Today I’ve got the third in this little series of video converters to be used with the iPod. The last two I looked at were free programs, today I’ve got Extra Video Converter Pro that runs about $35. Are there any differences between a free program and one that you’ve got to pay for? Is it faster? Does it do a better job? Are there more options available to you? I wanted to find out these answers to these questions and I’m sure other people might be curious as well. So, on that note, read on to learn about Extra Video Converter Pro and see what differences there might be and how it works…
Info:
Price: $34.95 USD
Incredibly easy to use for both novices and pros alike, Extra Video Converter Pro is a powerful, universal video-conversion and video-split program that converts video files between all popular video formats. With this software, allowing to convert files between all popular video formats such as AVI, WMV, MPEG, MPG, MP4, MOV, DV, H.264, 3GP, and so on, which are supported by iPod, Zune, iPhone, Apple TV, PSP, Creative Zen, Pocket PC, Mobile Phone, Xbox 360, PDA, etc.
Main Features:
1.Convert all kinds of videos to Apple iPod/iPhone/AppleTV MP4 video.
2.Convert all kinds of videos to Sony PSP MP4 video.
3.Convert all kinds of videos to Cellphone 3GP video.
4.Convert all kinds of videos to Micsoft Zune WMV or MP4 video.
5.Convert all kinds of videos to RealMedia video.
6.Convert all kinds of videos to Youtube FLV, AVI, WMV, MPEG, RM etc.
7.Extract Audio to mp3/wma/ogg/wav from avi, mpg, flv, wmv, swf … especially for Youtube FLV, so useful it is!
8.Wonderful Output Quality, Make you enjoy the videos as the original one.
9.Merging and Batch Conversion, Merge multiple videos/audios in various formats into one and specify the max processes and select more than one
file at a time.
10.Customized Settings, Set the advanced parameters for better effects including bit rate, frame rate, video size, etc.
11.conversion speed is more than 2 times of the playback speed.
12.Set the start position and end position of source file to convert.
What’s in the Box?:
Like the other two programs I looked at this one is a download as well, so no box shots for you. And like the other two programs I’m using my iPod nano 4th Gen and Shaun of the Dead DVD to test out this program.
Installation, Performance and Comparison:
When you load up the program you’re greeted with a rather simple interface, but there are tabs on both sides that pop out. On the right we’ve got the preview and editing window, in this window you not only preview the video, but you can trim it by setting the start and end points so you can trim out like the opening and ending credits if you like so you’ve only got the main movie to take with you. The left pop out window will show you the settings for the encoding profile you’ve selected, and here you can edit the profile as well.
To change the formats you just hit the drop down box and you’ll be greeted with many presets along with the option to create a custom profile or you can edit an existing one. Editing the profile involves the pop out settings on the left of the main window as I mentioned already.
To use the program you just hit the ‘+’ button in the top left corner then browse to your file you want to convert. Farly simple really, it loads into the interface, then you can make any adjustments to the settings and trim it if you like.
I don’t like the wide screen look of the video on the iPod, it’s much too small, so I did change one settings from the default iPod video setting, I changed the Aspect Ratio to ‘Stretch’.
When you’re ready hit the big ‘Start’ button in the bottom right corner and away you go. The original file, I ripped it from the DVD to .AVI, was 1.13GB.
The converting process took a quick 14 minutes and 9 seconds to complete. The resulting file is 637MB in size, a bit large but not too bad.
Looking at the Task Manager we find the program uses about 45% of my quad core CPU, it doesn’t fully utilize it, but it should, theoretically, fully utilize a dual core CPU.
So using the Stretch Aspect Ratio we see that the movie now takes up more screen real estate on my iPod, still though it isn’t full screen, why I’m not sure, it should be.
Taking pictures of the screen doesn’t really show you exactly the quality, but the final quality is excellent, the picture is crisp and clean and the audio is synced to the video.
Conclusion:
Extra Video Converter Pro is a good program, but in my opinion it’s not worth $35. The only major difference between it and the free one I just looked at is really just the ability to change the aspect ratio. To me, the ability to change the aspect ratio is important, but not that important, if I can get a free program to do the same thing in almost the same amount of time, then I’m going with free…
The free WinX Video Converter program only took a little over 10 minutes to complete the process and the final file size was smaller as well, about 40 mb smaller. 40Mb might not seem like that much, but when you’re limited to space as I am with an 8gig iPod nano, anywhere I can save space helps out a lot.
Pros:
+Fast
+Can change aspect ratio
+Customizable output options
+Many output formats to choose from
+Allows trimming and splitting
Cons:
-A bit on the expensive side really
-Little large on the final file size
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