Automatic Batch Video Conversion

Description

Handbrake doesn't make it easy to set up an automatic batch conversion from the graphical user interface (you have to manually add each item), but it does include a separate command-line app that we can work with. An app called Alert and Convert that works with Handbrake tries to do the same thing as this batch file, but I wasn't able to get it to work 100 percent of the time. So dust off your DOS skills, ladies and gentlemen--we're going to write a quick batch file (.bat) that will tell our PC to take all the files in the immediate folder (or any nested folders), pass them off to Handbrake to convert into an iPod-friendly format, name them ("filename-ipod.mp4"), and then hand them off to iTunes, which will add them to the iTunes library and sync with my attached iPod.

Note that batch files can do lots of things to your PC, and if you're not careful you might be converting a lot of videos.

That said, our template for a batch file is right here. To learn how to customize it and how to use it on your PC, you'll need to read the tip in our "Automate Multi-Media Tasks in Your PC" story.