I’ve been using something that’s very simple to convert videos for quite a while now. Some readers may know I make machinimas, ie, movies using games. Sometimes, the final product after editing  is in a format that is not so desirable, especially when I intend to upload to one of the many video sharing sites like Youtube, Dailymotion, WeGame, and so on.

Before discovering AnyVideoConverter, I was manually splitting video and audio tracks, and re-merging them into an acceptable format via VirtualDub. Don’t get me wrong, VirtualDub is still very much part of my video editing arsenal. However with the addition of AnyVideoConverter, it has eliminated quite a number of steps which I needed to take previously. As the name implies, it is advertised as being able to convert from ANY video format to ANY other format. I’ve tested it with the usual .mov, mkv, avi, mp4 and so on, and it does its job wonderfully well. Being simple doesn’t mean it’s lacking in features – it packs enough features, for example, to convert a .wmv (Windows Media) to .avi (Xvid/DivX/etc), while enlarging the video (320×240 -> 740×408) and changing the framerate from 25 frames to 30 frames (PAL to NTSC).

The screenshot above shows the main screen. To use it, it’s a simple matter of dragging and dropping your files into it. Alternatively just click ADD VIDEO to browse for one on your harddisk.

This screenshot shows you what formats are supported. Most of the time I use “Customised AVI”, to prepare my videos for upload to video sharing sites. However you can use the “mobile” format to convert videos for your PDA/phone or any other mobile devices that support the .mp4 format. Or, as you can see in the screenshot, you can even convert your MPG files into FLV files (Flash format) and vice versa.

By playing with the conversion options as shown in the screenshot above, you can actually control the conversion – video bitrate, audio bitrate, sampling sizes, video dimensions etc. This is where you control whether you want to shrink or enlarge your video, the quality you want and so on. As a general guide, I pick 1500 video bitrate, and 64k or 96k mp3 44100khz audio bitrate for conversion. This is good enough for live-action videos, ie real-world, real people. For machinimas I bump the video bitrate up to 2000 or even 2500. The reason being, graphics in the games have very distinct outlines, and lower resolution results in pixellation of the video. Sometimes I’d bump the audio up to 128k mp3 format too. Games sound cooler with better quality audio 🙂

Now, for the last useful bit of AnyVideoConverter – it can actually download streaming videos off popular video sharing sites. Youtube, Dailymotion, and so on. Not everything is supported, but you just have to try your luck and see if it works.

Yes it does work for Youtube, that much I can tell you. I downloaded a couple of videos off Youtube as tests, and they work beautifully. Of course, you have to set the format and conversion options before you click “Convert”.

This one piece of software replaced about 3 or 4 others I used to need. Needless to say, those have been uninstalled and deleted, and I use this to replace those steps now.

Oh yes before I forget, it’s FREE. No strings attached. The only nag screen you are going to get when using the FREE version is at the end after you’ve converted a video, encouraging you to buy the PRO version. Right now, the FREE version does everything I want, so I have no incentive to get the PRO version yet.