Convert AVI Video Files Into Independant Self Running Executables

Playing video files in computer can be a headache to some people because it involves video codecs. A video codec is a device or software that enables video compression and/or decompression for digital video. When a video file is being compressed with DivX, you’ll need to have DivX codec installed in order to watch the video. Most of the time we don’t know what is the compression being used to compress the video file, so we install codec packs to support playing all video files. There are tons of video codec packs that you can find on the Internet such as K-Lite Codec Pack, Combined Community Codec Pack, Nimo Codec Pack, XP Codec Pack, Windows Essentials Codec Pack, and many more!

When codec pack works, then it works. But if it doesn’t, you are going to go through a lot of trouble trying to cleanup the old installed codec to reinstall a different codec pack or a newer version codec. If you need show video presentation to your client, don’t risk your business by trying to mess around with video codecs.

A better way would be to convert the video file into a independent self running executable file which don’t require installation of any codecs or media players to play the video.

MakeInstantPlayer is a tool for converting video files into self-running executables. This is very useful for distributing videos, as the user doesn’t need any additional software for playback. As MakeInstantPlayer uses the MPlayer engine for playback, it supports almost any video format in existance. Furthermore it uses NSIS to pack everything to one single EXE file.

I’ve tested converting Heroes season 3 episode 1 (heroes.s03e01.hdtv.xvid-0tv.avi) at 350MB to a self running executable with MakeInstantPlayer. The converted EXE file becomes 364MB which is an increment of 14MB. To convert a video file to executable (avi to exe), just click at Source file to select the video or audio file that you want to convert. If you want to change the output executable filename and path, click Output file. If you want to open a webpage after the video finished playing, just enter a URL at the homepage. You can also display a nice splash screen while the executable is extracting the video and player to your temporary folder. Supports JPG, GIF and Bitmap image files. There are other options for you to run player in full screen, run in compact mode, automatically quit player at the end of playback, keep player window on top of other windows, loop media until user forces the player to quit and include binary codecs for WMV and Real medias. MPlayer is a media player that supports 192 videos and 85 audio natively as well as a lot of command parameters. You can enter the additional commands at the parameters box. Click the Make It button, wait for a few minutes and you have an executable file that plays the video file without installing any codec.

Most important thing is the computer that will be playing the executable video file needs to have enough disk space. Reason is the executable file will extract the video file and Mplayer to a temporary folder. There are two suggestions I have for MakeInstantPlayer which is support for subtitle and also changing of the ugly default executable icon. Oh, and I noticed that MakeInstantPlayer installer doesn’t create shortcut to run the program. You have go to go C:\Program Files\MuldeR\MakeInstantPlayer v1.15\ and run MakeInstantPlayer.exe to launch MakeInstantPlayer.

[ Download MakeInstantPlayer ]