Play Video Anywhere: Wondershare Video Converter Ultimate
I got a new phone a little over a week ago, moving up from my old HTC Hero to a Motorola Droid X. With the bigger screen and dual core processor I finally started thinking about how cool it would be if I had some of my favorite movies on the phone for when I am sitting in a waiting room bored, or stuck at a family dinner.
So the problem I faced was how to take my movies from the DVD and put them on my phone. There are a bunch of methods and programs for doing this but I wanted something simple so I could just say do it and walk away. I tried a few trials and then ran across Wondershare. This company makes a number of nice little utilities for your PC and the one that caught my eye was Video Converter Ultimate.
The program opens to a very simple screen. You either drag in the video file you want to work with or select from the options listed across the top. You can work with straight video files, a DVD, download videos from the internet including streaming such as Youtube or you can use a net came you have and record the video right then. These are pretty self explanatory and as I set for my goal, very simple to use.
For example, lets say I want to download a video, in this case from Youtube. All I do is go to Youtube, find the video I want and then copy
the URL for the page I am on watching the video. Then I select the Download and a simple box pops up that asks for the URL. You paste the URL you copied into this box, hit the download button and sit back and relax. The software will download the video for you and allow you to then do minor editing to it such as trimming off the lead up or ending if you do not want it. The video you downloaded is not part of the library and ready to be converted into the format you might like to use it in.
Now if you only have one device you will be using and have already set it then you are done the files are saved as the format you chose. However you can then use that video file you have now saved and convert it to one of the numerous other file setups this software supports.
At the bottom of the screen you have two options one for save location, which of course is pretty self explanatory and the other for profile. The profile opens to show all the various devices and formats the software will prepare the video for use with. This includes Apple devices, various Android Phones, Blackberries, various game systems and other media players. You also have an option to search for a device not in the list and if they have created a profile for it you can download it right then. Wondershare seems to be doing a pretty good job of keeping up with devices and creating profiles.
Picking a profile will make the video file the appropriate size for use on your device, finding a good balance between image quality and space saving. If you saved the file in one profile and need it in another, for example sharing with the family, then select the new profile and the video file you want to change and click the convert button.
Now as I said this was about getting my movies off my DVD not about getting online videos, okay not originally but this is really cool. To get
the movie from your DVD to your device is just as easy. You put in the DVD you want the movie from the select the DVD button at the top. The screen that pops up gives you some choices such as just the main movie, the one we will most likely use. however you also get to select by scene, just grab the special features or in episode mode you can break up the movie to watch parts of it at a time, really useful if you have only a little space in your device of choice.
Without diving into the settings of the software it is very efficient and quick, best of all it just works. The settings you do need to adjust such as picking the device and choosing the source for the video are super easy to use and very intuitive. If you have an AMD or nVidia graphics card then you can go into the Preferences and turn on support for making use of the GPUs to help with the file conversion. This gives the software a nice speed boost, however even without turning it on this is still pretty quick.
The only downside to this program is that it is not free, the program cost $59.95 however if you really want the ability to move videos between devices this cost will soon prove to be worth it. If you want to open your options for viewing videos to the various devices you have then the Wondershare Video Converter Ultimate is a package that should be the first choice on your list. It is versatile and super easy to use plus it does as advertised. In other words everything we look for in a product.
Review Segment Aired Live 19 May 2012
