conversion

Import unsupported camera RAW files into Apple Photos

Many years ago, I decided to migrate my photo library from Apple's now-defunct Aperture to Photos, so I could take advantage of Apple's iCloud Photo Library (don't worry, I still have three full complete local backups, plus a separate cloud backup besides Apple's iCloud originals).

One pain point is RAW support. As camera manufacturers add new models, their proprietary RAW codecs are updated, and software vendors like Apple, Adobe, and Microsoft have to update photo editing tools to work with the new camera models.

I don't envy them this task, but as Photos was Apple's official successor to Aperture (a pale shadow to be sure, but it has its merits as a semi-decent library organizer), they've generally done well supporting new camera models. The compatibility list for macOS Sonoma, iPadOS 17, and iOS 17 is a testament to that effort.

Convert Protected M4V videos from iTunes to MP4s with TunesKit

So, I have amassed a pretty massive media library over the years—my goal has always been to maintain every single bit of digital media I own locally via iTunes (and/or other libraries which can be shared with devices in my home), and be able to play any of my DVDs, Blu-rays, digital purchases, etc. on any of my devices (mostly in the Apple kingdom, but there are a few Raspberry Pis and other devices floating about).

I also like the convenience of purchasing media on the iTunes Store, so I have also amassed a decent collection of movies and TV shows there. One problem: none of those files can be played outside the Apple ecosystem! In the past, I outlined how I put Blu-ray, HD-DVD, and DVD media onto my Mac. In this post, I'll run through my process for stripping the DRM from protected M4V videos I purchased and downloaded from the iTunes Store.

Aside: It's ironic that the International Day against DRM was a couple days ago—it has no bearing on my writing this post, it's just coincidental.

Converting a non-Composer Drupal codebase to use Composer

A question which I see quite often in response to posts like A modern way to build and develop Drupal 8 sites, using Composer is: "I want to start using Composer... but my current Drupal 8 site wasn't built with Composer. Is there an easy way to convert my codebase to use Composer?"

Convert a tarball Drupal codebase to a Composer Drupal codebase

Unfortunately, the answer to that is a little complicated. The problem is the switch to managing your codebase with Composer is an all-or-nothing affair... there's no middle ground where you can manage a couple modules with Composer, and core with Drush, and something else with manual downloads. (Well, technically this is possible, but it would be immensely painful and error-prone, so don't try it!).

Switching an SVN repository to Git using git svn

Converting from an SVN repository to a Git repository is fairly simple—you just want to move all the commits across, preserve your tags and branches, and make sure all the commit authorship translates properly. The simplest method (though not always fastest) is to use the git svn command to do the full conversion. (Note also that you could interact with an SVN repository with Git as the middle man using git svn... but this blog post is just about doing a full conversion).

Converting the authors

Before you convert the SVN repository to Git, you need to get a list of all the SVN commit authors, and then set up the list for git svn to be able to translate SVN commit authors to Git commit authors (the Git format is slightly different, using a name + email combination). First, in a terminal window, run the following command within a local checkout of the SVN repository:

svn log -q | awk -F '|' '/^r/ {sub("^ ", "", $2); sub(" $", "", $2); print $2" = "$2" <"$2">"}' | sort -u > authors.txt

Convert .MTS file to .MOV or .MP4 on a Mac (for iMovie, etc.)

I recently received a few .mts files from a friend. These files are AVCHD high-definition video files from consumer-grade HD video cameras, and they've traditionally been a pain to work with.

If you have the files on your camcorder or an SD card from your camcorder, you can just open up iMovie '08 or iMovie '09 and click 'import from camera.' It'll take forever to transcode the files into something iMovie can use, but it will work. If, however, you're like me and you just have the files (no camcorder), you'll need to transcode the files before you can edit them or compress them further.

The easiest way to do this, in my experience, is to use Handbrake, the best/simplest transcoding software you can get on the Mac... and it's free! Don't pay any money for fancy GUI wrappers like the ones you'll find on mtsconverter.com, applemacvideo.com, mtsconvertermac.biz, etc... these are all ripoffs of ffmpeg, a free and open source video transcoding library.

Converting High Definition Movies to Watch on Mac/PC

NOTE: I have since written a newer article that makes it MUCH easier to do just about everything, making use of MakeMKV. The new article: Ripping Movies from Blu-Ray, HD-DVD and DVD, Getting them onto Apple TV, iPad, iPhone, etc. &mdash I am leaving this article up for historical purposes, though, as there is some good information in here still...

This article will help you to convert HD-DVD and Blu-Ray movies to QuickTime compatible files so you can watch them in high definition in iTunes, Front Row, or QuickTime Player. The guide will also help you to be able to convert the videos into other formats so you can preserve the surround sound and the highest picture quality.

Blu-Ray and HD-DVD Logos

Converting the HD-DVD or Blu-Ray

1. Copy FEATURE_1.EVO and FEATURE_2.EVO to hard drive by decrypting them using AnyDVD, DVDFab HD Decrypter, or some other decrypter. Some DVDs use different naming schemes, but the files you need are the two largest 'EVO' files.

NOTE: I have only been able to work on HD-DVDs, so Some of the steps here don't work (or only partially work) with Blu-Ray, but I hope you can find some inspiration for getting your blu-ray files to work with Quicktime, if you so desire. Google can help you find how to get the blu-ray files ready for demuxing/conversion. Soon I will get myself an external Blu-Ray drive and start tinkering around with Blu-Ray movies... but for now I'm happy simply working on HD-DVD.

NOTE 2: I simply used the Xbox 360 HD-DVD drive, as I found one cheap locally (through Craigslist), and it works via USB 2.0. It's also quite compact! If you do so with Windows XP, you'll need to load a driver to enable support for the UDF 2.5 file format HD-DVDs and Blu-Ray discs use.