QtlMovie is a graphical front-end to ffmpeg and other media tools, with simplicity in mind.
QtlMovie is designed to automate a reduced number of specific tasks in a "one-click" way without setting many parameters.
These tasks are:
QtlMovie main features are:
QtlMovie is based on the Qt framework. It works on Windows, Mac, Linux and should work on any platform which is supported by Qt version 5.5 or higher. QtlMovie uses external free software such as ffmpeg, DVD Author, CCExtractor or mkisofs which are available on Windows, Mac and Linux.
QtlMovie is available either as source code or binary installer for Windows, Mac, Fedora and Ubuntu. The binary installers for Windows and Mac come prepackaged with Qt5 libraries and all required media tools. They are self-sufficient and do not depend on any prior installation. The binary packages for Fedora and Ubuntu rely on the system package dependency management to install the required Qt environment and media tools. Some very specific media tools such as CCExtractor have no standard binary packages for Fedora and Ubuntu. In this case, the corresponding custom packages are provided on the QtlMovie distribution site.
When a file is open, all available video, audio and subtitle streams are displayed using a compact grid of radio buttons which allow the selection of the output streams. Each stream button displays only the most important selection criteria such as video size, languages or properties like "for visual/hearing impaired".
Hint: Each stream button has a "tooltip" feature which gives more details on the stream such as the encoding, bitrate or metadata. Simply move the mouse over the button to get more details. You may also have a precise technical description of all streams using the Input file properties dialog.
Input files can be any type of multimedia file which is accepted as input by ffmpeg. This include the container file format (MPG, AVI, MKV, TS, M2TS, etc.), the video format (MPEG-2, AVC / H.264, WMV, etc.) and the audio format (MP2, MP3, AC-3, AAC, etc.)
Multiple video, audio and subtitle streams can be present. The QtlMovie graphical interface requests the user to select exactly one video and one audio stream.
At most one subtitle source can be specified. This can be a stream of the input file or an external subtitle file.
The following subtitles formats are supported. The note [F] indicates that the format can also be read from an external subtitle file, independently of the input file. All other subtitle formats must be present in the input file. The note [T] indicates that the subtitle format can be used only in MPEG transport stream files (TS or M2TS). The note [E] indicates that the subtitle format is extractible as SRT by QtlMovie.
Important: The subtitles are always hardcoded ("burnt") into the video by QtlMovie. The output file never contains independent subtitle streams.
QtlMovie is ideal to rip DVD and create iPad/iPhone/Android movies, a typical task when you own an iPad and many DVD's.
A DVD is a standard file system. All video contents are in a top-level directory named VIDEO_TS. Inside VIDEO_TS, there are several title sets. A title set is typically a film, a documentary, a bonus, etc. Title sets are numbered from "00" to "99" (potentially). The title set "nn" is composed of several files named VTS_nn_0.IFO, VTS_nn_0.VOB (optional), VTS_nn_1.VOB, etc. The video content starts in VTS_nn_1.VOB and extends to other VOB's. The optional VTS_nn_0.VOB is typically an introduction and is not part of the film. Each VOB has a maximum size of 1 GB. Finding the main film of the DVD is usually easy, this is the largest video content (sum of all the VTS_nn_*.VOB).
QtlMovie recognizes this structure. To transcode a film, simply select as input file the information file VTS_nn_0.IFO or any VTS_nn_*.VOB. QtlMovie will automatically find all VOB's for the film. QtlMovie also automatically finds the associated information file VTS_nn_0.IFO. This is an important file since it contains the language names of the audio and subtitle tracks and the color palette of the subtitles. When ripping a DVD, do not forget to include the .IFO file for the film. Otherwise, the audio and subtitle tracks will appear without language and you will be unable to decide which one to select. Also, without the .IFO file, the subtitles appear in dirty colors and are barely watchable.
QtlMovie can work directly on the DVD medium since this is a regular file system. Copy-protected DVD's are automatically decrypted on the fly upstream from the transcoding process.
Warnings: A DVD reader is a slow device. When selecting a file on a DVD medium, the various audio and subtitle tracks may not appear immediately. FFmpeg discovers audio and subtitle tracks only when they appear. When an input file is selected, ffprobe reads the beginning of the file until all tracks are found. On a hard disk, this is a very fast operation. But on a DVD drive, subtitle tracks usually appear several minutes of playback after the beginning of the movie and it may take up to one minute to discover them in QtlMovie on a slow DVD reader.
Also pay attention to a weird behavior of ffmpeg on some DVD's. When the movie is long, typically two hours or more, the DVD is "dual-layered". Half of the VOB files are on one layer and the other half is on the other layer. It has been noted that the time stamps of the video restart at zero at the beginning of the second layer. This creates some problems with ffmpeg. In fact, the transcoding is done correctly but the way ffmpeg behaves can be disconcerting. Either in the middle (ripped files on hard drive) or at the end of the movie (files on DVD), QtlMovie appears to freeze. In fact, it does not. FFmpeg continues the transcoding but no longer reports its progress. This is why the transcoding appears to freeze. But do not interrupt the transcoding. After several minutes, up to 40 minutes in some cases, ffmpeg restarts the reporting of its progress and the transcoding continues normally. During the period of pseudo-freeze, the memory space of ffmpeg increases, possibly up to 3 GB. Then, the memory space of ffmpeg gradually decreases back to its original size. This may cause some trouble on computers with a small memory. In case of problem, you may try to increase the size of the paging file or swap partition. You may also try to first extract the files from the DVD and retry the transcoding from a hard disk.
QtlMovie always produces DVD with the following characteristics:
The output video has a 16:9 aspect ratio. Black borders are added when necessary so that the meaningful image part has the same aspect ratio as the input file.
QtlMovie can produce several types of DVD output:
The first option can be used to check the resulting audio/video using standard media players. If the result is satisfactory, the resulting MPEG file can be used as input to produce a DVD ISO image.
When producing a DVD ISO image, QtlMovie tries to guess if the input file is already a DVD-compliant MPEG file or not. In the first case, QtlMovie does not re-encode the input file and directly creates the DVD structure from the input MPEG file. If the input file is not fully DVD-compliant but its video stream is DVD-compliant, the video is not transcoded to save time and QtlMovie performs the audio transcoding and remux only.
A DVD ISO image can also be used as input file. In this case, the only possible output type is burning the image to a physical medium.
A consequence of these features is that a DVD can be created either at once, from the orginal video file to the DVD physical medium, or in several phases. In the later case, the output of a phase (MPEG file, ISO image) can be used as input for the next phase without the pain of audio/video re-encoding.
When the output type type is burning to a physical media, the so-called output file name designates the ISO image in fact. The default DVD burning device shall be selected in the settings menu. The ISO image is never deleted and can be reused to burn additional media.
When creating a DVD from a TV recording, some editing is usually required. Typically, there is some extra content to delete at the beginning and end. If the recorded program contains ads, you may want to delete them also.
QtlMovie is not a video editor and you need an external tool to remove the unwanted parts of the movie file. Open-source tools such as AviDemux or Virtual Dub can do that.
You should use one of these tools to edit the video (namely cut the unwanted parts) but not re-encode it. With tools like AviDemux, explicitely select the copy option for video and audio tracks to avoid re-encoding. If you use AviDemux on Windows, we recommend the version 2.5.6 (32-bit). Although outdated, this version cuts MPEG-2 videos without errors while more recent versions are subject to irritating crashes.
You also have to pay attention to one point. If the original file contains a subtitle stream you want to use, you should not edit the original video file. It may depend on the editing tool, but most of the time the subtitle streams are lost after editing. Instead, you should use the following scenario:
This method is always the preferred one, even if the input file is simple and contains only one video, one audio track and no subtitle. It is more reliable and more robust to edit an MPEG-2 video file than most other formats. Editing a video file without re-encoding requires to cut on intra-frames only and MPEG-2 files are easier to edit than AVC / H.264 for instance.
QtlMovie always produces iPad files with the following characteristics:
The video bitrate is based on a video quality indicator which is defined in the settings for iPad. This quality indicator is set in bits per pixel per 100 frames. The actual bitrate is computed according to the actual output frame size and this video quality indicator. The default video quality for iPad is 11 bits / pixel / 100 frames, giving a bitrate of 2.6 Mb/s for a full-size iPad 2 video (1024x768).
QtlMovie always produces iPhone files with the following characteristics:
The video bitrate is computed the same way as for iPad. The settings define a specific video quality indicator for iPhone. The default quality for iPhone is 11 bits / pixel / 100 frames, giving a bitrate of 2.4 Mb/s for a full-size iPhone 5 video (1136x640).
QtlMovie always produces files for Android devices with the following characteristics:
The video bitrate is computed the same way as for iPad. The settings define a specific video quality indicator for Android. The default quality for Android is 11 bits / pixel / 100 frames, giving a bitrate of 6.8 Mb/s for a full-size Samsung Galaxy S5 video (1920x1080).
QtlMovie always produces AVI files with the following characteristics:
The video bitrate is computed the same way as for iPad. The settings define a specific video quality indicator for AVI. The default quality for AVI is 18 bits / pixel / 100 frames, giving a bitrate of 1.3 Mb/s for the default resolution (880x352).
QtlMovie can also be used to extract subtitle streams from the input files. The subtitle format must be text (SRT, SSA, ASS, Teletext or Closed Captions). Bitmap subtitles such as DVD or DVB subtitles cannot currently be extracted. The output subtitle file format is SRT.
A common problem in video files is the setting of an incorrect display aspect ratio. For instance, you may get a file which is marked with a 4:3 aspect ratio but, when you play it, the image looks compressed. It is probable that the original format was 16:9 but, for some reason, was incorrectly marked as 4:3. When converting this type of video, it is useful to force QtlMovie to use the correct aspect ratio.
This is the purpose of the "Force display aspect ratio" option. When it is checked, the manually entered aspect ratio is used instead of the one from the input file.
By default, QtlMovie transcodes one file at a time. The main window contains all information for one transcoding in an easy one-click way. This is the default "single-file mode". To transcode a second movie, the user has to wait for the completion of the first one.
When a batch of several files need to be transcoded, the total conversion process may take hours and it is not convenient for the user to wait for the completion of each transcoding. For this kind of situation, QtlMovie has a "multi-file batch mode" which allows the processing of multiple files in sequence. The main window shows a list of files to be processed. The transcoding operation processes all files in the list automatically. Adding other files to process is allowed during the transcoding of the previous files.
To add several files at a time in multi-file batch mode, simply drag and drop files into the file list windows.
To switch between "single-file mode" and "multi-file batch mode", use the switch option in the "Tools" menu. Note that switching mode requires the application to restart. You may also set the preferred mode in the settings.
The log window is the bottom part of the QtlMovie main window. All external commands are displayed there, with their output and error messages. This is mainly a debug feature which can be ignored by most users.
Using the "Tools" menu, the log window can be cleared or saved in a text file. There is also a "Log Debug" option which activates more debug traces in the log window. When reporting a problem about QtlMovie, it is a good idea to clear the log window, activate the debug, perform the operations which exhibit the problem, save the log into a text file and attach this text file to the problem report.
The "Input File Properties" option in the "Tools" menu displays all properties of the input file as reported by ffprobe. This provides a more precise view of the file and its streams but requires some knownledge about FFmpeg.
In multi-file batch mode, the "Input File Properties" option is not in the "Tools" menu since there are possibly more than one input file. Instead, use the "Properties" button in the task editor.
The "Test Audio" option in the "Tools" menu opens a dialog box for testing the audio streams in the input file. This is useful when the languages of the audio tracks are not correctly identified in the input file. Using this dialog box, the user can select and play the various audio tracks in order to recognize the language of each track.
In multi-file batch mode, the "Test Audio" option is not in the "Tools" menu since there are possibly more than one input file. Instead, use the "Test Audio" button in the task editor.
The "DVD extraction" option in the "Tools" menu opens an independent application for extracting the content of copy-protected DVD's. This is an independent tool which is not required to transcode DVD's. Since version 1.9, QtlMovie can directly transcode the content of copy-protected DVD's without initially ripping the DVD and transfering its content on a hard drive.
All currently mounted DVD's are listed in the combox box "Input DVD". The first one is automatically selected. If DVD media are ejected or inserted in the meantime, press "Refresh" to update the content of the window.
The "DVD extraction" tool has three tabs, one per mode of operation. In all cases, the output files are created in the selected "Destination directory".
The QtlMovie settings are accessible using the "Tools" menu.
On Mac, the settings are accessible using the "Preferences" entry in the "QtlMovie" application menu.
The "Default input directory" is where the "Browse" button is initially set when no input file is currently selected. By default, this is the user's home directory.
The "Default output directory" area defines where the output file shall be created by default. The default output file name inside the output directory is the same as the input file with the extension corresponding to the output file type.
If the option "Same as input directory" is checked, the default location for the output file is the same as the input file. Otherwise, a specific directory can be selected for each output type.
The default output directory for DVD extraction is used by the tool "DVD Extraction" only. If can never be the same as input directory since in that case the input is a DVD which is read-only by definition.
The "DVD burning device" designates the device name for the DVD burner. On Windows, it shall be a device letter like "D:" or "E:". On Mac OS, a list of available drives is displayed. On other Unix systems, it shall be a device path such as "/dev/dvd". Unlike input and output directories, this is not a default value which can be changed in the GUI, this is the actual device name which is unconditionally used when "Burn DVD" is selected as output type. This makes sense since most computers have only one DVD drive. Note that the default output directory for type "Burn DVD" is not the burning device, this is the directory where the ISO image files are stored before burning. There are two different default output directories for output types "DVD ISO Image" and "Burn DVD" since images of the later type are typically created in a temporary directory that the user wants to clean up on a regular basis.
This tab specifies the location of the executable files for the external media tools which are used by QtlMovie:
For each tool, the "Default" value is the location where QtlMovie has found the corresponding executable. The way QtlMovie locates the media tools depends on the operating system. On Windows and Mac, they are searched first in the wintools or mactools subdirectories inside the QtlMovie installation area, then in various predefined locations for each tool (typically within C:\Program Files on Windows) and finally in the PATH environment variable. On other Unix systems, the media tools are searched in the PATH environment variable.
For each tool, a specific alternate executable can be selected in the corresponding edit box or using the corresponding "Browse" button.
This tab groups all the settings which affect the audio and video transcoding.
The "Transcoding duration" indicates whether the entire input file shall be transcoded or if the output file shall be truncated after a given number of seconds. Note that this indicates the playout duration of the output file, not the duration of the transcoding operation. Trancoding a movie can take a long time and limiting the transcoded duration can be helpful in a test phase, to verify the video quality or the audio or subtitle language for instance.
The "Default output type" applies to all new tasks. The actual output type of a task can be manually modified.
The "Video transformation" area is used for the common video transformation operations. When the option "Rotate video based on input metadata" is checked, the orientation of the output video is automatically modified based on the "rotate" metadata in the input file. This is useful for video files which were shot using an iPhone or other Apple devices. The iPhone orientation (portrait, landscape, upside-down, etc) is stored in private metadata but the video file has a fixed orientation. Such video files are correctly played on Apple video players such as QuickTime but not on standard video players. This option fixes this.
The "Keep intermediate files" option indicates that all intermediate files which were created in the transcoding process shall not be deleted after completion. These files are created in a temporary directory with the same name as the output file and extension .qtlmovie.temp. This option is usually reserved for debug purpose.
The "FFmpeg options" specify additional options which are specific to FFmpeg. The "initial probe size" is the amount of seconds which are analyzed at the beginning of the input file to determine the number and type of audio, video and subtitle streams. The FFmpeg default value is 5 seconds. This is usually enough for most files. However, some MPEG files do not list all their streams at the beginning of the file and some streams which appear late in the file (subtitles for instance) may not be detected. As a consequence, the default probe size for QtlMovie is 200 seconds. It is recommended to not reduce this size. It can be increased if you suspect that some streams are not detected.
The "FFprobe timeout" is the maximum duration of the execution of FFprobe. FFprobe is used when an input file is selected to determine the number and types of streams. This option may need to be inscreased when the input file is on a slow DVD drive.
FFmpeg is a processing-intensive program. Depending on the computer configuration and the type of video conversion, running FFmpeg can significantly affect the performances of the system. Use the option "Run FFmpeg processes at a lower priority" to make sure that FFmpeg never affects the performances of other applications.
The "Play sound on completion" option indicates that a sound will be played each time a transcoding process completes.
This tab is divided into two groups. The first group of settings contains those which are used when reading DVD content as input. The second group contains those which affect the generation of DVD's.
In the group of settings for reading DVD content, checking the option "Transcode raw VOB files" means that FFmpeg will transcode the raw content of all VOB files for a given movie (or "VTS", for "Video Title Set"). This will work for most movies. However, some DVD's have movies with more than one "Program Chain" (PGC) or more than one "Angle". In this case, the various program chains and angles are multiplexed inside the VOB files and FFmpeg is unable to differentiate them. The result of the transcoding is consequently inconsistent. This is why this option is disabled by default.
When the option "Demultiplex one specific Program Chain" is enabled, QtlMovie will demultiplex the content of the VOB files and provide to FFmpeg only the specified "PGC" and "Angle". PGC's and angles are numbered starting from 1 onward. The default values 1 and 1 are recommended since they usually refer to the standard playback of the movie. If the specified PGC does not exist, the PGC number 1 will always be used instead.
In the group of settings for the generation of DVD's, the PAL vs. NTSC options indicate the format of all created DVD's.
The specified video bitrate is used by default as "average bitrate". However, QtlMovie ensures that the output can fit into a standard 4.7 GB DVD medium and reduces the bitrate accordingly when necessary.
When checked, the "Create chapters" option creates chapters on the DVD. All chapters have the same specified number of minutes.
When checked, the option "Remux audio/video after transcode" forces an additional remuxing of the audio and video after transcoding. This takes some additional time but this removes potential synchronization errors with DVD Author when the DVD file structure is created. This also enforces a DVD-compliant multiplexing when the input file already has DVD-compliant audio and video and is not re-encoded. It is recommended to let this option checked.
The option "Force transcoding even if the input file or video is DVD-compliant" does what it says... This can be useful to force a transcoding when the file seems DVD-compliant but is not really (too large for instance).
When the option "Set burning speed" is checked, the DVD burning speed is forced to the corresponding value (with "1x" being the nominal DVD transfer rate: 1.385 MB/s). This speed is directly passed to growisofs. When the option is not checked, the DVD burning speed is not changed.
This tab groups all the settings which affect the generation of video files for the iPad.
The "Screen size" options specify the type of iPad to target. The corresponding screen resolution will be used as maximum video size. Larger videos will be resized to fit within the selected iPad resolution.
The "Video quality" option, in bits per pixel per 100 frames, is explained in the section about iPad output. For information, the corresponding maximum video bitrate for the selected iPad model is also displayed.
This tab groups all the settings which affect the generation of video files for the iPhone.
The "Screen size" options specify the type of iPhone to target. The corresponding screen resolution will be used as maximum video size. Larger videos will be resized to fit within the selected iPhone resolution.
The "Video quality" option, in bits per pixel per 100 frames, is explained in the section about iPad output. For information, the corresponding maximum video bitrate for the selected iPhone model is also displayed.
This tab groups all the settings which affect the generation of video files for Android devices.
The "Screen size" options specify the type of device to target. The corresponding screen resolution will be used as maximum video size. Larger videos will be resized to fit within the selected resolution.
The "Video quality" option, in bits per pixel per 100 frames, is explained in the section about iPad output. For information, the corresponding maximum video bitrate for the selected device model is also displayed.
This tab groups all the settings which affect the generation of AVI files.
The "Max size" options specify the maximum resolution of the output video. Larger videos will be resized to fit within this resolution.
The "Video quality" option, in bits per pixel per 100 frames, is explained in the section about iPad output. For information, the corresponding maximum video bitrate for the selected maximum resolution is also displayed.
This tab groups all the settings which affect the audio transcoding. Note that most audio transcoding options like bit rate, sample rate or number of channels are fixed to the appropriate value for a given target (DVD, iPad, iPhone, Android, AVI) and cannot be modified.
When the option "Normalize audio level" is checked, QtlMovie performs audio normalization on the transcoded audio track. This adds an initial pass on the file to determine the input audio level. The corresponding audio normalization it then performed in the general transcoding passes.
The "Mean level" option specifies the target mean audio level after normalization. The level -20 dBFS is commonly used for cinema. Pop/rock concerts may be raised to -12 dBFS but higher values (closer to zero) may compress the dynamics too much. Be aware that the target level is only an approximated value. The actual output audio level can vary in the range +1/-1 dB depending the target transcoding type. The "Max peak level" option specifies the maximum audio peak level after normalization. In theory, 0 dBFS is ideal but -1 dBFS should be preferred to avoid clipping.
When the input dynamic is too large for the target normalization, several options are possible.
This tab groups all the settings which affect the processing of subtitles.
The option "Cleanup SRT/SSA/ASS files before insertion" is used to remove all invalid nul characters from the subtitles files. It has been observed that some MKV files had ASS subtitles using metadata containing a trailing nul character. This invalid character broke ffmpeg and the subtitles were not burned into the video. Checking this option fixes this issue.
The option "Downgrade SSA/ASS subtitles to SRT" is used to force a conversion of SubStation Alpha subtitles (SSA/ASS) to SubRip (SRT) before burning them in the video. This can be useful to remove the formatting of SSA/ASS subtitles when their presentation is too weird.
When converting SSA/ASS subtitles to SRT, the option "Use HTML tags in SRT subtitles" is used to replicate some basic formatting from the SSA/ASS subtitles into SRT using HTML tags. However, the HTML tags are defined as an extension of the SRT format and are not supported by all tools. Uncheck this option to prevent the use of HTML tags in the generated SRT subtitles. FFmpeg correctly interprets HTML tags in SRT, so you should leave this option activated unless you need the extracted SRT files for some other usage.
Some US TV channels broadcast all Closed Captions in UPPERCASE. If you find that annoying, check the option "Capitalize US Closed Captions". This option is directly passed to CCExtractor which formats the subtitles in a nicer looking way.
The option "Use original video size as a hint for SRT/SSA/ASS character shape" is somewhat cryptic. If checked, the original size of the video is used to alter the character size of text-based subtitles so that the subtitles are scaled the same way as the video. This means that, if you convert an HD content to DVD, significantly reducing the video size, the subtitles will appear much smaller than on a normal DVD. This is why it is unchecked by default. You may try to check it and decide whether it is useful or not.
As the name implies, this tab groups all options which did not fit in other tabs.
The "File processing mode" options describe how QtlMovie processes multiple input files. Since these options significantly modifies the way QtlMovie works, they are actually applied only when QtlMovie is restarted.
The "Target audience language codes" lists the codes which are used to identify the language of the "target audience". This needs some explanation. When an input file is opened, QtlMovie displays all audio and subtitle tracks which are available in the file. But, by default, it also pre-selects the tracks which should be most likely adequate for the user (or "target audience"). QtlMovie makes the assumption that the user prefers to watch the film in original version with subtitles in his own language but this behavior can be disabled. The initial default stream selection is performed as follow:
In the group "DVD extraction", the option "Recreate directory tree when extracting DVD" is used when extracting files and Video Title Sets (VTS) from a DVD using the tool "DVD Extraction". When this option is set, the directory structure of the DVD is recreated under the output directory. Otherwise, all files are directly extracted in the output directory.
The option "Use DVD maximum read speed" is used to configure the DVD reader to maximum speed for all types of extractions. Generally, this speeds up the extraction. But this may also create read errors. Note that this option is not supported on all drives.
The "Max log" option indicates the number of text lines to retain in the log window. When this threshold is reached, the first lines are deleted. When "Clear log before transcoding" is checked, the log window is automatically cleared before starting a transcoding operation. This option is useful when "Save log after transcoding" is checked, meaning that the log is automatically saved as a text file when any transcoding operation completes. The saved log file has the same name as the output file with extension .log.
The option "Automatically search for a new version at startup" indicates if a new version of QtlMovie is searched online each time the application starts. When disabled, it is possible to manually search for a new version using the menu "Help" / "Search New Version".
QtlMovie is normally started from the desktop menu without command line argument. This is sufficient for normal usage.
However, a few options can be provided on the command line. The syntax is the following:
QtlMovie [-l locale] [-d] [-e] [inputfile ...]
The locale specifies an alternate locale such as "en" or "fr_FR". By default, the system locale is used.
The option "-d" activates the debug messages in the log. This is equivalent to the menu entry "Tools" => "Log Debug".
The option "-e" directly opens the "DVD Extraction" tool, without the standard QtlMovie main window. This is equivalent to the menu entry "Tools" => "DVD Extraction" followed by "File" => "Quit".
The inputfile ... specifies video input files which are automatically open when QtlMovie starts. Specifying more that one input is useful only in multi-file batch mode.
Example: If your system's locale is supported by QtlMovie but you are not satisfied by the translations, you can revert to English by editing the QtlMovie command in the desktop menus as follow:
QtlMovie -l en
QtlMovie is now primarily developed on Mac OS.
The package QtlMovie-version.dmg is installed the same way as most Mac applications. Double-click on the .dmg file to open the disk image. In the Finder window which is opened, drag and drop "QtlMovie" into "Applications". Then, close the Finder windows, right-click on the desktop icon for "QtlMovie" and select "Eject". Now QtlMovie can be started from the Launcher and optionally locked on the Dock.
The binary package for QtlMovie includes all required media tools. Installing the QtlMovie package is sufficient to get a fully functional system. The media tools are installed in the same directory tree as QtlMovie but you may select alternate versions of these tools in the settings menu.
The standard binary package for QtlMovie works on Mac OS 10.12 and higher. It has been reported that this binary package failed on Mac OS 10.10. This was due to some incompatibility with Qt 5.8. A special binary package of QtlMovie has beed created with Qt 5.7 and worked on Mac OS 10.10.
The binary installer for QtlMovie includes all required media tools. Running the QtlMovie binary installer is sufficient to get a fully functional system. The media tools are installed in the same directory tree as QtlMovie but you may select alternate versions of these tools in the settings menu.
There is one binary installer for 32-bit systems and another one for 64-bit systems. However, the 64-bit installer mostly contains 32-bit executables. FFmpeg is the only 64-bit executable in the installer. There is no performance advantage in using 64-bit executables for all other tools, including QtlMovie itself.
The binary installers require administration privileges to install QtlMovie on the system. For users without such privileges, use the "standalone" archive. Unzip it anywhere at simply run QtlMovie.exe.
QtlMovie worked on Windows 7 and later versions. Windows XP is not supported.
QtlMovie has been tested on Fedora and Ubuntu Linux systems and proved to work correctly.
FFmpeg needs to be available in version 1.2 or higher. On several systems, the standard version of FFmpeg which comes with the distro repositories is outdated and a more recent version may be needed. Mkisofs shall be used with version 2, the version 3 has proven to be broken. There is usually no distro packaging for CCExtractor and you need to download them from the QtlMovie download area (see below).
All media tools are searched by QtlMovie in $PATH.
Binary RPM packages for Fedora on x86_64 architecture are available on the QtlMovie distribution size for Fedora on SourceForge for QtlMovie and CCExtractor.
The package ffmpeg is available through the RPMfusion repository, not the standard Fedora repositories. See rpmfusion.org for the way to configure RPMfusion as a default repository for your system.
Binary DEB packages for Ubuntu on amd64 architecture are available on the QtlMovie distribution site for Ubuntu on SourceForge for QtlMovie and CCExtractor.
On Ubuntu version 15 and higher, the package ffmpeg is available from the standard Ubuntu repositories.
On older versions of Ubuntu, FFmpeg is not directly available. At some point, for various reasons, Ubuntu decided to drop FFmpeg from their repositories. Instead, Ubuntu provided avconv (package libav-tools), a fork from FFmpeg. However, the commands avconv and avprobe are only partially compatible with ffmpeg and ffprobe. Since QtlMovie generates complex ffmpeg and ffprobe commands, they almost never work with avconv and avprobe.
The only solution to use QtlMovie on Ubuntu prior to version 15 is to install a plain real version of FFmpeg. The first way is to recompile FFmpeg from the sources on Ubuntu. This is complex and not recommended. The second way is to use a precompiled version of FFmpeg for Ubuntu as described below.
Non-official Ubuntu packages can be installed from a Personal Package Archive (PPA). On Ubuntu prior to version 15, FFmpeg is available from the Jon Severinsson's PPA. The following commands demonstrate how to declare this PPA on a Ubuntu 14.04 LTS (Trusty) system and install FFmpeg. You must be root to execute these commands.
add-apt-repository ppa:jon-severinsson/ffmpeg apt-get update apt-get install ffmpeg
QtlMovie should compile and properly function on any other platform which is supported by the Qt framework version 5.5 or higher. However, QtlMovie is useless without ffmpeg. You have to check the availability of ffmpeg on a platform before attempting to use QtlMovie.