Config options
How much flexibility do they offer?
This is one of the few areas where none of the applications on test will disappoint. All the selected applications are flush with configurable options and offer enough flexibility to influence the video being transcoded. For instance, all of them allow you to select any of the supported containers, video codecs and audio codecs for the transcoded video. Furthermore, using any of the transcoders you can easily influence the aspect ratio and specify a custom video frame rate and bitrate and even embed a subtitle file.
Besides these features, FFMulti Converter also helps you quickly set up the transcoding task by giving the option to save the transcoded file in the same folder as the input file and to delete the original after transcoding. You can also ask the application to split the output video by a specified length.
Like FFMultiConverter, Handbrake has different tabs for specifying settings for the Picture, Video and Audio. Handbrake also has a pull-down list of optimised settings for common types of source materials, such as film, animation and still images. Just as with video, you can also use Handbrake to influence the bitrate and samplerate for the audio encoder as well.
QWinFF offers even more options for influencing the audio. You can manually adjust the volume and even influence its pitch (speed). The transcoder can convert all video and audio formats supported by FFmpeg. Furthermore, QWinFF enables you to transcode only a portion of the video by specifying the beginning and end times. The utility can also convert multiple files into the same output format simultaneously and also enables you to elect different output formats for each input file.
Even VLC which isn’t a dedicated transcoder like the others in this Roundup offers an impressive number of configurable parameters. You can use the media player to add an additional audio track to the video as well. VLC ‘s standout feature is that it can apply all kinds of filters to the video, eg you can give your videos an old movie effect; a warmer tone with the sepia effect; augment contrast by sharpening the video and over a dozen other effects.
Similarly you can use VLC to tweak the encoding parameters for the audio and choose from one of the dozen effects, such as the sound delay, volume normaliser etc. The one transcoder that has the least number of option is IFME. This only supports the H.265 codec and can output videos to either MKV or MP4.