Batch save as… with SimpleMovieX

SimpleMovieX can do a lot of things if you combine two or more operations. Let’s see an example:

Batch command lets you export files into a new format. (usually through re-encoding, a slow and lossy process in terms of quality)
Save as… lets you save the document file to a new format, for example AVI to MOV, or MOV to MP4. A fast, lossless process, because we use native saving.

But what if you want to Save as… in batch mode? in other words, change the format of a collection of files?
Imagine that we have 20 AVI files to save in MOV format.

The answer is not obvious: You have to combine 2 apparently unrelated features of SimpleMovieX: Merging and Splitting with chapters.

1. Drop all AVI files in a blank document window
The files are merged and a chapter marker with the filename is created for each file.

2. In Chapters pane, do Split into movies…
Select the folder, MOV as format, then specify $name$ as filename to have SimpleMovieX use the chapter name (in fact the original file name) as filename.

3. It should work.

The design philosophy of SimpleMovieX is to keep things … simple. I prefer to limit the number of commands and options, but you can still achieve great results, if you combine them together.

Merging and Splitting is a way to apply an operation to a collection of movies. First putting them together, applying the operation, finally stitching them back and saving.

Other applications of “Merging and Splitting”: Set identical tags or movie information to a collection of files. Resize them. and so on…