Simple Media Encoder

Compress and convert your media files in a breeze with this convenient tool! Perfect for sending to Discord or Messenger, or reducing the size of music to listen on the go. Uses FFmpeg and Qt Widgets under GPL v3.

The default interface allows anyone to quickly re-encode media files.
The so-called "expert" interface gives advanced users a bit more control over the exported result.

Compatibility

• Tested on Windows 11, Windows 10, and Linux. Earlier versions of Windows are not supported.
• Should work on Mac as well. Let me know if you encounter issues! More testing is underway.

Features

With this tool, one may:

• Re-encode any file type supported by FFmpeg;
• Choose whether to export video, audio, or both;
• Quickly select a quality preset, or manually tune your settings;
• Choose audio bitrate;
• Re-scale video with automatic aspect ratio adjustment, or manually adjust the aspect ratio;
• Change the video and audio speed or manually set a video framerate;
• Specify custom FFmpeg arguments for advanced use.

Furthermore, one may:

• Choose to auto-fill all fields when a file is selected;
• Delete the input file on success;
• Decide whether to warn when a file is about to be overwritten;
• Specify the output name as a file name or as a suffix to the input name;
• View detailed statistics about your media file (to be implemented).

As well as customize behavior on successful re-encoding:

• Open the resulting media in the file explorer;
• View the resulting media in the default media player;
• Auto-close the utility for a one-shot export.

Conveniently, all these parameters are saved when the tool is closed.

How to install

Binaries

A binary release is available for Windows!

Source

This tool uses the Qt for Application Development framework, under the GNU GPL v3 open source license.
It must be installed for compiling SME.

On Windows

If Qt is not already installed on your system:

• Download the Qt Open Source installer here for easy setup of the framework;
• Proceed with the installation of Qt (you will need a free Qt developer account):
  • Ideally, select version >= 6.7.
  • Under "Developer and Designer tools", select the latest MinGW compiler.
  • Compilation has been tested with the CLion and Qt Creator IDEs.

If FFmpeg is not already installed and in your PATH:

• Tou must manually download and install the ffmpeg.exe and ffprobe.exe binaries.
  • You may find links to mirrors here.
  • Extract the archive and place the two binaries (and associated libraries if present) inside the bin directory (or add them to your PATH).

On Linux

If the Qt development libraries are not already installed on your system:

• Install Qt libraries version >= 6.7, cmake, and a C++ compiler, either:
  • From your package manager (recommended, although some sources may provided outdated Qt packages).
    • qt6-base on Arch, or qt6-base-dev on Ubuntu
  • With the Open Source installer (see instructions for Windows above).

If ffmpeg is not already installed on your system (and in your PATH):

• Install ffmpeg with your package manager.

Once everything is installed:

• NOTE: These instructions are outdated since this is now a cmake project! If you see this then I went to sleep and forgot to ever update them. Goodnight
• Clone this repository.
  • Run qmake SimpleMediaEncoder.pro or qmake6 SimpleMediaEncoder.pro to generate makefiles
  • Run make -j32 to compile.
  • The executable is output in the bin/ directory.

Technologies used

• ffmpeg and ffprobe
• The Qt framework (Qt Widgets)

Special thanks to

Theodore l'Heureux (for his consulting and beta-testing) William Boulanger (for his advice and knowledge on audio theory)

Found an issue?

This is a beta, and the tool may face difficulties opening certain files.
Should you encounter such a problematic file, feel free to file a Github issue; it will help finding the problem. Any bug reports are also greatly appreciated!

Thanks for reading through this and cheers!