Format Factory

About this release

Format Factory has survived for a very long time by refusing to become anything other than a converter. You drag files in, you pick what you want out, you press start, and it works through the list. Video, audio, image and disc sources all go through the same window, the output presets cover everything from modern streaming codecs to formats old enough that nothing else offers them any more, and the whole thing runs on machines that would struggle to open a modern editor.

Batch handling is the reason it stays installed. A folder of two hundred files converts in one pass with the same settings applied to all of them, the queue survives a pause, and failed items are reported at the end rather than stopping the run. Output naming, destination folders and post conversion behaviour, including shutting the machine down when the queue empties, are all set once.

Beyond straight conversion it does the small jobs that otherwise need a separate tool for each. Trimming without re encoding, joining several clips into one file, extracting an audio track, muxing a subtitle file in, rotating and cropping video, resizing and watermarking images, and ripping optical discs to a file. None of it is deep, but all of it is right there and none of it takes any learning.

The output side gives more control than the plain interface suggests. Every preset opens into a settings panel with codec, bitrate, frame rate, resolution, sample rate and channel choices, plus a two pass option for anyone who cares about the size of the result. Hardware acceleration is used for the common codecs where the machine offers it, which turns a long queue from an evening into a coffee break.

What it does

Everything through one window

Video, audio, image and disc sources converted in the same queue with the same controls.

Batch conversion

Hundreds of files in one pass, with failures reported at the end instead of stopping the run.

Very wide format coverage

Modern delivery codecs alongside formats that most current tools no longer offer.

Trim, join and extract

Cut without re encoding, merge clips, pull out an audio track or mux in subtitles.

Image and disc tools

Resize, crop, rotate and watermark images, and rip optical media straight to a file.

Hardware acceleration

Uses the graphics card for common codecs where the machine supports it.

Changed in this version

• Additional output presets for current streaming and device targets.
• Faster hardware accelerated encoding on recent graphics hardware.
• Improved subtitle muxing with correct language tagging.
• Queue handling reworked so a single failure no longer stalls the batch.
• Interface scaling corrected on high density displays.

System requirements

Install order

1. Unpack the archive.
2. Run the installer and decline any bundled extras offered during setup.
3. Set a default output folder on first launch.
4. Run one short test conversion before starting a large queue.

Worth knowing before you start

File details