I'm trying to convert a MOV video from my digital camera (I think it uses the MJpeg codec) to some usable format. I've tried many apps but I can't just get it right. (the list includes FFmpeg frontend, MPEG converter 3, pazera, AVS video converter...)

Most apps darken the video (drop brightness) so the fine detail in dark areas is lost, dark grey colors turn into black. I have absolutely no idea why they do that.

Some apps did not darken it but there were other problems, e.g. pazera - cannot convert the sound, adds just noise; AVS video converter - the output video is always jerky no matter of the settings.

Can someone please advise me an app which does a good and quality job in converting a MOV video?

I think you can give automen/mencoder a go , http://www.videohelp.com/tools/MPlayer

If I remember handbrake will also do th job.

Apples MOV format has always been a nightmare for working with. Which are you transcoding to , MPEG 2 ?

try other converters, i use VidCrop PRO, it normal convert MOV to many formats.

a. virtualdub + qt plugin may be an option (no, i can't find the url for the plugin)
edit: this was in my vdub plugins folder http://kravca.mu/qt4vdub/
b. avisynth + ffmpegsource plugin would be a 2nd one http://ivtc.org/new/
c. avisynth + qt plugin of some sort may be third

I've had great results with SUPER for my MOV movies (from a Nikon Coolpix camera). The audio from the camera is mono with a weird sampling rate and the video is either 30fps or 15fps at 640x480, 320x240 or 160x120. SUPER successfully converted sampling rate, frame rate and resolution to convert a fireworks display to PAL DVD format. From the console output it appears to be filtering appropriately in all resampling operations.

thanks guys, I'm gonna try some of the programs the next time I need to convert a video from my camera.

Guys, I need help... I want to convert the MOV video to AVI to be able to open it in VirtualDub. However, no matter which settings I use in SUPER, VDub is not able to open the file.
Could anyone help me please?

QuickTime Pro may be extremely useful and convenient to convert MOV files, though it costs $30.

http://www.apple.com/quicktime/pro/

Nevermind, I just installed the K-Lite codec pack and everything went (somewhat) smoothly, except the audio being out of sync with some settings and Movie maker crashing about 50 times until I managed to complete the video . But VDub opened everything without any problems.