I have a ton of movies to send to my daughter, but many are too big to go on a FAT formated USB drive (4 gig limit).
Being a Ubuntu user I looked for a free tool and found HandBrake
"HandBrake is an open-source, GPL-licensed, multiplatform, multithreaded video transcoder, available for MacOS X, Linux and Windows."
It appears that it was created as a Mac tool to rip and burn DVDs but has been ported to Windows and Linux also.
The defaults are set to converting to some sort of Ipod format (.mp4) but after a bit I found it also will also easily decimate a 8 gig Matroska file (.mkv) into a 700 mg file.
I am now in the process of converting more than a dozen large files on a local hard drive directly to the USB drive that will be going in the mail this evening... just what the doctor ordered!
I have not tried the Windows version but I expect it will be a simple and easy tool also.
I played around with that on our mac, with limited success.. got any tips to share?
These are the settings I am using for my decimate project.
Click on Source and either navigate to the file or drag and drop.
I am using MKV file type, target size is CD compatible...
The pull down for destination gives you a list and a navigation window, it is now directed to a folder on the USB drive.
the Show Queue button gives this view.
I did a complete shut down and restart while it was running (yes, it warned me). When I was booted again I restarted the program and found it had retained the settings and status but it was unable to continue the conversion in process.
I did make several false starts but they escape me...
again, I am using Ubuntu 10.04 64 bit... I expect Mac and Windows to be similar but different.
PS: this is a CPU intensive program, use the pause/start button before doing anything needing much CPU power or it will appear to lock up:
thanks, I've got to play around with this.
