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When you begin working with Digital Signage you often discover a great need to be able to convert files into and out of different formats. For example, our platform supports video files in the format of mp4, m4v, flv and swf. So having handy tools to convert lets say avi or mpeg into flv is essential. The following is a list of great ( mostly free ) utilities you can use to convert media files into new formats.
FreeMakeVideoConvertor
Easy to use and supports almost any format on earth. A very powerful converter that comes highly recommended.
You can also download it here: http://www.mediasignage.com/files/FreemakeVideoConverter_2.0.1.2.exe
Super Video Conversion ( Freeware / Cross platform )
Easy to use and supports almost any format on earth. A very powerful converter that comes highly recommended.
Super is a free media converter that acts as a graphical front end to several of the most powerful command line tools like FFmpeg, MEncoder, and MPlayer. The application boasts extensive options for customizing your preferences with virtually any aspect of your conversion. The downside to that control is that Super's interface is cluttered and intimidating for first-time users. Luckily for most purposes, converting a file to the right format with Super is as simple as selecting your output format (e.g., Apple iPod) and just sticking with the defaults.
Download from our site at http://www..mediasignage.com/files/SUPERsetup.exe
VeryDoc
VeryDoc is a great program that allows you to convert Power Point PPT files into Flash swf. Now your power point slides can be imported directly into your Digital Signage presentation, natively. Try a 30 day for free or buy a licensed version.
Media Converter SA Edition
Media Converter SA Edition is a free file converter which supports many file types. It has also an integrated video downloader to download videos from Youtube and co.
VLC media player (Open source/All platforms)
Ok, so VLC is a media player, not converter, but if you're watching digital video, it's a must-have—plus VLC can indeed rip DVD's, as well as play ripped discs in ISO format (no actual optical media required.) VLC can also play FLV files downloaded from YouTube et al, no conversion to AVI required. Since there's a portable version, VLC's a nice choice for getting your DVD rips/saved YouTube video watching on wherever you go.
MediaCoder (Open source/Windows)
Batch convert audio and video compression formats with the open source Media Coder for Windows, which works with a long laundry lists of formats, including MP3, Ogg Vorbis, AAC, AAC+, AAC+V2, MusePack, WMA, RealAudio, AVI, MPEG/VOB, Matroska, MP4, RealMedia, ASF/WMV, Quicktime, and OGM, to name a few.
Avi2Dvd (Freeware/Windows)
Make your video files burnable to a DVD with Avi2Dvd, a utility that converts Avi/Ogm/Mkv/Wmv/Dvd files to Dvd/Svcd/Vcd format. Avi2Dvd can also produce DVD menus with chapter, audio, and subtitle buttons.
Videora Converter (Freeware/Windows only)
Videora Converter is a set of programs, each designed to convert regular PC video files into a format tailored to your favorite video-playing handheld device. The Videora program list includes iPod Video Converter (for 5th gen iPods), iPod classic Video Converter (for 6th gen classic iPods), iPod nano Video Converter (for 3rd gen iPod nanos), iPod touch Video Converter, iPhone Video Converter, Videora Apple TV Converter, PSP Video 9, Videora Xbox360 Converter, Videora TiVo Converter, and Videora PMP Converter. Lifehacker alum Rick Broida used Videora in conjunction with DVD Decrypter to copy DVDs to his iPod.
Honorable Mention: Ares Tube for Windows converts YouTube and other online videos to iPod format.
Any Video Converter (Freeware/Windows only)
Convert almost all video formats including DivX, XviD, MOV, rm, rmvb, MPEG, VOB, DVD, WMV, AVI to MPEG-4 movie format for iPod/PSP or other portable video device, MP4 player or smart phone with Any Video Converter, which also supports user-defined video file formats as the output. Batch process multiple files that AVC saves to a pre-selected directory folder, leaving the original files untouched.
Hey!Watch (webapp)
Web application Hey!Watch converts video located on your computer desktop as well as clips hosted on video sites. Upload your video to Hey!Watch to encode it into a wide variety of file formats, like H264, MP4, WMV, DivX, HD Video, Mobile 3GP/MP4, iPod, Archos and PSP. Hey!Watch only allows for 10MB of video uploads per month for free, and from there you pay for what you use, but it's got lots of neat features for video publishers like podcast feed generation and automatic batch processing with options you set once.
iSquint (Freeware/Mac OS X only)
Convert any video file to iPod-sized versions and automatically add the results to your iTunes library. iSquint is free, but Lifehacker readers have praised the pay-for iSquint upgrade, VisualHub, which offers more advanced options for a $23 license fee. Check out the feature comparison chart between iSquint and VisualHub.
DVD Shrink (Freeware/Windows only)
Copy a DVD to your hard drive and leave off all the extras like bonus footage, trailers and other extras to save space with DVD Shrink. Download Adam's one-click AutoHotkey/DVD Shrink utility to rip your DVDs to your hard drive for skip-free video play from scratchy optical media.
Honorable mention: DVD Decrypter (beware of advertisement interstitial page), which Windows peeps can use to copy DVDs to their iPods.
Handbrake (Open source/Windows, Mac)
Back up your DVD's to digital file with this open source DVD to MPEG-4 converter app. See also how to rip DVDs to your iPod with Handbrake.
Zamzar
Free web service. Worth a shot.
FormatFactory (Windows)
Format Factory is a free media converter for Windows that converts video, audio, and even images between formats. With a nice icon-driven interface for helping you choose the kind of conversion you're looking for, FormatFactory is one of the friendliest batch media converters you'll find.
FFmpeg (All Platforms) Great command line 5 star
FFmpeg is free, cross platform command-line encoding tool that powers many of the more popular graphical applications in this Hive Five. While FFmpeg has more of a learning curve than the rest, it's also undeniably powerful and flexible. If converting your media from the command line with FFmpeg appeals to you, check out how to FFmpeg your way to media conversion bliss.
Sothink
Sothink have great utilities; both for converting media files to swf and for encoding into flv video. Altough the applications are not free, they are reasonably priced and work very well.
Ultra DVD
Although Ultra DVD is not free it works GREAT. It supports converting from different formats to MP4 and FLV ( + much more ). Also it allows to convert a complete DVD into a FLV which also works very well.
FreeStudio
FreeStudio is DVDVideoSoft’s handy video conversion freeware that will excellently suit iPhone and iPod video conversions. The application is compatible with Windows computers and facilitates various video format conversions. While its download size is quite high – 58MB – the features surely justify it.
Daniusoft Video Converter Free
In addition to iPods and iPhones, Daniusoft Video Converter Free also supports video conversions for PSP, Zune, and other cell-phones and portable media players. The download is 12MB, much smaller than the abovementioned program. Supported media formats include AVI, MP4, WMV, MOV, MPEG1, MPEG2, FLV, MP3, WAV, and WMA. You can install Daniusoft Video Converter Free on your Windows computer.
Any Video Convertor FREE
Any Video Converter Free is a personal favorite of mine because it excellently blends functionality with an appealing user interface. A wide variety of media formats are supported and converting video for your iOS device will be very easy. You can control advanced conversions options as well such as video and audio bitrates.
Quick Media Convertor
Quick Media Converter comes in the setup size of 28MB. Along with supporting video conversions between various file formats, it provides a progress bar with each conversion process so you know how much of the process has completed and how much is left
Format Factory
Although Format Factory does not offer the prettiest user interface, it does offer the most functionality out of the other entries in this list. Supporting media conversions between various video, audio, and image formats, Format Factory can quite easily become your default media conversion application. The program has a setup file size of 38MB.
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