QWinFF is a GUI for FFmpeg [1], a command line media converter. FFmpeg can read audio and video files in various formats and convert them into other formats. For example, you can convert video downloaded from the Internet into audio files for your mobile phone.
QWinFF comes with a set of predefined presets to help you quickly convert media files without having to know the details. These presets defines what arguments should be passed to ffmpeg for each output format. In case you want to adjust the details (bitrate, audio volume, etc.), QWinFF lets you edit conversion parameters for each individual task.
Currently QWinFF runs on GNU/Linux and Microsoft Windows [2].
| [1] | http://www.ffmpeg.org/ |
| [2] | Windows is a registered trademark of Microsoft Corporation in the United States and other countries. |
When you start QWinFF, you will see the Main Window. At the top of the Main Window is the Toolbar, which contains most common operations you will need. Below the Toolbar is the Task List. The Task List is used to display all conversion tasks. At the bottom-right corner, there is a Start button. At the bottom of the window is the Status Bar.
The first thing to do is add some files to convert. You can do it by either clicking on the Add button on the Toolbar or drag-and-drop files into the Task List. After adding all files you want to convert, Add Tasks Dialog will appear. You can select the output container format (Convert To) and the output configuration (Preset). Then, select the desired output folder and press Finish.
Note
You can select multiple files in the Open File dialog and add them all at once.
When you have added some tasks, click the Start button and the conversion will start. Conversion progress of each task will be shown in the progress bar entry in the Task List. After a task has finished, double-click on it to open the output folder. If a conversion fails, you can view the error message by moving the mouse pointer over the progress bar or right-click on the task and select Show Error Message.
The task list shows all conversion tasks. Each task has some attributes like Source, Destination, Duration and Progress shown in different columns. You can reorder the columns by dragging the header items. Also it is possible to select which columns to display by right-clicking on the header of the task list. Available columns and their meaning are described as follows:
The first section of the Add Tasks dialog is a list of files to be added. You can click on the Add button to add more files or click on the Remove button to remove files. When you are finished, click Next to enter the next section.
The second section contains settings related to the output file.
New in version 0.1.9.
There are 3 choices of how the output folder is generated.
The first choice is Select Folder, which means you can assign a fixed output folder. If you select this one, the tasks will be output to the folder you choose.
The second choice is Create new folder in source folder. If you select this option, a new folder will be created in the parent folder of each input file. Each output file will be output to the new folder for its input file.
The third choice is Output to source folder. This option is similar to the second one, except it doesn’t create a new folder. Each output file is placed in the same directory as its input file.
QWinFF automatically renames a output file if a file with the same filename already exists in the output folder. You don’t have to worry about overwriting existing files.
Installed files are placed differently on different platforms. On GNU/Linux, the program executable is installed in <prefix>/bin and data files are installed in <prefix>/share/qwinff. The <prefix> part depends on the packager, and the most common prefix is /usr. On Microsoft Windows, all files, including the executable file and data files, are placed in the installation directory you choose, and the default is C:\Program Files (x86)\QWinFF or C:\Program Files\QWinFF.
The contents of the data directory are described as follows:
Program settings are saved separately for each user. On GNU/Linux, the settings file is ~/.qwinff/qwinff.ini. The installed version on Windows saves the settings in .qwinff\qwinff.ini in the user’s home directory, while the portable version saves the settings in qwinff.ini in the program directory.
Presets of QWinFF are written in presets.xml in the program installation directory. The format and structure of presets.xml is compatible with the preset file of WinFF [1]. This means you can copy any WinFF preset to presets.xml and use it in QWinFF. In fact, most QWinFF presets are taken from WinFF with little or no modification.
A preset contains the following fields:
The preset described above is then written in the preset file like this:
<WebMGeneric>
<label>WebM Generic</label>
<params>-vcodec libvpx -acodec libvorbis -aq 90 -ac 2</params>
<extension>webm</extension>
<category>Websites</category>
</WebMGeneric>
Note
The preset tag name (WebMGeneric) is chosen arbitrarily. Also, there is no need to make preset tag names unique. For example, it’s OK to name all of them preset.
It is better to include codec information in params (e.g. -vcodec libvpx), because QWinFF checks whether the installed ffmpeg supports the codec. If any one of the -acodec or -vcodec isn’t supported, the preset will be hidden.
| [1] | http://winff.org |
Copyright (C) 2013 by Timothy Lin, all rights reserved.
Related Artwork and the QWinFF Logo are designed by kuanyui.
QWinFF is heavily influenced by WinFF [1], another ffmpeg GUI frontend. Most of the presets used in QWinFF are directly copied from WinFF presets. The name QWinFF also comes from the notion that it is a program similar to WinFF and written in Qt.
QWinFF is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation, either version 2 or 3 of the License.
QWinFF is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details.
This document is licenced under the GNU Free Documentation License, either version 1.3 or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation.
FFmpeg is a separate project, not connected to QWinFF. FFmpeg is licensed under the LGPL version 2.1, and some optional parts of it are covered by the GPL. FFmpeg is a trademark of Fabrice Bellard, originator of the FFmpeg project.
SoX [2], the Swiss Army knife of audio manipulation, is used by QWinFF to process audio under some conditions. SoX is licensed under the GPL; either version 2, or any later version.
| [1] | http://winff.org |
| [2] | http://sox.sourceforge.net |