Transcoding Video from One Format to Another

A knowledge base article about Transcoding Video from One Format to Another provided by the UC Berkeley IT Service Hub - Knowledge Portal

This content is no longer being updated. Please refer to the DIY Media website for help with general questions about video production. (For Kaltura questions, refer to the Kaltura Knowledgebase.)

This article will deal with transcoding video from one format to another and will inform about utilities available to do so.

Transcoding is simply the process of converting a video or audio file from one format to another. You may want to change the codec and use the same container type (or vice versa) or you may want to change both the codec and the container. Either way, its called transcoding or sometimes converting.

There are a variety of high quality video conversion utilities available, both free and paid. Some common examples are listed here. All of these are available for both the Mac and Windows. **

The Adobe Creative Suite is available for faculty, staff and GSIs via Software Central. This includes Adobe Media Encoder, a very powerful professional level application.
MPEG Streamclip is a free application that can transcode to and from nearly any format.
Handbrake is a great free utility for converting to .mp4 and .mkv files.

In addition, every editing application has the ability to output in most, if not all, codecs and most container types. There are certain limitations on some formats due to licensing requirements, but most of the formats are open source and unencumbered.

** ETS does not endorse, support or guarantee any of the software linked in this article. Use it at your own risk, use anti-virus software and please contact the manufacturer, your department or IS&T for support.

Important Accessibility Information

Instructors are encouraged to reference accesscontent.berkeley.edu for best practices and resources for making course content accessible. In particular, you should refer to http://accesscontent.berkeley.edu/resources/help-guides/video-captions-transcripts

and http://accesscontent.berkeley.edu/resources/help-guides/adding-descriptive-audio to ensure that your content will be accessible to all students who may be in your course (now and into the future). Keep in mind that it is harder and more expensive to make content accessible after-the-fact. Also, know that you are required to ensure your content is accessible if it will be made available to the public or if you have been notified by DSP that student accommodation is required.