MP4 to MPG Converter

Kept

• H.264, H.265 (HEVC, the iPhone and Android default) and other common codecs are read
• MPEG-2 video (6 Mbps) with MP2 stereo audio at 48 kHz, the DVD-era standard for old players and editing tools
• The original resolution is kept, up to 1920 pixels wide
• A phone video recorded sideways or upside down is turned the right way up

Good to know

• The frame rate is set to the nearest standard MPEG-2 rate (24, 25, 30, 50 or 60 fps). Frames wider than 1920 pixels are scaled down to 1920.
• MPEG-2 compresses far less than H.264, so the file is much larger than an MP4 of the same clip.
• The Windows Media Player app needs the MPEG-2 extension from the Microsoft Store. VLC plays it without extras.
• The video is re-encoded, which is slightly lossy. Only one video track and one audio track are kept; extra audio tracks and subtitles are left out.
• A width or height that is an odd number of pixels is trimmed by one pixel, because video encoders need even sizes.
• HDR video (for example from a recent iPhone) is converted to normal SDR colors, and 10-bit video becomes 8-bit, so it plays everywhere.
• Audio with more than two channels (5.1 surround) is mixed down to stereo.
• Files up to 150 MB are accepted. Long or very high-resolution videos can take several minutes, and a conversion that runs past about 4 minutes is stopped with a message.