Best way to convert avi, wmv to mp4 (h.264) for direct play in Plex?

[javerotikaz]

I have a few movies that are avi and wmv containers and use codecs like WMV2, WMV3 and such. Since I am hosting these files on my Plex Server, I want to be able to direct play them. Which is why I want to find a way to convert the files to MP4 (H.264 Codec for video and AAC for audio) so that Plex will direct play and not have to transcode the file which takes up a lot of CPU power.

What is the best software to use for this job that will get the job done as quickly as possible without affecting the quality of the file too severely?

 

[Porni]

@javerotikaz
I don't know exactly what you need, but you can try this:

ffmpeg -hide_banner -i input.avi -c:v libx264 -crf 18 -preset medium -tune film -c:a aac -q:a 1 -movflags +faststart output.mp4

 

[SamKook]

Pretty much any encoding software will do the job you want. How fast it does it depends on the quality you want so you have to play with the settings until you're satisfied.

ffmpeg, like porni suggested is a good choice, but if you want a GUI, Handbrake is the popular option or Megui.

You can also use the script in my signature for re-encoding. You have to do a few things to set it up the first time but once that's done, you just drag and drop your video on the bat file and it automatically does the job. I set that up for someone who knew next to nothing about video encoding and they managed to make it work so it's not hard.