RW2 to AV1 Converter

Convert RW2 to AV1: What This Tutorial Covers

RW2 is Panasonic's Lumix raw photo format — a single still image, not a video. This converter renders that photo and encodes it as an AV1 video clip, so the page is really about three decisions: how long the frame is on screen, what fills the space around it, and what to do with the unusual .av1 file you get back. It also covers when you should not be on this page at all, because for most reasons people want a photo converted, a still-image format is the better answer.

How to Convert RW2 to AV1

1. Upload Your RW2 File: Drag and drop the .rw2 onto the page or click "+ Add Files". You can add several. Merge strategy starts on "Merge images", which builds one combined clip; switch it to "Video per image" for a separate clip per photo.
2. Set the Image Duration: Open Advanced Options. Image Duration starts at 5 seconds per frame and ranges from "1/60s (single frame at 60fps)" up to "10 seconds per frame". With one photo, this is the entire length of the output.
3. Choose Quality and Background Color: File Compression starts in Quality Preset mode with the dropdown on "Very High (Recommended)"; Constant Quality and Constraint Quality are the alternatives. Background Color starts on White and fills any space around the photo.
4. Set Resolution and Convert: Video resolution starts on "Keep original", with a Fixed Resolutions list of exact pixel sizes, height-only Preset Resolutions, and explicit Width / Height boxes. Click Convert. Files upload over an encrypted connection, are processed on our servers and are deleted automatically after a few hours — no sign-up, no watermark.

What Renders on This Page

The option surface for a photo-to-video conversion is narrower than a video-to-video one, because several controls have nothing to act on.

Two things are deliberately absent. There is no Audio Codec control, because a photograph has no soundtrack — the output is silent, and merging several photos does not change that. And there are no bitrate or target-file-size modes, because a still has no source bitrate to scale from; quality-based modes are the only ones that make sense and the only ones offered.

The Output Is Matroska Wearing an .av1 Name

AV1 is a codec, not a container, so the encoder has to put the video inside something. Here that something is Matroska — the same format as an .mkv file — written to a file named .av1. That extension is not a standard container extension, and most players decide what to do with a file by looking at its name, which is why a perfectly valid clip can be refused before anything tries to decode it.

For reference, caniuse puts AV1 decoding at roughly 94% of tracked traffic, starting at Chrome 70, Firefox 67 and Edge 121, with Safari and iOS Safari from version 17 listed as partial. Note that Edge dropped AV1 entirely for a while before re-enabling it at 121. None of those browsers will load a file named .av1 directly regardless — the codec support and the container naming are separate problems.

Duration, Background Color and the Resolution Ceiling

Image Duration is the control that decides whether the clip is usable. A single photo held for 5 seconds is a sensible default; anything under about a second can flash past before some players have drawn their first frame. If you are merging a set of photos into a slideshow, the duration you choose applies to each frame, so ten photos at 3 seconds each is a 30-second clip.

Background Color matters more than it sounds. A camera raw has no alpha channel, so there is nothing transparent in the photo itself to fill — but the moment you pick an output shape that differs from the photo's, the picture is letterboxed and this colour is what fills the bars. That happens with the Fixed Resolutions entries and with an explicit Width x Height, since both name an exact pixel size; the height-only Preset Resolutions keep the source aspect ratio and so produce no bars at all. It starts on White, which is right on a light page and glaring in a dark video timeline. Set it to Black before you convert if the clip is going anywhere cinematic.

The resolution ceiling is the part nobody expects. Before encoding, every uploaded photo is rendered to a clean PNG frame — the step that turns Panasonic's raw sensor data into an ordinary RGB image using a neutral default development — and that step caps the long edge at 4096 pixels. It applies even on "Keep original", so a 5184 x 3888 raw is encoded from a 4096 x 3072 render. Frames already within 4096 px pass through at native size. Since AV1 is spending its bits on a single unchanging frame, this is rarely visible, but it does mean you cannot use this page to produce a 6K still-frame clip.

Common Errors and How to Fix Them

• "My player shows nothing / refuses the file" — the .av1 extension is the problem, not the video. Rename to .mkv, open it in VLC, or convert it with AV1 to MP4.
• "The clip is over before it starts" — Image Duration was set to one of the sub-second entries. Raise it to 5 seconds or more.
• "There are white bars around my photo" — you picked an output shape that does not match the photo's aspect ratio, and Background Color starts on White. Change the colour, or choose a resolution with the same aspect ratio as the source.
• "There is no sound" — that is correct and unavoidable. A photograph carries no audio, and the Audio Codec control is hidden on this conversion for that reason.
• "The colours don't match my edit" — the raw is developed with a neutral default. Export from your raw editor first and convert the finished image instead.
• "Encoding took a long time" — AV1 is the slowest of the common encoders. That cost is fixed; there is no faster codec on this particular page.

When This Doesn't Work

Turning one RW2 into AV1 serves a narrow set of jobs: dropping a still onto a timeline that expects AV1, or merging several photos into a silent slideshow. If your actual goal is to view, print, edit or share the photograph, a still-image format wins every time — it keeps more of the render, opens everywhere, and skips the video-codec overhead entirely. Use RW2 to JPG for something shareable or RW2 to TIFF for something you will edit further. If you want a video but with sane playback, RW2 to MP4 produces a file that opens by double-clicking, and the RW2 converter lists the other targets.

Frequently Asked Questions

Will converting RW2 to AV1 include any audio?

No, and there is no setting that changes it. RW2 is a still photo, so there is no soundtrack to encode, and the Audio Codec control is hidden on this conversion entirely. Merging several photos into one clip produces a longer silent video, not a scored one. If you need audio, add it afterwards in a video editor.

Why is the output a .av1 file instead of an MP4 or MKV?

Because this page's target is the codec rather than a container, and the file is named after it. What you actually receive is a Matroska file — the same structure as .mkv — carrying an AV1 video track. Renaming it to .mkv costs nothing and makes it behave normally, because no re-encoding is involved in the rename; only the name changes.

How long will my clip be?

Whatever Image Duration says, which starts at 5 seconds per frame. One photo at the default gives a 5-second clip. If you upload several photos with Merge strategy on "Merge images", the duration applies per frame, so the total is roughly the number of photos multiplied by the duration.

What does Background Color actually affect if my photo has no transparency?

Letterboxing. A camera raw has no alpha channel, so the photo itself never has holes to fill — but if the output resolution has a different aspect ratio from the photograph, the picture is centred and the leftover bars are painted in this colour. It starts on White, which is the wrong choice for most video work, so switch it to Black unless you specifically want a light frame.

Can I keep my Lumix file at full resolution?

Up to 4096 pixels on the long edge. Each photo is rendered to a clean frame before encoding, and that step clamps the long edge at 4096 px whether or not you touched Video resolution — so a 5184 x 3888 raw is encoded from a 4096 x 3072 render. Anything already inside 4096 px is encoded at its native size.

Why are there no bitrate or file-size options here?

Because they would be meaningless. Bitrate modes work by scaling against a source's existing data rate, and a still photograph does not have one. That is why this page offers Quality Preset, Constant Quality and Constraint Quality but hides the constant-bitrate, variable-bitrate and target-size modes you would see converting one video into another.

Should I pick AV1 at all for a single photo?

Only if something downstream requires it. AV1's advantage is compression efficiency across many changing frames, and a clip of one unchanging frame is trivially small in any modern codec — so you pay AV1's much slower encode for a saving measured in kilobytes. If the destination accepts H.264, RW2 to MP4 finishes faster and plays in more places.

Will my raw develop settings carry over into the video?

No. RW2 stores minimally-processed sensor data, and it is developed with a neutral default before encoding, so adjustments made in Lightroom, Capture One or SILKYPIX are not applied. Raw also holds far more tonal latitude than the encoded video can carry, so do your exposure and white-balance work first, export a finished image, and convert that.