WinAvi Video Converter Review
Fast and Functional Video Conversion
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You can buy it at RegNow for that price.
- Easy to use; Inexpensive; Demo does not limit functionality, although output files will contain a registration nag.
GUI tries to be intuitive, but could use some retooling. Needs extra downloads for functionality which is generally what this application's audience does not want.
One of the most annoying, confusing and sometimes depressing things any computer savvy guy can do is produce a basic DVD copy of computer video. Often you are forced to locate codecs, converter tools, bit rate changers, and I'm not even going to touch interlacing...
If you had trouble understanding the above, don't worry... So do I. That's why utilities like WinAVI exist: They allow you to easily convert your computer video files into other formats, and one of these happen to be DVD. To test WinAVI out, I took a 5 minute, 81 MB AVI video file which was compressed using the common settings for many video files available on the Internet.
After setting the output directory, I had it begin converting the file. I disabled the video output to get the most speed out of it.
The total time for this conversion was about 3 minutes, which wasn't too bad. The files were output to a directory in the standard DVD Video format (complete with video_ts and audio_ts directories).
I decided to have it convert the same video to WMV format, which is a Microsoft-specific format used by Windows Media Player and Server. The conversion for this particular file took about 8 minutes.
WinAVI also has features for converting video files to Real Media format. Unfortunately, I could not perform any testing of this feature, since it requires the Real Player/Helix SDK installed. It does provide a direct link to the appropriate download, however it would be far more desireable for the application to include everything it needs to function.
It also has a few other nifty features, including a batch file conversion tool and in the advanced dialogue you can easily make changes including to the video resolution and the audio conversion settings. Obtaining advanced video information is less intuitive since you must click through a few menus along the way.
While it allows you to set the output directory, I find it a glaring omission that you cannot directly tell it what to name the output FILE. This is probably meant to make it easier for the user to locate the file, but I'd prefer it if I could tell it to name my output files as I see fit.
If you need an easier way to convert your digital video collection into DVD or another format, give this application a whirl.