Configuring AVI Properties  

1. After adding files to the list, click the Tools menu and then Settings.
2. Under General Settings, select AVI from the Convert To Format box.
3. Click the Properties tab or the Properties button.

Note:  The settings you select here will be applied to all the movies you have listed for conversion, no matter what their initial size or other properties.

Digital Media Converter can decide the best AVI properties for you based on the Video Compressors available on your computer.  The setting defaults to "Best Quality".

There are three preset choices for AVI files:

• Best Quality
• High Compression
• Most Compatible

Read the article: Reducing Video File Sizes and Understanding Compression in AVI

Video Dimension

With Digital Media Converter you can either convert your video to AVI files with the same dimensions, or to new dimensions you select. To use the original dimensions, select Keep source file dimensions. To change the dimensions select Change dimensions. You can either select one of the standard formats, or specify custom dimension.

• By default your converted file is saved with its original dimension.
• If you want to alter the aspect ratio of the video, clear Lock Aspect Ratio.
• It is not a good idea to convert video to larger image size. For example, if the file imported into your timeline originally had 320 x 240 dimensions, you should not save it to 640 x 480 pixels.  The resulting video might be distorted or "blocky" looking.   Reducing video dimensions can also result in unacceptable conversions, especially if there is a lot of detail in the picture.
• Since many of the compressors do not support the odd-numbered dimensions, by default the selected dimension is automatically converted to a multiple of 4. An Automatically convert dimension to multiple of 4 checkbox is provided for this purpose. We strongly recommend that you keep this checked to avoid compressor failure while making a movie.

Frame Rate

The Frame Rate of a media file is the number of frames that are displayed in one second. Files with a higher frame rate such as 25, 30 to 60 FPS (Frames Per Second) can show smoother motion than files with lower frame rates such as 10 or 15 FPS. However, video files with lower frame rate are much smaller than files with higher frame rates. 15 FPS is the norm that is usually followed for video created for Web use. You can configure the frame rate in two ways:

1. Choose to keep the source file frame rate by selecting Keep source file frame rate option or,
2. Change the frame rate of the converted file by selecting the Change frame rate option and move the slider to get the desired frame rate.

Compressors

To apply a video compressor:

From the Video Compressor box select a compressor name. Depending upon the compressor you choose, you will be able to select the Key Frame Rate and Quality of your converted media file.

Key Frame Rate

AVI files are compressed using a process called "temporal compression".  In this process, the file contains all the information to display one frame, but for later frames instead of the full frame, the file contains information about the differences between each frame and the previous one.  This can save a lot of space in file storage, but can make it difficult to start playing a movie anywhere but at the first frame (or to fast-forward to a point where only partial information is stored).

To minimize this problem, compressors insert key frames into compressed sequences at regular intervals. Key frames store the full information for that frame.  They define a starting point for a temporally compressed sequence. Subsequent frames depend on the previous key frame.

The key frame rate indicates the maximum number of frames you will accept between key frames.   Higher key frame rates (which would be a lower number here) can produce higher-quality video that is easier to "seek" in, but also produce somewhat larger file sizes.

    Quality

Quality refers to the image quality of the video frames. You can set the quality of the converted file that you are saving. The default quality of each compressor is different and if you are choosing a video compressor it is best to NOT define the quality using the slider. A quality of 90% is only the Digital Media Converter default and may be too low or too high for a particular compressor.

To apply an Audio Compressor:

From the Audio Compressor box select a compressor name and click OK to save the settings.

Audio Frequency

Audio Frequency is the number of audio samples to be played per second. Higher frequency values gives better sound quality but also increases the size of the audio. Select better qualities for music and lower qualities for speech. Under the Frequency dropdown, you can select any of the frequencies listed. By default, the audio will be encoded at 44.1 KHz.