PEF to AV1 Converter

Turning a Pentax PEF Still Into an AV1 Clip: What This Tutorial Covers

PEF is Pentax's proprietary camera raw format — one still photograph, stored as TIFF-based sensor data — and AV1 is the Alliance for Open Media's royalty-free video codec. So this is not a picture-to-picture conversion: the server renders your raw, then encodes that single motionless frame as a short, silent AV1 clip held on screen for a duration you choose. This tutorial covers the four steps, the two controls that genuinely change the output, the .av1 filename problem that trips almost everyone up, and the point at which you should stop and use PEF to JPG instead.

How to Convert PEF to AV1

1. Upload Your PEF File: Drag your .pef files onto the page or use the file picker. Queue as many raw frames as you like — with "Merge strategy" on its default "Merge images" they become one clip that plays them back to back, while "Video per image" writes a separate file per photo.
2. Set Image Duration: This dropdown decides how long each still is held, from 1/60 s (a single frame at 60 fps) through 1, 2, 3 seconds and up to 10 seconds per image. The default is 5 seconds.
3. Pick a Compression Mode: "Quality Preset" is selected by default and opens on "Very High (Recommended)". Switch to "Constant Quality" to drive the AV1 quantiser directly on a 16–63 CRF slider (lower means better and bigger), or "Constraint Quality" to keep quality-based encoding while capping the peak with a Max bitrate value.
4. Convert and Download: Click Convert and save the file. Your upload travels over an encrypted connection, is processed on our servers, and is deleted automatically after a few hours — no sign-up, no watermark, never shared or made public.

Walk-through: the Controls That Actually Move the Needle

A still photograph is the easiest thing a modern video encoder will ever see. There is exactly one frame of real information and everything after it is a repeat, so most of the knobs you would reach for on a real video barely register here. These are the ones that do something:

• If you want a longer hold on screen, raise Image Duration. Because every frame after the first is identical, extra seconds cost almost nothing — a longer clip grows far more slowly than the duration multiplier suggests.
• If the file is bigger than you expected, drop the resolution before you touch quality. A 24-megapixel Pentax frame carries far more detail than any video timeline will use; the "Video resolution" control offers height-based presets (width follows your photo's aspect ratio), a percentage, or an explicit width × height.
• If you need a specific quality target, switch to Constant Quality. AV1 here is encoded with Intel's SVT-AV1, whose CRF scale runs 0–63; around 30 is the encoder's own neutral point, lower values hold more detail at a larger size.
• If you need to cap the peak rate, use Constraint Quality. On AV1 this keeps CRF-based encoding and adds a Max bitrate ceiling, which is the combination that behaves predictably for a still.
• Note what is missing. There is no audio control anywhere on this page, and no bitrate or target-file-size mode — the image-to-video pipeline hides all of them, because a photograph has no soundtrack and no source bitrate to scale from.

Common Errors and How to Fix Them

• "My player says the file is unknown or won't open it." The output is a Matroska container that happens to carry the .av1 extension. Most players decide what to do from the file name, and .av1 is not a container name they know. Rename the file to .mkv — the bytes are unchanged — and VLC, mpv and most editors will open it immediately. For maximum reach, run it through AV1 to MP4.
• "There is no sound." Expected, and not a fault. A photograph carries no audio, so the clip is written video-only; the audio controls are hidden on this page entirely rather than silently producing an empty track.
• "There are white bars down the sides." Your photo's aspect ratio does not match the output frame, and the leftover area is filled with the Background Color, which defaults to White for image sources. Either pick a resolution closer to the picture's proportions, or choose a different fill from the colour list.
• "The picture looks softer than the raw." Two separate causes stack up. First, images are re-encoded to a clean PNG before encoding and clamped to 4096 pixels on the long edge, so a 6000 × 4000 raw arrives as roughly 4096 × 2730. Second, AV1 here is an 8-bit lossy encode, while PEF holds 12 or 14 bits per channel. Keep a PEF to TIFF copy if you need the detail.
• "Nothing moves." Correct. One photograph is one moment; the clip shows it steadily for the duration you set. Motion has to come from an editor, or from uploading several frames and merging them.

PEF and AV1 Side by Side

What Each Visible Control Does

Frequently Asked Questions

Is the AV1 output a video file or an image file?

A video file. AV1 is a video codec, and this page produces a short clip that displays your single Pentax frame for the duration you set. The still-image relative of AV1 is AVIF — the AV1 Image File Format, defined by the same Alliance for Open Media — and if a compact modern picture is what you actually want, use PEF to AVIF instead.

Why won't my .av1 file play by double-clicking it?

Because .av1 is not a container name. What the converter writes is a standard Matroska file; only the extension is unusual, and most desktop players route files to a demuxer based on that extension. Rename the download to .mkv and it will open in VLC, mpv and the majority of editors without re-encoding anything. If you need it to preview in a browser or on a social platform, convert it with AV1 to MP4.

Which AV1 encoder is used, and what CRF range does it accept?

Intel's SVT-AV1, chosen because it encodes far faster than the libaom reference encoder at comparable quality. Its CRF scale runs from 16 to 63, which is why the Constant Quality slider on this page spans that range rather than the 16–51 range you see on H.264 targets. Around 30 sits at the encoder's own neutral setting.

Why is there no audio option at all on this page?

Because the source is a photograph. On image-to-video conversions the whole audio group is hidden rather than left visible and inert, so you are never offered a codec that could not be used. If you need music or narration, add it afterwards in a video editor, or convert to a container your editor prefers such as PEF to MKV.

Will I lose my Pentax raw editing latitude?

Yes, completely. A PEF is an unprocessed negative — white balance, exposure, highlight recovery and tone curve are all still adjustable while it stays raw, because the file holds 12 or 14 bits per channel of sensor data. Encoding it into an 8-bit AV1 frame bakes the current interpretation into ordinary pixels. Adjust the PEF in raw software first if the look matters, and keep the original .pef as your master.

Does the resolution of my raw file get reduced automatically?

If it is very large, yes. Before encoding, each image is re-rendered to a clean PNG and clamped so its long edge is no more than 4096 pixels, because that is the size ffmpeg's image input handles reliably. A 6000 × 4000 Pentax frame therefore enters the encoder at about 4096 × 2730. Set an explicit resolution yourself if you want a specific output size rather than that automatic ceiling.

Can I make a slideshow from several Pentax raw files here?

Yes. Upload multiple .pef files and leave "Merge strategy" on "Merge images" — each rendered frame is held for the Image Duration you picked, and they are concatenated into one AV1 clip. There are no transitions or crossfades between them; each photo cuts straight to the next. Choosing "Video per image" instead gives you one clip per photo.

How long does the encode take compared with a normal video?

Usually far less time than the same duration of real footage, because only the first frame contains new information and the rest are near-perfect repeats that AV1's inter-frame prediction disposes of cheaply. The dominant cost is normally the upload itself, since Pentax raw files commonly run tens of megabytes each. The practical ceiling on a big batch is upload size and time, not encoding.

What happens to my file after the conversion finishes?

It is uploaded over an encrypted connection, rendered and encoded on our servers, and deleted automatically after a few hours. There is no sign-up and no watermark, and your files are never shared or made public.