Here is a great tool for all you multimedia lovers out there. MediaCoder is an open-source application capable of transcoding audio/video files between several well known formats. It is also capable of doing some basic set of video editing, which include splitting and joining videos, resize, crop, rotate, etc. It also comes with in-build extension to help convert to popular video formats supported by various Mobile Phones, Digital Media Players, Game Consoles, Home Players, PDA etc. Various extensions are available to convert to specific models of these equipments. For example, it has pre-build extension to convert to iPhone, Nokia N70, PSP, Apple TV etc.
Interface
The interface looks quiet simple and easy to use. But, within a few seconds of its use, you can find how much complicated the interface gets. It might take some time to get used to the multi-tab based interface that it sports.
All you have to understand with the interface is that, when you change the tabs in the left section, the tabs in the right-section completely change to indicate all the options related to the topic you had chosen from the left tab. For example, if you choose Audio from the left tab, the right tab will show tabs for the audio formats that it supports transcoding to.
Also a bit confusing is the way the labels of various controls in these tab act. For example, if you choose the Audio tab, the Source, Encoder, Resample, Channel, etc. which are to left side of the various drop-down boxes, MediaCoder brings up advanced features related to these options.
Audio Conversion
MediaCoder features one of the best audio conversion system. It supports a wide range of formats to convert to: MP3, Vorbis, AAC, eAAC/AAC+, WMA, AMR, FLAC, APE, etc. It doesn't actually have its own convertors for any of these formats, but instead use the various freely available converts to do the job (e.g. MP3 can be encoded using LAME, Helix or Fraunhofer encoders).
One thing to remember when encoding audio only, is that you should go to the Video tab and unselect "Enable Video".
Video Conversion
First step to enable Video conversion is to go to the Video tab and select the "Enable Video" checkbox. For basic format conversion, this tab has option to choose the video format and the encoder. One thing to be very careful after this is that you should go to the audio tab and set a correct audio type that can be supported by the video type. For example, if you are converting to MPEG or XviD, you should choose LAME Mp3 from the audio tab.
Most of the other tabs within the interface are also related to Video Conversion. One important section is the Picture tab. It has options to resize, crop, change frame rate, aspect ratio etc. You can even use the Cropper button to play the movie in an in-build player and crop it interactively.
The Time tab is a very useful section if you want to cut a part of the video. It is specified by providing the Start Position and Stop Position times. If these seems difficult, you can use the "Select" button to interactively choose the section you want to cut.
Summary
Although its interface might seem a bit complicated for some people, it is one feature rich audio/video converter. Just play around a bit with the interface and you could get used with it.
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