As ISO contains the full contents of a disc, including all menu, audio, and video files, the file size is usually large. Plus, ISO files can only be played using software or devices that support decoding ISO files. To save space on your hard drive and play ISO files conveniently, one of the best ways is to convert them to MP4. In this article, we will explore 5 ways on how to convert ISO to MP4 on Mac or Windows.
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Different types of ISO files are created for operating systems, software packages, games, and movies or videos. The first three are disc image files containing installation programs and resource files, which can’t be directly converted to MP4. Only movie and video ISO files, similar to video DVD discs, can be changed to MP4. An ISO movie lasting 90 minutes usually takes 4GB to 10GB of space. By converting ISO to MP4, the movie can be compressed by 50% to 80%.
Even though VLC, Windows Media Player, Mac's built-in DVD player, etc., support playing ISO, most media players, mobile phones, and other devices can't. Due to MP4's widespread usage, you won't have compatibility issues when turning ISO into MP4.
No. iTunes does not allow ISO import and MP4 export. M4V is the only video export format supported, which is for converting videos for iPod, iPhone, iPad, or Apple TV.
Cisdem Video Converter is the best ISO to MP4 converter for Mac and Windows. It allows you to convert ISO, DVD discs, and DVD folders to any video and audio format without sacrificing quality. In just a few simple clicks, you can adjust ISO parameters such as codec, resolution, and convert multiple ISO files to MP4 at an impressive rate.
Another amazing feature is that it can bypass and remove all DVD protections, whether they are CSS, region codes, Sony ARccOS, RipGuard, user operation prohibitions, or anything else.
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On Mac, go to “File” on the menu bar. Then, click “Add Files”, and choose the ISO file you want to convert > “Open”.
Click the "gearwheel" button next to the format to update the file settings.
The steps above help you convert a whole ISO including all titles and menu to MP4. Suppose you only need to convert the main title or several titles from the ISO to MP4, simply double-click the ISO to decompress it, and you will get VIDEO_TS and AUDIO_TS.
Drag-n-drop the VIDEO_TS into Cisdem Video Converter for handling and conversion.
Handbrake offers the ability to both transcode videos and rip ISO/DVDs. It lets you convert ISO to MP4 on Mac, Windows, and cross-platform devices. However, only two output formats are supported, the other being MKV. Just like when you detect DVD discs, you will receive the message "No valid source or titles found" if you try to rip copy-protected ISO images. To solve the issue, install the libdvdcss library for Handbrake.
On Mac, Handbrake will display a dialog box asking you to select the source file. Browse your Mac and import the ISO.
In addition to playing videos, VLC can also convert them to other formats. To find out whether it can convert ISO to MP4, we made a test. A 28-minute-long ISO file with four titles and one menu is used for this test.
On Mac, select “File” > “Convert / Stream”, click “Open Media” to add ISO.
We have finally reached a conclusion. On Windows, this ISO file containing 28 minutes of video only exported 14 seconds of menu video, and the conversion time is long. On a Mac, the file will automatically be saved as M4V. Perhaps you can manually change the suffix to MP4. During conversion, VLC repeatedly prompts you to keep or overwrite existing files. Further, the exported MP4 file can't be opened either.
Converters online make converting ISO to MP4 easy without the need for installation. iso-to-mp4.file-converter-online.com is one such converter able to convert ISO file to MP4, MP3, AVI, MPEG, M4A, MOV, and FLV. Uploading files takes some time, and don't convert private important ISO files online due to the risk of security breaches.
FFmpeg is a practical command-line tool for decoding and encoding media files. Changing an ISO file to MP4 is possible with two methods - re-encoding or remuxing, but based on our tests, the latter method does not work.
When we run ffmpeg -i input.iso -c copy output.mp4 to remux ISO to MP4, it always says, “timestamps are unset and pts has no value”.
Even if we use another command ffmpeg -copyts -i input.iso -c copy output.mp4 to force a copy of the timestamp in the input ISO file, the result remains the same. Hence, we recommend the way to re-encode.
Converting ISO file to MP4 can help you significantly compress a large file and make it simple to share ISO image content everywhere. This article discusses how to convert ISO to MP4 on Mac or Windows. Among the 5 methods, Cisdem Video Converter and FFmpeg are of great assistance. The next level is Handbrake and online converter. In this test, VLC did not perform very well. Possibly you can decompress the ISO and then convert the VOB files in VIDEO_TS folder individually.
Peter has always had great enthusiasm for writing, programming and web development. He likes writing about software and technology, his works are featured on some tech blogs or forums like Tom's Hardware, CNET, etc.
