qtmodernizer(1) BSD General Commands Manual qtmodernizer(1)
NAME
qtmodernizer
-- Tool to convert legacy movies to modern format with minimal changes.
SYNOPSIS
qtmodernizer [options ...] pathToSource [pathToDestination]
DESCRIPTION
qtmodernizer is a command line tool to examine a media file which may be in a legacy format or may contain legacy media tracks. In this case
a legacy format is one which cannot be read directly by CoreMedia or AVFoundation frameworks.
qtmodernizer examines all the tracks to determine if they are all in a form that can currently be played. If all tracks are playable and the
format is readable, qtmodernizer does returns and does nothing. If any of the audio or video tracks are encoded with a codec that CoreMedia
does not support, that track will be converted to a modern format, usually H.264 for video and AAC for audio (see --useprores for other
choices).
Command line options of qtmodernize:
-h | --help
-p | --useprores
If -p or --useprores is specified, qtmodernizer will use the ProRes video codec and LPCM audio codec instead of H.264 and AAC-LC.
For video tracks it will produce AppleProRes422. For audio it will produce uncompressed output (lpcm). Tracks outher than audio or
video are not re-encoded and will not be affected. Either AppleProRes422 may be chosen or the AppleProRes4444 option may be chosen
but not both.
-p4 | --useprores4444
If -p4 or --useprores4444 is specified, qtmodernizer will use the ProRes4444 video codec and LPCM audio codec instead of H.264 and
AAC-LC. For video tracks it will produce AppleProRes4444. For audio it will produce uncompressed output (lpcm). Tracks outher than
audio or video are not re-encoded and will not be affected. Either AppleProRes4444 may be chosen or the AppleProRes422 option may be
chosen but not both.
-r | --replace
Normally qtmodernizer will not replace any existing files. If --replace is specified, a file already existing at the destination
path will be replaced by the new output. qtmodernizer will not replace the file at original source path used in the command.
-v | --verbose
Normally qtmodernizer only displays important error or warning messages. Specifying --verbose causes other information about the
modernization to be displayed on the command line. --infoonly implies --verbose.
-i | --infoonly
Causes qtmodernizer to display information about the tracks contained in the source file and what the modernization process would be
for each track (if any) but does not actually produce an output file.
EXAMPLES
qtmodernize legacy_movie.mov modern_movie.mov
Each legacy audio and video track would be re-encoded to a modern (H.264 or AAC) track with other tracks passed through. The resulting movie
is saved as modern_movie.mov
qtmodernize -p legacy_movie.mov modern_movie.mov
Legacy audio and video tracks would be re-encoded like in the above example but the resulting codecs would be ProRes for video and LPCM for
audio
qtmodernize ~/Movies/legacy_movie.mov
This command will create a modernized movie in the ~/Movies directory named "legacy_movie-modernized.mov"
HISTORY
qtmodernizer command first appeared in Mac OS X 10.9.
Mac OS X June 2, 2019 Mac OS X