Compress, upscale and convert video, photos and audio on Windows: drop files, give each its own settings, press Start. Compress to a quality or to a size limit in MB, upscale 2x / 4x without inventing pixels, convert between the common video, image and audio formats. Outputs carry no metadata. One portable exe, no installer, no account; updates itself from GitHub Releases.

_{Drop files on the window · open a file's settings · press Start. Outputs land next to the sources.}

---

Why Media Forge

• Three jobs, one window. Compress, upscale and convert are the same panel: pick the output format, the codec, the quality or a size limit, the scale. Every file in the list keeps its own settings; one click copies them to the other files of the same kind.
• A size limit that holds. Type a number of MB and the output stays under it: two-pass bitrate targeting for video, a quality search and then a downscale ladder for photos, a bitrate from the duration for audio.
• Upscale without invention. 2x / 4x by Lanczos resampling with a light sharpen, or by a small deterministic super-resolution network (FSRCNN bundled, EDSR for photos, downloaded once). The same input always gives the same output; nothing is painted in from noise or text.
• Clean outputs. By default no EXIF, XMP, IPTC, chapters, encoder tags or provenance manifests of any kind. Only the ICC colour profile is kept.
• Free and open source. GPL-3.0, no trial, no watermark, no paid tier. The source is here; build it yourself if you prefer.
• Portable. One MediaForge.exe with a data folder next to it, no installer. Move the folder, move the app. The second launch brings the running window to the front.

Quick start

1. Download MediaForge.exe into a folder of its own, for example D:\Apps\MediaForge\.
2. Run it. FFmpeg is taken from PATH or downloaded once into the data folder; an NVIDIA GPU is used for encoding when the machine has one.
3. Drop files or folders on the window (or press Ctrl+O), open a file's settings if the defaults are not what you want, press Start. Outputs are written next to the sources as <name>_forge.<ext>.

Requirements: Windows 10 or 11 with the Microsoft Edge WebView2 Runtime (preinstalled on Windows 11 and on up-to-date Windows 10). No installer, no admin rights.

Note

The executable is not code-signed, so Windows SmartScreen may warn on first start (More info → Run anyway).

Features

Compress video	H.264, H.265 / HEVC, AV1 (CPU, or NVIDIA NVENC when present), VP9 and ProRes. A quality slider (100 = visually lossless) or a size limit in MB. Fit to 1080p / 720p / 480p, frame rate 24 / 30 / 60, audio kept, re-encoded to AAC or dropped.
Compress photos and audio	JPEG, WebP, AVIF, HEIC by quality or by size limit; MP3, AAC, Opus, OGG at a chosen bitrate or a size limit, with optional EBU R128 loudness normalisation.
Upscale 2x / 4x	Lanczos with a light sharpen (fast), FSRCNN (bundled, moderate) or EDSR (photos only, downloaded once, 38 MB per scale, best detail). Video frames stream through FFmpeg pipes; the thumbnail and the ETA show what to expect.
Convert	Video to MP4, MKV, WebM, MOV, GIF, or its audio track to MP3, M4A, Opus, FLAC, WAV; photos between JPEG, PNG, WebP, AVIF, TIFF, BMP, HEIC; audio between MP3, M4A, Opus, OGG, FLAC, WAV.
Clean outputs	Remove metadata is on per file by default: no tags, chapters or encoder names in the output. Off copies the source metadata as far as the target format allows.
Per-file settings	Every file opens its own panel; Apply to all video / photos / audio copies one file's settings to the others; the defaults for new files live in Settings.
Batch input	Drag and drop of files and folders (one level deep), several at once; a native multi-select dialog; duplicates are added once. Up to three files run in parallel.
Outputs	Next to the source or into one folder; a numbered suffix instead of an overwrite; Show in folder, Open, Run again; an optional folder opening and a sound when a batch finishes.
Liquid Glass UI	A 3:4 portrait window with refracting glass controls, spring motion and an animated background in one of four colour themes (Dusk, Nova, Frost, Bloom); a Scale setting from 100 to 200 %; embedded Sora and Geist Mono fonts; animation stops when nothing moves.
Self-updating app	New releases are detected on launch and then every 5 minutes, downloaded in the background (or on Download), verified by size and SHA-256 and installed on Restart.

Documentation

Document	What it covers
User guide	Usage, keyboard, settings, formats and codecs, size limit, data folder, updates
Architecture	Stack, repository layout, modules, runtime data, behaviour, window
Bridge API	The JS ↔ Python contract: methods, events, payload types, option tables
Core	Probing, FFmpeg command lines, quality mapping, size targeting, upscale, jobs
UI design	Liquid Glass material, background, motion, components, copy rules
Build	Running from source, tests, building the exe, releasing, troubleshooting
Release notes	What changed in every version
Third-party components	What is bundled or downloaded, with licences

Building from source

Requirements: Windows, Python 3.14 (via the py launcher), PowerShell 5.1+, FFmpeg on PATH for the tests.

git clone https://github.com/softoblivion/media-forge.git
cd media-forge
powershell -ExecutionPolicy Bypass -File build\build.ps1

The script creates .venv, installs the dependencies, runs the unit tests, draws the icon and produces release\MediaForge.exe (one-file PyInstaller build, about 77 MB, most of it OpenCV) with release\SHA256SUMS.

Task	Command
Run from source	set MEDIA_FORGE_HOME=%TEMP%\mf_scratch then scripts\run_dev.bat (--fake runs a simulated engine without touching files)
Unit tests	set MEDIA_FORGE_HOME=%TEMP%\mf_tests and set PYTHONPATH=src, then .venv\Scripts\python.exe -m unittest discover -s tests -t .
UI in a browser with mock data	python -m http.server 5173 --directory src\media_forge\ui, then http://localhost:5173/?mock=1

A single job runs without the window through .venv\Scripts\python.exe -m media_forge.core.cli <file> [--set key=value ...].

License

Released under the GNU General Public License v3.0. Any distributed copy or derivative work must stay open source under the same license and keep the copyright notices.