Convert APNG to RMVB Online

APNG to RMVB — or Should That Be MP4?

Almost everyone who lands here is converting an animated PNG into a RealMedia file because something specific asks for one: an old media library organised around .rmvb, a player or set-top box from the RealNetworks era, or a workflow nobody has updated in fifteen years. That is a perfectly good reason, and this page does the job properly. But it is worth saying plainly first: if you are free to choose the format, APNG to MP4 will give you a smaller, sharper file that plays on every phone and browser, and RMVB will not. Below is the comparison that decides it, the difference between the two RealVideo codecs on offer, and the conversion itself.

Side-by-side: RMVB vs MP4 as a Target

RealVideo 1.0 vs RealVideo 2.0

The Video Codec dropdown offers exactly two entries on this page, because those are the RealVideo variants available for encoding. The naming trips people up: RV10 is RealVideo 1.0, the first release, not a tenth version.

RealNetworks' later proprietary codecs, RV30 and RV40, are decode-only in most open tooling and are not offered here for encoding. Whichever of the two you choose, the file is written as a RealMedia container — running our encode locally, ffprobe reports the result as format rm / RealMedia with a stream identified as rv10 (RealVideo 1.0) or rv20 (RealVideo 2.0) respectively.

When RMVB Is the Right Call

• An existing RealMedia collection you are adding to and want to keep consistent.
• A RealPlayer-based device, kiosk, or set-top box that names .rm or .rmvb in its manual.
• Software from that era that will not ingest MP4 at all.

When to Pick MP4 Instead

• The clip is going on the web, into a chat, or onto a social platform.
• You want hardware-accelerated playback on a phone, tablet, or TV.
• File size at a given quality matters — a modern codec wins by a wide margin.
• You are not sure what the destination needs. MP4 is the safe default.

How to Convert APNG to RMVB

1. Upload Your APNG File: Drag and drop the .apng onto the page or use the upload button. Plain .png files are accepted too, and several can be queued at once.
2. Choose RealVideo 1.0 or 2.0: Open the Video Codec dropdown and pick RV10 for the broadest legacy-player compatibility or RV20 for slightly better quality at the same bitrate.
3. Set Quality Preset, Resolution, and Background Color: Quality Preset under File Compression starts on "Very High (Recommended)" — step it down to shrink the file. Video resolution can stay at the original size or move to a preset. Because RealVideo has no alpha channel, Background Color (White by default) decides what fills your APNG's transparent pixels.
4. Convert and Download: Click Convert and download the .rmvb. No sign-up, no watermark. Files are uploaded over an encrypted connection, processed on our servers, and deleted automatically after a few hours.

Frequently Asked Questions

Should I convert my APNG to RMVB at all, or use MP4?

Use RMVB only when something in your chain specifically requires RealMedia. RV10 and RV20 are H.263-derived codecs from the late 1990s, so at a given quality they need substantially more bitrate than H.264, and no browser, phone, or social platform will play the result without extra software. If nothing is demanding a .rmvb, convert to MP4 — you can always produce an RMVB later if something turns out to need it.

What actually plays an RMVB file?

VLC handles it on every desktop platform, as do MPlayer, mpv, and Media Player Classic — essentially anything built on FFmpeg's RealMedia demuxer. RealPlayer itself still opens them. What will not play them is any browser, the stock video app on iOS or Android, or most smart TVs, without installing a third-party player first.

What is the difference between .rm and .rmvb?

Both are the RealMedia container. The .rmvb extension signals variable bitrate — the encoder is allowed to spend more bits on complex scenes and fewer on simple ones, rather than holding a constant rate — which RealNetworks added around 2003 for better quality per megabyte on file-based playback rather than live streaming. Players treat the two extensions the same way; the demuxer does not care which one is on the filename.

What happens to my APNG's transparent background?

RealVideo has no alpha channel, so transparency cannot survive. Every frame is composited onto a single solid colour before encoding — whatever Background Color is set to, white unless you change it — so semi-transparent edges blend smoothly into that colour instead of leaving a hard fringe. Pick the colour that matches wherever the clip will be shown. If transparency has to be preserved, stay on APNG or use a WebP output instead.

Does the RMVB keep my APNG's frame rate and timing?

Yes. An animated APNG is read as a video-like source rather than a single still image, so the per-frame delays stored in the file drive the output's frame rate and duration. That is also why this page shows no "hold each image for N seconds" or merge control — those exist for still-image sources, which have no timing of their own, and are hidden when the input is already animated.

Will the RMVB have an audio track?

No. APNG cannot carry sound, so there is nothing to encode and the output is silent. RealMedia would normally pair RealVideo with RealAudio or AAC, but with no source audio those settings have nothing to act on. Add a soundtrack afterwards in an editor if the clip needs one.

Will the RMVB loop the way the APNG did?

No. APNG stores a play count inside the file; RealMedia has no equivalent flag, so playback stops at the end unless the player is set to repeat. If continuous looping is the whole point of the animation, RMVB is a poor fit — an MP4 in a <video loop> tag, or simply keeping the APNG, does the job with no extra configuration.

Why is RV10 called RealVideo 1.0 and not version 10?

Because it is the first RealVideo codec, released in 1997 and based on ITU-T H.263. The four-character codes RV10, RV20, RV30 and RV40 identify generations one through four, so RV40 — the last of them — is RealVideo 4, not RealVideo 40. It is a common source of confusion when reading ffprobe output or a player's codec panel.

Can I convert several APNG files at once?

Yes. Queue them and each one is converted with the same settings, producing its own .rmvb. There is no "combine these into one clip" mode for animated inputs, because each APNG already defines its own sequence and timing — that control only appears for still-image sources. To join finished clips, convert them first and merge afterwards.