X3F to MPEG Converter

How to Convert X3F to MPEG Online

1. Upload Your X3F Files: Drag and drop or click "+ Add Files" to load Sigma .x3f raw images from your computer. Batch upload is supported — drop in a whole shoot from an SD9, SD15, SD1 Merrill, DP Merrill, dp Quattro, or sd Quattro and the converter will sequence them into one MPEG video. Files are uploaded over an encrypted connection, processed on our servers, and deleted automatically after a few hours — no sign-up, no watermark, never shared.
2. Pick a Merge Strategy: Choose Merge images to stitch every X3F into a single MPEG slideshow (the usual choice), or Video per image to render one short MPEG clip per frame. Set Image Duration (Duration dropdown — pick anywhere from 1/60 second up to 10 seconds per frame; 3–5 seconds is the standard photo-slideshow pace).
3. Tune the Output (Optional): Set Background Color for letterboxed images (Black is the default to mimic projector matting), pick a Quality Preset — Constant Quality (CRF-style, fixed visual quality, variable size) or Constraint Quality (capped bitrate, predictable size) — then pull the Preset dropdown from Lowest through Highest (Very High is the default). Use Video Resolution to keep the source pixel dimensions, snap to a fixed resolution (480p, 720p, 1080p, 4K, 8K), or scale by percentage to keep the aspect ratio.
4. Convert and Download: Click "Convert" to render the MPEG program stream. Output plays in VLC, MPC-HC, QuickTime (with Perian), Windows Media Player, and on any DVD authoring app that accepts MPEG-1/MPEG-2. No sign-up, no watermark.

Why Convert X3F to MPEG?

X3F is Sigma's proprietary Foveon raw format — three vertically stacked photodiodes per pixel site, recorded losslessly with all per-channel data intact. That makes it brilliant for editing but useless for sharing: Lightroom doesn't read it, mobile browsers can't preview it, and even desktop Photoshop drops support for newer dp Quattro and sd Quattro files. Wrapping a stack of X3F frames inside an MPEG-1 or MPEG-2 program stream gets you a single file that virtually any media player from the last 25 years can open, including legacy DVD set-top boxes. Typical reasons people do this:

• Set-top DVD authoring — MPEG-2 program stream is the underlying video format on every commercial DVD-Video disc (the .VOB files in VIDEO_TS are MPEG-2 PS). Render an X3F shoot to MPEG and most DVD-authoring apps (DVDStyler, Nero, ConvertXtoDVD) will accept it directly without re-encoding.
• Universal playback — VLC, MPC-HC, QuickTime, Windows Media Player, and every smart-TV USB port handle MPEG natively. X3F handles approximately none of them.
• Photo-club projection — Camera clubs and Sigma user groups still circulate slideshows on USB sticks for projector evenings; MPEG-1 at 1.5 Mbit/s is the safest "will play on the cheap club laptop" choice.
• Archive contact sheets — A 5-second-per-frame MPEG of an entire shoot is a quick visual index that opens faster than scrolling 200 raws through SIGMA Photo Pro.
• Embedding in legacy CMS / wiki / e-learning — Older Moodle, SharePoint, and corporate-CMS video widgets often expect MPEG-1/2 and stumble on H.264 in MP4. MPEG is the lowest-common-denominator video.
• Send to non-Sigma shooters — Send the Foveon look to friends and clients who don't have SIGMA Photo Pro installed; they get one file, double-click, done.

Just need stills, not video? Use X3F to JPG, X3F to PNG, or X3F to TIFF for editable images. Want the modern H.264 container instead of a program stream? Try X3F to MP4. For the legacy 3-character extension only, see X3F to MPG — same format, different filename.

####.mpeg vs.mpg vs.mp4 — Which Container Should You Pick?

The .mpeg and .mpg extensions are byte-for-byte identical — Windows truncated to three characters historically, Unix kept four. Either plays anywhere the other does.

Image Duration Cheat Sheet

How long each X3F frame holds the screen, and where each setting fits:

A 100-image shoot at 5 seconds per frame yields an 8 minute 20 second video. At MPEG-1's 1.5 Mbit/s reference bitrate, that's about a 95 MB file.

Frequently Asked Questions

Why convert X3F to a video format at all — wouldn't JPG be enough?

JPGs are great for single frames but they don't sequence on their own. If you want one shareable file that plays the whole shoot in order with timing and (optionally) background music, you need a video container. MPEG is the format with the widest "will-it-play-anywhere" track record: it predates QuickTime, predates H.264, and is the only video format guaranteed to be readable by a DVD player or a 2005-vintage corporate intranet portal. For modern web sharing, X3F to MP4 is usually a better pick.

What's the difference between this and X3F to MPG?

None — .mpeg and .mpg are two filename extensions for the same MPEG program-stream format. Windows historically truncated to three characters, Unix kept the four-character .mpeg. If your downstream tool insists on one or the other, pick the matching converter; otherwise either works. The encoded bytes are identical.

MPEG-1 or MPEG-2 — which does this tool output?

The default codec is MPEG-1 video at the SIF resolution and bitrate range the spec was tuned for (around 1.5 Mbit/s); set the Quality Preset to Constraint Quality + Very High or Highest and pick a 720p+ resolution and the encoder produces MPEG-2 instead (the codec dropdown picks up MPEG2_SELECTION for higher bitrates). MPEG-2 is what you want for DVD-Video; MPEG-1 is fine for embedding and archival contact sheets.

Will the Foveon "look" survive the conversion?

Partly. Foveon's per-pixel three-layer colour data is reduced to standard 4:2:0 YCbCr chroma subsampling inside the MPEG stream, so the per-channel sharpness Foveon shooters value disappears. Use a high Quality Preset (Very High or Highest) and a high resolution (1080p+) to preserve as much of the look as possible. For true Foveon-quality stills, export to TIFF first via X3F to TIFF, then build the slideshow from the TIFFs.

Will modern browsers play the output .mpeg file?

Not natively. Chrome, Firefox, Edge, and Safari dropped HTML5 <video> support for MPEG-1/MPEG-2 program streams years ago — they only ship H.264/AAC, VP9, and AV1 codecs out of the box. The output plays in standalone players (VLC, MPC-HC, QuickTime + Perian, Windows Media Player) and on DVD-style hardware. If you need browser embedding, convert via X3F to MP4 instead.

Can I add audio (a music track) during the conversion?

This tool produces silent video — there's no upload slot for an audio track in the image-to-video flow. Render the silent MPEG here, then mux audio in afterwards with a desktop tool such as FFmpeg (ffmpeg -i slideshow.mpeg -i music.mp3 -c:v copy -c:a mp2 out.mpeg) or VirtualDub. MPEG program streams accept MP2, MP3, and (in MPEG-2) AC-3 audio tracks.

How big will the output file be?

Roughly: bitrate × duration ÷ 8. At MPEG-1's reference 1.5 Mbit/s, one minute of slideshow is about 11 MB; at MPEG-2's typical 6 Mbit/s for DVD-grade, the same minute is about 45 MB. Set Quality Preset to Constraint Quality and pick a lower preset (Low / Very Low) if you need a smaller file, or stick with Constant Quality at Very High for archival.

My SD1 Merrill / dp Quattro X3F files won't decode — why?

Sigma changed the X3F internal layout between the Merrill generation (SD1, DP1/2/3 Merrill — 2011–2014) and the Quattro generation (dp/sd Quattro — 2014 onward). Older decoders that pre-date 2014 reject Quattro files, and even Adobe Photoshop's Camera Raw plug-in still has gaps for newer Sigma bodies. The X3F decoder used in this tool covers all generations through the sd Quattro H — if you hit a decode error on a newer file, try opening it in SIGMA Photo Pro and exporting to TIFF, then build the slideshow from the TIFFs.

Can I keep the original photo resolution in the video?

Yes — set Video Resolution to Keep original. Be aware that X3F native resolutions (e.g., 4704 × 3136 from a Foveon Quattro) are well above what MPEG-1's SIF was designed for, and many MPEG-2 decoders cap out at 1920 × 1080. For maximum compatibility, snap to a fixed 1920 × 1080 or 1280 × 720 preset. If you need an exact pixel size, type it into Width × Height and the aspect ratio is preserved.

Is anything uploaded to your servers?

files are processed on our servers and deleted automatically after a few hours and removed when the session ends. No account, no email, no watermark, no per-file count cap. Same for the input X3F raws and the output MPEG.