67. Matt | Oct 27, 2007 | Reply

    Well, it did convert to AVI but screwed with the Horizontal Hold and the bottom half was purple.. Still experimenting with some of the different types of compressions(not sure if thats the word I mean) but if anyone knows a sure way to convert 946mb (16:12) .MOV on this program (with certainty) let me know please

  68. telstar | Oct 29, 2007 | Reply

    Use Super (http://www.erightsoft.com/SUPER.html). Amazing that program - and free!

  69. jiboner akibuki | Nov 12, 2007 | Reply

    Nice one !! But where can I download the software from??. I wish to publish my digital camera videos on my blog.

  70. anyone | Dec 5, 2007 | Reply

    Just tried to convert a short .mov to .avi and it doesn’t work. The video is in slow motion and about 3 sec long, the original is about 2 mins in length. I used a Kodak Z812 camera. It seems this program works for a lot you, but it didn’t go as smoothly for me, any ideas out there as to why?

  71. person | Dec 5, 2007 | Reply

    Actually, forget this software, I found a much better one called Prism, and it worked flawlessly, where as this program does not, too finicky.

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