Online Video Converters

There are a lot of different video formats and here's a list of the common ones:
* Blu-ray - a new optical disk standard that is replacing the common DVD format.
* Digital Video Disk (DVD) - standard optical format that we all use to watch videos on our TV's.
* Flash Live Video (FLV) - very common on Internet using the Adobe Flash Player, until I started researching the different formats I had never heard of it, but I think I've been using it a long time.
* Moving Picture Expert Group (MPEG) - very common format used on the Internet and has several formats including MPEG-1, MPEG-2, MPEG-3 and MPEG-4 being the latest.
* Moving Picture Expert Group 4 (MP4) - this is basically MPEG-4.
* QuickTime - standard format used by Apple
* Windows Media Video (WMV) - standard format used by Microsoft Windows

If you are posting your videos to YouTube, they recommend that you use submit the following formats: QuickTime MOV, Windows AVI or MPG. They specifically recommend MPEG4 (Divx, Xvid) format 640x480. For more information on optimizing your videos for YouTube please go here: http://www.youtube.com/t/howto_makevideo.

I created a slide show for my blog on how to build garden steps using Photoshop. I was able to save it using .WMV or PDF. I selected .WMV. I viewed the video using my Win7 machine and it was fine. I posted this to my blog and then had a look with two different browsers Internet Explorer and both of them required me to install additional software to view the video. I decided that this is not the best experience for my blog visitors so I started the search for the best video format and video converters.

I heard that MP4 is a good format videos online and I purchased and downloaded the Full Video Converter. Unfortunately this software could not complete the conversion. I'm presently working with support desk and I will let you know if I get it working. The next format I wanted to test was FLV and the software had no problems with doing this. After uploading the video to my blog I had not problems viewing it with my two browsers. I tested it with my iPhone and as expected it could not view the video.

I still wanted to try MP4 and I didn't give up. A friend mentioned the Handbrake for Windows 7 and I downloaded it. The nice thing about the Handbrake software is it's free. The second nice thing is that it had no problems converting my file to an MP4 file. I tested this file on my blog and I also had no problems viewing it on either browser. Again, the iPhone could not view this file.

I will continue testing and update this Lens, but for now I've settled on the MP4 format. If you have preference or an experience using different video formats please comment in my guestbook.

Here's the official description of the Handbrake software from their website: "Handbrake is an open source, GPL-licensed, multiplatform, multithreaded video transcoder, available for Mac OS X, Linux and Windows."
Here's my description of the Handbrake software: "A great video converter that's free."

I found this software easy to download, install and use. It will work on the following operating systems:
* Fedora 14
* Mac OS 10.5 and 10.6
* Ubuntu
* Windows 2000, XP, Vista and 7

Here's the link to to download software: Handbrake Software

Full Video Converter does more than just convert video formats. It also does the following:
* Video Editor
* Video Creator
* Video Clipper
* Video Joiner
* iPod/iPhone/PSP Transfer
* CD Ripper
* Audio Converter
* Picture Extractor

It can also convert any video on Windows for all portable media players, such as iPad, iPod, iPhone, PSP, Zune, Xbox, PS3, AppleTV, Andriod, PVP, PDA, Nexus one, Droid, Palm Pre, PSP, PS3, Creative Zen, cell phones, Archos, etc. Thus you can enjoy any video on the go.

So far I've only used it to convert videos and I will add more as I test out more of the available tools.

If you want to kick the tires before you buy you can download a trial version of software. For more information on the Full Video Converter software Click Here!

After talking about converting the video you might be interested to see the final product and the steps I followed.
1. I took several pictures of constructing garden steps
2. I create a slide show using Photoshop and save it as a .WMV file
3. I then used handbrake to convert it to a MP4 file
4. I posted it on my blog so the world can see and you can too by clicking on how to build garden steps