convert posts

Filed under: iPhone, App Store, iPod touch, App Review

Win a copy of Convert for your iPhone or iPod touch

by Victor Agreda, Jr. (RSS feed) on Aug 8th, 2009

Convert is, as you might suspect, a tool for converting ducks to witches. No, wait! It's a simple conversion tool for your iPhone or iPod touch. Convert bears a slight resemblance to ConvertBot with a big, blue readout and simple gray icons, but I prefer Convert's simpler interface. You'll find the same features as in any converter, only in a compact, easy-to-use format.

Polar Bear Farm gave us 40 promo codes to give away, and that's what we're doing over the weekend. To enter, tell us if you prefer good ol' English units like inches and feet, or the nefarious but accurate Metric system, beloved by nerds all over the world. As per the usual, the giveaway is only good in the US (we didn't make that rule), you must be over 18 and winners will be chosen randomly. Good luck!

Here are the rules and a link to the legal statement:

Open to legal US residents of the 50 United States and the District of Columbia who are 18 and older.
To enter leave a comment indicating your preference in unit measurements: English or Metric.
The comment must be left before Monday, August 10, 11:59PM Eastern Daylight Time.
You may enter only once.
Forty winners will be selected in a random drawing.
Prize: Promo code for one copy of Convert (Unit Converter by PBF), US$1.99 value
Click Here for complete Official Rules.

Tags: app review, app-giveaway, AppReview, convert, features, giveaway, polar bear farm, PolarBearFarm, unit converter, UnitConverter, utility

Filed under: iPod Family, Software, Video, iTunes, iPhone, Apple TV

Roxio to announce Crunch, a new video conversion app

by David Chartier (RSS feed) on May 4th, 2007

Looks like VisualHub and iSquint are going to have some competition on their hands, as Roxio on Monday will announce Crunch, their own entry into the software video conversion market. With computer-based video leaving the nest for devices like the Apple TV, the iPod and soon the iPhone, tools that can easily convert video from a plethora of sources and formats are becoming ever the more useful. Roxio looks to make a decent splash in the market with Crunch, as it features their typical UI (which, personally, I detest) and a nice array of features, including batch encoding of multiple files, conversion of DVDs created with Toast, iMovie, and other video editing apps (in other words: it won't rip and encode commercial DVDs), support for a very wide array of video formats including the elusive MPEG-1, presets for specific devices and one killer and rare feature you don't see in many (if any) other apps: encoding from VIDEO_TS files that are ripped straight from a DVD.

Still, all this comes at a price: Crunch will cost $50, whereas similar solutions ~~that don't do DVD or VIDEO_TS conversion~~, like VisualHub, can be had for half that. Still, we'll have to reserve a final judgment until we can get our hands on a copy. Until then, check out our gallery of Crunch screenshots to get a better perspective on whether you should try out a demo.
[Correction: VisualHub does convert VIDEO_TS folders as of version 1.1; our apologies.]

Gallery: Crunch - Roxio's video conversion utility

Tags: batch, conversion, convert, crunch, isquint, roxio, video, visualhub

Filed under: Software, Video, Cool tools, Productivity

VisualHub - The universal video converter

by David Chartier (RSS feed) on Jun 7th, 2006

VisualHub is a feature-packed and 'universal' video converter for Mac OS X from the maker of iSquint. From its website: "VisualHub bridges the gap between numerous complicated video formatting standards, and people that just want to get the job done - just what you would expect from the Mac." It boasts fast conversion from nearly every video format to iPod, PSP, DV, DVD, AVI, MP4, WMV, MPEG and Flash (what: no animated GIF?), and brags about ts three-step conversion process: click, drag, click.

Fortunately, VisualHub also offers advanced features like bitrate control, frame cropping and audio quality. Xgrid is supported for those with multiple Macs on a network and CPU cycles to spare, while QuickTime Pro and other plugins need not apply.

VisualHub's long list of features don't stop there, however, so check out Techspansion's product page for the full feature list and samples of its work. A demo is available, while a full license will cost you a mere $23.32 USD.

[thanks Khaled!]

Tags: conversion, convert, DivX, dls, DVD, format, iPod, m4a, pro, PSP, quicktime, video, visualhub, xvid

Filed under: Audio, iPod Family, Multimedia, Software, Video

iSquint 1.4.1 with 'MPEG-in-.mov' goodness

by David Chartier (RSS feed) on Apr 28th, 2006

iSquint, the fantastic little iPod video converter that we've mentioned before, has been updated to version 1.4.1 with a big new feature: handling QuickTime files that contain MPEG video that most other players/encoders will balk at. Various other code tweaks have brought some big speed improvements and fixes for issues with 10.3.9.

iSquint is surprisingly still donationware and available from iSquint.org.

Tags: 5G, convert, H264, iPod, iSquint, MPEG, QuickTime, video

Filed under: Audio, Software, Universal Binary

Convert WMA files into something useful

by David Chartier (RSS feed) on Apr 2nd, 2006

I thought we'd posted on this before, but I couldn't find anything so here you go: EasyWMA is a simple little tool that can convert WMA files into m4a, mp3 and wav audio files. It supports DnD (drag and drop), even with entire folders of songs to convert. Other features include:

Input formats : wma, asf, wmv, wav
Manual or automatic bit rate selection from source (32-320kbps)
Batch processing
ID3 tags support

One catch I've found so far: I'm not sure if EasyWMA can handle the latest WMA 10 format, and it doesn't state anywhere on the site. Either way, this looks like a handy little app for those who are trying to convert their WMA files into a format that's actually useful. It sells for $10 and, as of its last update, is a Universal Binary.

http://www.easywma.com/

Tags: audio, convert, EasyWMA, mp3, WMA

Filed under: iPod Family, Cool tools, iTunes

Automator action: Export movies to iTunes/iPod

by David Chartier (RSS feed) on Jan 18th, 2006

Since the 5G iPod landed, an army of scripts and mini-apps have answered the call for a simple, painless way for getting video into iTunes and ready for your favorite little music video player. Since I'm always up for more options, here's an Automator action that accomplishes the same task for Tiger users. You can select a group of files, run the action (it's meant to be installed as a Finder plugin), and it will use QuickTime to export the video and add it right into iTunes for you.

While I haven't tested this out yet, I'm excited about being able to do with with an Automator action as it opens up the possibility of adding more steps to your workflow, such as batch renaming files, or anything else Automator can do. Plus, just like one of the reigning favorites - iSquint - the Export Movies to iTunes action is free.

Tags: 5g, 5g ipod, 5gIpod, action, automator, convert, export, file, ipod, movie, quicktime

Filed under: Software, Productivity, Internet Tools

Finally - a tool for exporting Address Book to Thunderbird (and Gmail)

by David Chartier (RSS feed) on Jan 5th, 2006

Answering the prayers of potential Thunderbird switchers everywhere, a wonderful and as-yet unnamed individual has put together a web-based vCard-to-CSV Converter for easily moving your contacts from Address Book into either Thunderbird or Gmail. The interface and process are both conveniently simple: export your desired group in Address Book (File > Export vCard) and feed it into this tool. You have three conversion options: LDIF (which is Thunderbird-friendly), CSV and Gmail CSV.

After discovering the joys of Gmail (but not removing Mail.app from my Dock just yet) I'm not that interested in Thunderbird, but I fired it up just to verify that this conversion and import process is the first I've seen to truly work without a single hangup. The new LDIF file imports just fine into Thunderbird, and you won't even have to remap any fields.

[via Hawk Wings]

Tags: Address Book, AddressBook, convert, converter, CSV, email, Gmail, Thunderbird, vCard

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