Quill Converter 1.0.0 Release Notes

Released September 28, 2026.

Somewhere between “I recorded this in the wrong format” and “my player will not open this,” almost everybody hits the wall of media conversion. The usual answer is a website that wants you to upload your file, sit through an advertisement, and trust a stranger with your recording – or a program whose every button is unlabeled to a screen reader.

Quill Converter is the other answer. It runs entirely on your own computer, it was built for screen readers from the first line, and with 1.0.0 it converts video as well as sound.

This is Quill Converter’s first public release. The app was first built in July 2026 as an audio converter; it did not ship then, and the months since went into making it the converter we wanted to hand people: video, effects you can hear before you commit, chapters that survive every conversion, joining and splitting, an Explorer right-click, and reasons instead of error codes when something fails.

Downloads

Two downloads. Choose one.

Try this first

  1. Open Quill Converter. Focus is already on the list of files to convert.
  2. Press Alt+A and choose a recording, or copy one in File Explorer and press Ctrl+V here.
  3. Press Alt+T and arrow through Convert to. Each format tells you what it is for. MP3 plays everywhere, so it is a good first choice.
  4. Press Alt+E and try Clean up speech, then Ctrl+P to hear fifteen seconds exactly as the result will sound. Ctrl+Shift+P plays the same fifteen seconds as they are now, so you can compare.
  5. Press Ctrl+Enter. Progress is spoken as it goes, and the new file lands in a folder called Converted beside the original. Your original is never changed.
  6. Press F1 on anything you are unsure of. It tells you what the window is for and what that control does.

Everything is included

Nothing downloads the first time you use a feature. Both downloads carry:

Conversion never touches the network. The only things that do are Check for Updates and Convert from URL, and both only when you ask.

What is new, and why

A video, a whole playlist, or a channel

Paste a link into Convert from URL (Ctrl+U). One video downloads its audio. A playlist asks whether you want all of it or the first few; a YouTube channel asks which section (videos, Shorts, live streams), how many of the newest, and from how recently. Every video’s audio joins the queue in order, numbered and tagged as one album with track numbers, ready for Ctrl+Enter – or for Join into One File, which makes a lecture series one audiobook with a chapter per video. Paste the same link next week and only the new videos download. A private or removed video is listed in the report rather than stopping the rest, and Stop works mid-download like everywhere else.

Right-click to convert

The installer adds Convert with Quill Converter to the File Explorer right-click menu for every audio and video type the app reads. It is checked by default, applies to your Windows account only, and the uninstaller removes it. Select fifty files, choose it once, and all fifty arrive in one window, in one queue – not fifty windows, and not one file and forty-nine lost. The fastest way to convert a file is from where you already are.

34 formats out, 82 in

Quill Converter writes 25 sound formats and 9 video formats, and reads 82 file types: everyday audio, lossless and archival formats such as WavPack, APE and DSD, film sound such as AC-3 and DTS, phone formats such as AMR, older formats such as RealAudio and Musepack, tracker music, and 30 kinds of video file.

Each format is spoken with what it is for – “M4B audiobook – remembers your place in book players” – so you choose by purpose, not by acronym. And the list only offers what the bundled FFmpeg can really write, so a hundred-file batch never dies half way because an encoder was missing.

Some formats are fussy, and that is now the converter’s problem instead of yours. A format that only accepts certain sample rates (AC-3, E-AC-3, MP2, Opus, WebM audio, Speex, AMR) gets the nearest rate it accepts; AMR is made mono; lossless formats ignore a bit rate that means nothing to them.

Video

Converting a video to a sound format keeps its sound. Converting it to a video format keeps it a video: MP4 (H.264 or H.265), MKV, WebM, MOV, AVI, WMV, MPEG-2 or Ogg Theora. The video presets are named for the result, not the codec setting: Same quality, Phones and the web, up to 1080p, Smaller file, up to 720p, Smallest file, up to 480p, and Change the container only, which copies the picture and sound untouched in seconds.

H.264 and H.265 run on the computer’s graphics chip when it has a video encoder – NVIDIA, Intel or AMD, which most Windows computers have – typically several times faster than the processor alone: on our test laptop a 1080p film to H.265 went from half the speed of playback to five times it, with a file the same size. It is tried once with a moment of test picture and used only if it works, and any file it fails on is converted again on the processor. Nothing to set.

A film’s described-audio track and its second language come through in MP4, MKV, MOV and WebM, and MKV keeps the subtitles. We would rather a converter never quietly drop the one track a blind viewer needed.

Effects named for the problem they solve

A new Effects choice on the main window offers twelve recipes named for what is wrong: Clean up speech, Podcast ready, Audiobook ACX ready, Clearer voice for listening, Louder dialogue for films and TV, Night listening, music and broadcast loudness, hum, noise, long silences, and bass. You should not have to know what a de-esser is to fix sibilance.

Custom Effects (Ctrl+E) puts every switch on one page, starting from the recipe you chose, so you can take “Podcast ready” and change one thing. It also has loudness targets, gain, speed, fades, and “keep from” and “keep until” for trimming an intro or making a ringtone. Effects apply to the sound of video conversions too.

Hear it before you convert

Preview (Ctrl+P) plays fifteen seconds exactly as the result will sound: the clip is really encoded in the chosen format with the chosen effects, then played back. Hear Original (Ctrl+Shift+P) plays the same fifteen seconds untouched. Compare them, change something, compare again – before you spend an hour converting a whole audiobook.

Chapters, through every conversion

Chapter marks are how somebody who cannot glance at a waveform finds their way around a long recording, so Quill Converter treats them as content, not as metadata that may or may not survive. A new Chapter marks choice on the main window (Alt+K) says where they come from:

You can define chapters for any format with a plain text file. Beside Lecture 3.mp3, save Lecture 3.chapters.txt with lines such as 0:00 Welcome, 1:30 Questions and 1:02:05 Summary, and choose “Use the chapter list beside each file”. A .cue sheet, Podcasting 2.0 .chapters.json, Audacity labels (.labels.txt) or a plain .txt that reads as a chapter list work too. A file with no list keeps its own chapters.

Chapters land wherever the format can hold them. FFmpeg writes them inside MP3 (ID3 CHAP and CTOC), M4B, M4A, Apple Lossless, M4R, MP4, MOV, MKV, MKA, WebM, Opus and WMA. Ogg Vorbis, FLAC, Speex and Ogg video get the CHAPTER001 comments their players read. Every other format – WAV, AIFF, WavPack, AC-3 and the rest – has no place for chapters, so a .cue sheet is written beside the converted file. Nothing is silently lost. Keep from and Keep until trim the chapters to the part you keep.

The Chapter Workbench (Queue > Chapter Workbench…, Ctrl+H) opens the highlighted MP3, M4B or M4A in the Audio Studio’s Chapter Workbench, with a player: rename, split at the playhead, set a start to the playhead, merge, find chapters at silences, import and export chapter lists (Audacity labels, CUE, timestamps, Podcasting 2.0 JSON, CSV), edit the book’s details or, with All tags…, every tag in the Tag Editor, save, and split into files. The player is libmpv, now bundled in both downloads, so it seeks exactly.

Join and split

Join into One File (Ctrl+J) puts the whole queue, in order, into one sound file with one chapter per source, named from its title or a tidied file name – inside the file for every format that holds chapters, MP3 included, and as comments or a .cue sheet for the rest. A folder of MP3 chapters becomes one audiobook your book player can navigate.

Split by Chapters (Ctrl+Shift+S) goes the other way: one file per chapter, numbered, titled and tagged, in a folder named after the book. It follows the Chapter marks choice, so “A chapter every 30 minutes” cuts a ten-hour recording into 30-minute files, “Find chapters at the pauses” cuts at the pauses, and a chapter list beside the file cuts exactly where you said.

Advanced Options, in the main window

The exact encoder settings are on the main window, not in a second window. View > Advanced Options (Ctrl+Alt+V) shows or hides an Advanced section and moves focus into it: quality (bit rate), sample rate, channels, bit depth, what to do if a file already exists (number it, skip it or replace it), Broadcast polish where the build has the OptiLab Core engine, and “Look in subfolders too”. Each starts on its neutral choice, so showing them changes nothing until you change one, and they shape the same Convert as everything else on the page.

A queue you can work with

Paste files you copied in File Explorer (Ctrl+V), drop them on the list, reorder with Alt+Up and Alt+Down, clear with Ctrl+Shift+Delete. File Properties (Alt+Enter) tells you what is inside a file – its length, tracks, languages, cover art and chapters – in plain words, before you convert it. Edit Tags (Ctrl+T) opens Audio Studio’s Tag Editor right inside Quill Converter: every tag of an MP3, M4A, M4B or MP4 over five pages, and its cover art.

Reasons, not error codes

When a file fails, the report says why in words you can act on – “The file is copy-protected and cannot be converted”, “The output drive is full” – followed by FFmpeg’s own line for support. The Conversion Report (Ctrl+R) lists every file and has a Copy All button for an email.

Convert becomes Stop while it runs, and Stop is immediate: the file being converted stops as well, its unfinished output is removed, and the report lists it as skipped. Progress is counted inside each file from FFmpeg’s own progress output, so one long audiobook moves from 0 to 100 percent rather than sitting silent until it ends. It is spoken at 25, 50 and 75 percent; the status bar and tray tooltip update about once a second with the percentage and about how long is left (“Converting Book.m4b: 42 percent, about 3 minutes left”); and a progress bar under the buttons fills as it goes. The bar stays out of the Tab order, since the status bar already says the same in words. Cover art is carried into MP3, M4A, M4B, FLAC, Ogg and Opus copies where FFmpeg would have dropped it. And your format, presets, effects and output folder are remembered for next time.

Help that matches the family

The Help menu now has the same doors as Quill Radio and QUILL Lite, on the same keys: F1 for the window you are in, the User Guide, Release Notes, Changelog and Product Requirements, a Keyboard Shortcuts list (Ctrl+Alt+K), Get Help from Support (Ctrl+Alt+F2), Get FFmpeg for repair, and Check for Updates.

Support is by email, to a person: support@community-access.org. Get Help from Support writes the message in your own mail program, with the app’s version filled in, and nothing goes until you send it.

Out of the way when you want it

Minimize to Tray (Ctrl+W) tucks Quill Converter into the notification area, and a conversion carries on. If you would like one key that brings it back from any program, choose it in File > Show and Hide Key… (Ctrl+Alt+Shift+H). There is none until you choose one, on purpose: a key like that works everywhere in Windows, so it would take the key away from any program that uses it. If another QuillVille app already uses the key you type, Quill Converter says which app and lets you pick another.

Find any command by name

Can’t remember which menu something is in? Help > Find a Setting or Command (Ctrl+Alt+Shift+S) searches every menu at once. Type part of a name, such as “tags”, arrow to the row you want and press Enter. An option also says whether it is on or off.

In the family

Quill Converter now appears on the QuillVille menu of the other apps, and QUILL’s own Convert with Quill Explorer entry, which opens Quill Converter, is available in public builds.

Fixes since the July build

Known limits

Your version, and updates

Help > About says 1.0.0 (build 1). If a fix comes out without a new version number, it is a newer build, and Help > Check for Updates… (Ctrl+Alt+U) offers it to you. Check for Updates only looks when you ask, and it offers the same kind of download you have, the installer or the portable zip. The installer is signed by Community Access, so Windows knows who it is from.

Getting help

Press F1 anywhere to hear what the window is for and what the control you are on does. The user guide (Help > User Guide, Ctrl+F1) walks through everything in eight short chapters, starting with your first conversion.

Write to support@community-access.org, or use Help > Get Help from Support… (Ctrl+Alt+F2). Community Access reads every message.