Top 5 Free Video Converters For 2013

Free video converter now been developed. The following five of the best that are Format Factory, Handbrake, ZiggyTV, Freemake video converter, and IQmango Video Converter.

You are back from your trip to the countryside and you have recorded all the fun you had thanks to your camcorder. You transfer the video files to your smartphone via PC hoping to show them to your friends at work, only to find out that your smartphone doesn’t recognize the file type and therefore unable to play them. Sounds familiar? Today we come across numerous video formats when watching movies, streaming videos off Internet, recording via digital cameras and so on. These formats have their own unique characteristics and they are not designed to suit every hardware platform. In order to optimize videos for hardware platforms we come across, we use video converters. Market is saturated with many different commercial video converting software, however there are also some pretty decent converters offered for free. The following is a short review on top 5 free video converters available today.

Format Factory

If you don’t mind seeing some advertisements along the way Format Factory is an ideal tool to convert video files into many different formats. It is pretty much an all in one solution since you can convert not only videos but audios and images as well. The interface packs plethora of features for converting file formats, ripping DVDs and CDs and creating .iso images. Another cool feature is its ability to merge several video files into one file. Popular video formats including .3gp, .mpg, .mkv, .flv, .wmv, popular audio formats including .mp3, .wav, .amr and image formats like .jpg, .png are supported by this great freeware therefore you are bound to find the formats you search for. When memory usage and ease of use are considered, Format Factory scores high above the competitors since it consumes very small amount of memory and provides straightforward navigation. It also provides a great help documentation to assist you sprint off through any confusing areas. If you are not interested in buying commercial video converters yet want a great converter, Format Factory should be one of your top 5 choices.

Handbrake

Handbrake is another cool open source solution for converting video files. Although the name sounds little bit out of place for a video converter tool, it packs all the essentials to become a capable and a practical video converter. This cross platform converter tool provides numerous options to convert video files and rip DVDs with the help of a third party application like VLC. You can control the bit rate, output file size and quality using bunch of encoding options. Handbrake also provides different video filtering options like deinterlacing, scaling and cropping. Popular video format including .mkv, .iso, .vob , .avi can be converted to suit different platforms like iPods and smartphones by encoding them into .mp4, .m4v, .mkv formats. The makers of the software guarantee that you can convert video from almost any format into popular video formats found today. This community driven freeware is another great tool to convert your favorite videos into many different formats, for free.

ZiggyTV

ZiggyTV is an open source solution to search videos and music files across the web, download them and convert them into many different formats. It is an ideal product to convert YouTube videos as mp3s, a feature lacking in other popular open source converters. ZiggyTV too extends support for all popular video and audio formats, providing you a great solution for converting videos to suit your iPods, smartphones and PSPs. Another cool feature is the ability to import videos and songs downloaded from the web into iTunes. The makers of this open source converter guarantee that this product is free from adware and spyware.

Freemake Video Converter

Freemake video converter is a great alternative to a paid commercial video converter product. It packs bunch of options to guarantee a seamless conversion process, and extends support for over 200 video, audio and image input formats. Another great feature offered through Freemake is the option to convert and rip videos from popular online sites including YouTube, Vimeo and Facebook. With this capable freeware you can rip DVDs, convert videos to Flash, and even create HTML5 videos. Rich feature set allows you to optimize videos for your iPods, smartphones and PSPs very easily. Videos with embedded subtitles too can be converted via this free utility.

IQmango Video Converter

IQmango offers several great free tools, and the free video converter is one of them. It extends support for almost all popular video formats out there. Converting video files into formats that fit iPhones, iPods, PSPs, Androids and BlackBerrys is easy and fast. You can optimize the video quality using the slider glued to the simple interface. IQmango provides several great add-ons to this video converter, in the form of different applications. For example Video to MP3 converter app and DVD Ripper are two such standalone applications which are actually add-ons to spice up the free video converter program. Another great add-on type application is the 3D video converter. This allows you to convert 2D videos into 3D, a feature exclusive to IQmango range among other free video converters. IQ Mango video converter alone is pretty simple and straightforward. But if you need extra functionality such as converting videos into mp3 s and converting 2D videos into 3D you’d have to download specific apps provided by IQmango. When you download this bunch of apps it altogether becomes the ultimate video converter to meet your needs. It would’ve been great if they packed everything into one decent software, but again that’s the price we are paying for enjoying them for free.

This article was shared with you by Dmitri Blackthorn, media software expert and digital video enthusiast. Click here for his free software website.