Monday, December 19, 2005
Conversion:
I have been looking for a good DVD conversion program of late. I have a lot of digital video to edit from the different guest speakers I have had in my classes and I need to be able to change between video and audio formats on the way out to DVD.
I thought I would cover 3 bases at the same time; I would conduct my software search, I would write a few reviews on products that my readers might have use for, and I would start work on the product review section of next year`s Animation on a $hoe$ting (tm) the fifth edition of my book on creating a home animation studio. (Okay 4 bases, I am also plugging my book )
The big problem in judging software on the net is how much the manufacturer will let you see in the trial version before you have to buy the product. I am not going to buy a product just so that I can figure out if it works. Kills the whole shoestring idea.
CovertMovie 2.1 http://movavi.com/convertmovie gives you a look at the full working program but renders with a water mark (text across the image) that makes the output useless. Fine by me. If I like the program and it does what I want then I will pay the $29.95
As much as I like their way of showing the product I can not give it a good review. It does everything it says it will do but the audio track ends up with major sync problems. And it has the ever present directX screen capture problems that make it real hard to get any kind of screen shot for review and textbook creation. The audio problems may be something I am doing wrong but it would be nice if I didn`t have to fight a program to get what I need from it.
DVD to AVI, DVD to MPEG, etc
For what there are they do the job but there is no flexibility in these FlexImage products and the price to gain flexibility adds up really quickly because you have to buy a separate program for each type of conversion. Each one of these programs does only one file conversion type and that only in the one direction. And each program is being sold at 24.95. A limiting and costly way of doing conversions. http://www.dvd-to-mpeg.com
$24.95 USD each program
ImToo DVD Ripper $35.00 USD
Funny name, I’ll give you that. And the demo only does 5 minutes of video conversion without purchasing a registration code. But the 5 minutes output is clean usable footage. No problems with audio. If you were cheap enough you could piece together a whole DVD project out of hundreds of 5 minute clips but then your cheapness would be its own reward. Pay the $35 and forget about the problems. One other thing I like about ImToo DVD Ripper is that you can grab screen shots from with in the program without all the DirectX blank screen image dropout problems inherent in so many other system. ¶ 2:43 PM
I have been looking for a good DVD conversion program of late. I have a lot of digital video to edit from the different guest speakers I have had in my classes and I need to be able to change between video and audio formats on the way out to DVD.
I thought I would cover 3 bases at the same time; I would conduct my software search, I would write a few reviews on products that my readers might have use for, and I would start work on the product review section of next year`s Animation on a $hoe$ting (tm) the fifth edition of my book on creating a home animation studio. (Okay 4 bases, I am also plugging my book )
The big problem in judging software on the net is how much the manufacturer will let you see in the trial version before you have to buy the product. I am not going to buy a product just so that I can figure out if it works. Kills the whole shoestring idea.
CovertMovie 2.1 http://movavi.com/convertmovie gives you a look at the full working program but renders with a water mark (text across the image) that makes the output useless. Fine by me. If I like the program and it does what I want then I will pay the $29.95
Input Formats: AVI, DVD, VOB, MPEG (MPG), MOV, WMV, ASF.
Output Formats: AVI, MPEG (VCD, SVCD, DVD), WMV, RM, WAV, MP3, WMA formats.
To convert your videos even faster and asier, save your settings as a preset and simply select it next time. With the batch mode, you can convert all your video files just in seconds! Use Join mode to merge multiple video files into one large movie.
As much as I like their way of showing the product I can not give it a good review. It does everything it says it will do but the audio track ends up with major sync problems. And it has the ever present directX screen capture problems that make it real hard to get any kind of screen shot for review and textbook creation. The audio problems may be something I am doing wrong but it would be nice if I didn`t have to fight a program to get what I need from it.
DVD to AVI, DVD to MPEG, etc
For what there are they do the job but there is no flexibility in these FlexImage products and the price to gain flexibility adds up really quickly because you have to buy a separate program for each type of conversion. Each one of these programs does only one file conversion type and that only in the one direction. And each program is being sold at 24.95. A limiting and costly way of doing conversions. http://www.dvd-to-mpeg.com
$24.95 USD each program
ImToo DVD Ripper $35.00 USD
Funny name, I’ll give you that. And the demo only does 5 minutes of video conversion without purchasing a registration code. But the 5 minutes output is clean usable footage. No problems with audio. If you were cheap enough you could piece together a whole DVD project out of hundreds of 5 minute clips but then your cheapness would be its own reward. Pay the $35 and forget about the problems. One other thing I like about ImToo DVD Ripper is that you can grab screen shots from with in the program without all the DirectX blank screen image dropout problems inherent in so many other system. ¶ 2:43 PM
