WinAVI Video Converter Leaves You Wanting More
WinAVI Video Converter is a nice little video conversion utility that creates VCDs, SVCDs, and DVDs. I converted a number of files to the WMV, AVI, RM (Realmedia) and MPEG-1/2 using the program and created a single DVD with nary a problem. However, it doesn't convert to iPod or any other MPEG-4/h.264 format. That's a bummer for me, since I own an iPod Touch. It's also a bummer in terms of disk space--h.264 can save you a lot of it compared to AVI, WMV and MPEG-1/2. The other lack is FLV import (the favored format of YouTube and may other social sites), for which you'll need to buy a different product from the company.
The WinAVI Video Converter interface is elegant and simple. Choose the destination format using the buttons on the main screen, choose a file to convert and its destination, then click OK and wait. Unfortunately, though I had the latest version of Quicktime Lite installed, the program didn't recognize it. I went to the full version of Quicktime and WinAVI Converter still balked. This seemed odd, as it did seem to recognize other DirectShow filters like Xvid.
