MOV to MP4 Lossless Conversion

2025-03-21 20:47 UTC o3-mini-high Open in ChatGPT ↗

You

ffprobe says this about my .mov file. I want to convert it to mp4 without any increase or decrease in quality and size.

Input #0, mov,mp4,m4a,3gp,3g2,mj2, from ‘/Users/georgeadamon/Downloads/party.mov’: Metadata: major_brand : qt
minor_version : 512 compatible_brands: qt
creation_time : 2025-03-21T15:30:02.000000Z encoder : Blackmagic Design DaVinci Resolve Studio Duration: 00:02:35.99, start: 0.000000, bitrate: 13903 kb/s Stream #0:0[0x1]: Video: hevc (Main 10) (hvc1 / 0x31637668), yuv420p10le(tv, bt709/bt709/unknown, progressive), 5120x2560 [SAR 1:1 DAR 2:1], 11596 kb/s, 29.97 fps, 29.97 tbr, 30k tbn (default) Metadata: creation_time : 2025-03-21T15:30:02.000000Z handler_name : VideoHandler vendor_id :
encoder : H.265 10-bit - NVIDIA timecode : 01:20:18:16 Stream #0:1[0x2]: Audio: pcm_s24le (lpcm / 0x6D63706C), 48000 Hz, stereo, s32 (24 bit), 2304 kb/s (default) Metadata: creation_time : 2025-03-21T15:30:02.000000Z handler_name : SoundHandler vendor_id : [0][0][0][0] Stream #0:20x3: Data: none (tmcd / 0x64636D74) (default) Metadata: creation_time : 2025-03-21T15:30:02.000000Z handler_name : TimeCodeHandler timecode : 01:20:18:16 Unsupported codec with id 0 for input stream 2

ChatGPT

You can achieve a lossless conversion by using stream copy so that the video and audio are simply re-wrapped in the MP4 container without re-encoding. Since your MOV file includes a timecode data stream that isn’t supported in MP4, you’ll want to exclude it. For example, you can run:

ffmpeg -i party.mov -map 0:v -map 0:a -c copy party.mp4

This command tells ffmpeg to copy the video (‑map 0:v) and audio (‑map 0:a) streams directly, leaving out the data stream. Alternatively, you can use:

ffmpeg -i party.mov -c copy -map 0 -map -0:d party.mp4

Here, -map 0 maps all streams, and -map -0:d explicitly drops any data streams (like your timecode track). Both commands will convert your MOV file to an MP4 without any change in quality or file size (aside from container overhead).