Scaling MOV files so they keep the same aspect ratio?

[AndreasOberg]

Hiya

I have thousands of mov files with different aspect ratio. I would like to scale them all down so the width is 900 pixels for example and the height would then automatically be calculated.

i have tried to do this in compressor but can't find a way to do is so now I have manually groupped all the clips based on aspect ratio but its a pain.

Any ideas are welcome!
/Andreas

 

[Andreas Höhn]

Hi,

you could check out the scale options of ffmpeg,
-vf scale=900:-1 would do this trick, i think

 

[Scott Crawley]

Without knowing anything about your project I suggest that you wait and not scale or crop anything until you can do it in a larger (or should I say narrower?) context. FCP and Davinci's scale and crop tools are very accessible and both apps allow you to handle mixed timelines with aplomb.

If these clips are already in the context of a timeline then I would most often be making crop or scale descisions based upon that context... Unless we are talking about the slightest shave. In that case DaVinci will crop the entire thing upon delivery with ease.

What's the skinny?

 

[AndreasOberg]

Thanks Andreas. Is ffmpeg fast? I have never tested it myself but it seems powerful.
Compressor seems to be GPU accelerated now and spits out h.264 files very fast.

I actually figured out a way to do it (2min after posting). There is a size that says "up to 854x480" and then it looks at what is the biggest. That actually does the trick for me!
/Andreas

 

[AndreasOberg]

Without knowing anything about your project I suggest that you wait and not scale or crop anything until you can do it in a larger (or should I say narrower?) context. FCP and Davinci's scale and crop tools are very accessible and both apps allow you to handle mixed timelines with aplomb.

If these clips are already in the context of a timeline then I would most often be making crop or scale descisions based upon that context... Unless we are talking about the slightest shave. In that case DaVinci will crop the entire thing upon delivery with ease.

What's the skinny?

Hiya, this is just to scale down the proxies. I just want to make them smaller and in 2Mbit. I have converted over night 1TB of proxies into 55GB of 2Mbit H.264. i tested on smaller libraries and it worked fine, now I'm just putting together the whole library hoping that the Universe will still be there when its up and running!
/Andreas

 

[Elliott Balsley]

Thanks Andreas. Is ffmpeg fast? I have never tested it myself but it seems powerful.

It's very powerful, although somewhat lacking in support for professional acquisition codecs. It's very fast at some things, including x264 compression, which is the best h.264 compressor IMHO.
It's easily scriptable, which is good for repetitive large tasks.