Converting video formats nowadays is really quite easy and there are lots of user-friendly tools out there that you can use. In fact you don’t even really have to fully understand video formats in order to convert them to suit your needs.
That being said if you are going to convert video formats for any reason, there are a few tips that you should keep in mind:
- Check for hardware support if necessary
For a video format to be ‘compatible’ with a certain device, its data needs to be able to be decoded – either using software or hardware. While both will allow you to play your video, it is always a good idea to check for hardware support as it requires less processing power.
Keep this tip in mind especially if your video is going to be watched on mobile devices – as you don’t want it to drain your battery too significantly by only using software decoding. On older or less powerful computers it can help to have hardware support as well.
- Don’t discard the original video
Unless you are absolutely sure you don’t need it (and won’t ever need it in the future) you shouldn’t discard the original video. It is the highest quality copy of the video that you have available and should be stored safely.
The exception is if you’re just converting a video someone sent you and intend to only watch it once then discard it entirely. However if it is a video intend to keep, it is always best to keep the original copy.
For important videos you may even want to consider backing-up the original video file. Try to use the 3-2-1 backup rule if you do, to ensure that it is safe.
- Try not to transcode the same video repeatedly
When a video is transcoded (i.e. converted to a different codec) – its data is decoded and then re-encoded using the compression of the new codec. Because both codecs are likely to use lossy compression, it will mean that some data is discarded in the process.
If you transcode the same video file repeatedly the data that is lost will start to add up and could affect its quality. That is why you should try not to transcode the same video file, and should instead transcode videos from the original video – if you kept it.
If you need a user-friendly video converter you can try Movavi Video Converter. In fact you can see how easy it is to convert MOV to MP4 in 3 simple steps with its help. Aside from that its features will also allow you to compress videos, convert audio and image files, and edit videos in basic ways to prepare them for use.
Just be sure that you keep the tips described above in mind when you do next convert any video. As you can see each of them will help you to ensure that you are able to convert videos effectively while avoiding any issues – especially in the long term.
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