15-Minute Reviews :: Aimersoft Video Converter v1.0.21

Hello all and welcome to another 15-Minute Review! Today’s application is Aimersoft Video Converter version 1.0.21 by Aimersoft Studio – An application to convert your videos into other video formats.

Software Description

As Giveaway of the Day states:

“Aimersoft Video Converter is all-in-one, super fast video converter software which supports comprehensive video and Audio formats including AVI, MPEG, DivX, XviD, WMV, MP4, MPG, FLV, DAT, RM, RMVB, MOV, ASF, 3GP, 3GPP, VOB, MP3, WMA, WAV, AC3, M4A, OGG, AAC. With this powerful video converter, you can easily convert video (even youtube and limewire video) for iPod Video, Zune, iPhone, Apple TV, PSP, Xbox 360, PS3, Archos, iRiver, Creative Zen, PMP, MP4/MP3 Player, Smart Phone, Pocket PC, PDA, Mobile Phone, etc.”

Quick Pros

• Interface is easy to use – Drag and drop functionality
• Trim, crop and merge functionality included
• Video coloring and effects available
• Selection of formats and format options rather large
• Includes iPod and PSP file managers
• Decent speed and good quality resulting file

Quick Cons

• Trimming could have a little more finite control
• Lacks watermarking functionality
• Further expansion on Flash support could grow
• Could incorporate further DVD functionality for a killer all-in-one package

Expansion

While my last experience with Aimersoft was on the rough side, this time it went far smoother, a good start to this title. The interface looks very smooth, and getting around it is very easy. Adding media is as easy as drag-and-drop or using the Add button on the main window. There is a small preview window so that you can ensure you have gotten the correct file(s) as well. The options for output are placed at the bottom of the page, allowing you to choose a common profile, or modify a profile further and save your new profile for future use. The alterations to the video itself can be found through the three buttons to the right of Add on the top of the page; Trim, Crop and Effect.

Trim offers a way to control the lead-in and lead-out of the video files again, to hack off a long-winded intro, credits or clip part of the video you want, say to turn into a ringtone or otherwise. My only concern with the trimmer is that it appears to only be accurate to the nearest second; Not too bad, but could make it hard to hit that perfect clip. Cropping is handy to butcher off full-width video footers or edges/borders that were intentionally put in and will only hamper playback on whatever device you plan on taking it to. Not only can you manually input values, but you can also use the drag box overlay as well. There is also an option to set specific aspect ratios as well if you are converting to a portable unit which has a different aspect ratio than the original source. The Effects button leads you to brightness, contast, saturation and volume sliders, as well as two drop-down boxes; One for various coloration effects, and the other for horizontal or vertical flipping. Would have been nice for not only the ability to flip, but also rotate for cells that have a tall display and sideways playback (If not already supported by the phone.) The only feature I do wish was here was the ability to watermark the videos for quick

The biggest feature of this application is the number of formats supported (As noted by the Giveaway description above) – You can convert to and from a large array of formats and settings for each format. Some of the less-common ones are FLV (Flash Video), the various 3GPP formats, APE, RM and VOB to name a few.

An added set of goodies with this application is the iPod and PSP Managers – Designed to ease the use of the PSP or iPod and your newly-created video. Granted, the PSP and iPod are easy to use in the first place for transfers, this adds another method to manage your mobile devices as well.

On my few trial runs, I saw some decent speeds and good quality encodings. Converting a 7 minute and 8 second WMV video clip to the default PSP settings (MP4) took 2 minutes and 8 seconds and resulted in a good replication of the original; It even turned out well at the lowest bitrate I could set as well. I also converted the same WMV file to MPEG-2 in 5 minutes and 50 seconds, again resulting in a good replication of the original. It ran very smoothly and ran fairly quickly in my opinion.

While it is clear that Flash Video functionality has been clearly added as an option here, functionality to go with it seems to be so far overlooked. First off, there is no availability of conversion to a SWF file with controls, which would have been handy for those who may have been looking tor a quick and easy way to set up their Flash on their own site. As well, there appears to be no FLV capture tools included that can either pull from the browser cache or dynamically as you’re using one of the common browsers. The application could also use further DVD functionality besides just VOB support to become a total package.

Final Verdict

While this application appears to be early in its lifecycle, it already offers a lot of punch already. While it does show some interface similarities to others on the market, it poses the extra formats and goodies to you as well, making this a good solution. So long as the Flash functionality is built on this could become a replacement for many other tools. While free, if you’re looking for quick and feature-rich converter, this may be your ticket here and well worth the download while free. Even for $35, the price is quite affordable for what is offered and how the application functions and would be a good purchase for those who may be indeed looking for a software title with these features.

Posted by BladedThoth on Saturday, August 04, 2007