WinAvi Video Converter Review

I have been using WinAVI for my own personal video projects for nearly two years now. I was instantly attracted to the ease of use and yet its ability to handle some pretty advanced tasks.

The first thing most people will probably realize after the quick download and install (as it is less than a 5Mb install) is the wide array of video files it can convert. While I mainly use the AVI to DVD conversion features, it can also handle RealMedia, FLV, MPG, WindowsMedia, and some lesser-known video formats like OGG and MKV. this means you can download nearly any video format from your favorite websites and convert them to a file that will play in your preferred PC video player OR convert them to VOB and burn them to play in your home DVD player. I haven't found another application that converts so many video types and yet is this economical on your wallet, your PC's resources and hard drive space.

Once you decide what file you want to convert, select from the many options of conversion you have, and click "convert" the next thing you will notice is how devastatingly FAST this software converts your file or your BATCH of files. Most other programs I have used, many from highly touted companies with inflated prices to go along, convert at a 1:1 rate or slower. Meaning a two hour movie takes about two hours to convert. WinAVI can convert a movie in about HALF of its running time; sometimes quicker.

The only downside to WinAVI is that sometimes converting a video file to DVD and playing that DVD in a home player can result in audio fragmentation and video artifacts. The severity of which depends on the codec used to convert the video to DVD and more importantly (I found through my own experience) the DVD player you use. The better the DVD player as far as what Codec it uses to read the DVD, the better the playback. Using WinAVI to create the VOB files and using another application to burn those VOB files to the DVD sometimes works better also.