Video converting Options

[Mata]

For some reason, my system is having some serious problems converting files. I'm trying to use River Past to convert mkv files into avi or mp4, but it always makes my system crash. I have previously had the same problem when tring to use several different pieces of software to convert avi format into wmv.

What would cause conversion software to crash when converting video, and how do I fix it?

[Witless]

At a guess it is probably your graphics card, I have had similar problems since I upgraded my graphics card recently. Suddenly my video editing software started having serious issues rendering out video and converting file formats. I fixed the problem by uninstalling windows media player and then wiping all the codecs on my computer (windows media player keeps its own copy of codecs even if you uninstall them). After reinstalling them with my new graphics card installed everything seemed to work fine and dandy inside all my adobe apps.

If it's not that then I am stumped.

[Mata]

I've not had a new graphics card for years - I'm still using the one that came with my mother board! I can watch all the different format movies, I just can't seem to convert between them. 'Tis very odd.

[mooooooooooopo]

I can't see any good reason that the graphics card would cause or even be related to the problem. Modern graphics cards provide support for 3D graphics accelleration (and as an offshoot 2D too) but none of what they do is very beneficial to video conversion software. It's much more optimal to do all the processing on the CPU for that sort of task.

In my experience the decoder part of codecs tends to be a lot more stable than the (en)coder. I would suggest trying different codecs and different versions of them. It's also worth considering that the conversion software may be the cause, it is after all the common factor here. I've never used River Past so I don't know how stable it is but there are others out there that may work better for you.

Bear in mind that lots of people use codecs to watch videos whereas far fewer use them for encoding and those that do tend to be of a certain mindset where instability is 'part of the challenge' (like people who use PCs or drive classic cars >_>).

I've had reasonable success with FlaskMPEG and VirtualDub, though Flask tends to get horribly unstable but usually in a predicatable way caused by certain options.

[Witless]

I can't see any good reason that the graphics card would cause or even be related to the problem. Modern graphics cards provide support for 3D graphics accelleration (and as an offshoot 2D too) but none of what they do is very beneficial to video conversion software. It's much more optimal to do all the processing on the CPU for that sort of task.

Tis because your video and graphics drivers are related to your graphics card, and in turn are related to play back of video. Changing your cards or updates in graphics drivers can mess around your ability to deal with certain codecs. Tis a right pain when you update your graphics card but stuff like adobe premiere suddenly runs into all number of errors when trying to use certain codecs. Happens to me everytime, and what I suggested normally fixes the issue with me.

[Mata]

The same thing happened with a couple of different conversion packages, so I'm assuming that it was something to do with the codec. I've downloaded a new codec pack so maybe that will help. I'll give it a go at a point when it wouldn't cripple my computer inconveniently. It's certainly a weird one - all of a sudden one day it just stopped working. Most odd.

[Poppa Moo]

I know this is a bit of a late reply but thought it may be helpful if anyone is searching the forum for any similar prblem.

If you're having trouble codec-wise then the best way I have found to solve these issues is to install the K-Lite codec pack, (www.codec-guide.com). The package includes almost all video codecs known to man, and includes the excellent Media Player Classic for playing video (which is more stable than VLC).