What Is It?

A freeware video conversion tool that will convert a large number of different video formats to AVI allowing a wide range of options and the codecs XVID, DIVX50 and PMP. It uses mencoder as the conversion engine.

Why Would You Want It?

There is often need to convert from one format to another . This may be to suit a particular portable video playing device that you have or it may be to convert some less used formats to one that suits your main player on your PC. It also may be that you need to convert from a larger file to something smaller using a more efficient codec.

I came across this program when I was looking for a utility to convert the files from my Aiptek Camcorder - See my post on this gadget here - Budget HD Camcorder and Camera - Aiptek AHD-200 (A-HD 720P USA)

What Does It Do - The Essentials?

Provides a simple user interface to select files to convert and a wide range of parameters such as bitrate for audio and video, codec, screen size, subtitles, etc.

Summary:

• Converts Video from one format to another
• Unified Interface (GUI)

Pros: What’s Good?

• Freeware
• Relatively simple to use
• Versatile & Useful Options
• Provides detailed information on source file parameters
• Batch conversion of folders
• Batch conversion of filetypes (eg .mov)

Cons:What’s Not So Good?

• A couple of bugs (see below)

More About What it Does in Detail:

Quote from the ALLToAVI website:

What is alltoavi?

This project is a tool to convert especially ogm and mkv files to avi, with subtitle and audio track selection, video resizing, bitrate selection and codec selection. It is centered around mencoder, with a commandline tool as well as a GUI for Windows.

Features

• XP Style Status window
• Drag n Drop
• Mouse over Tips, user friendly
• Pause, stop conversion anytime
• very fun to read and helpful manual
• Right click to convert folder/file
• Can now encode to avi with PCM(wave) audio, this means all audio formats can be encoded no matter what!
• Less error prone, more checks are added
• More codecs, you can now encode to Mpeg as well
• Brand new GUI
• 100% OGM/MKV support
• Any format, as long as you can watch, you can convert
• Subtitle track selection
• Audio track selection
• Resizing
• Custom Bitrate
• Custom Codec encoding
• External Audio files (any format)
• External Subtitle files (any format)
• Stream information is given, ie language of the stream is in the selection box instead of numbers

Supported conversions

• OGM to avi with subtitle and audio
• MKV to avi with subtitle and audio
• VOB to avi with audio [SUB not tested, please post to let me know if it works]
• AVI to avi
• WMV to avi
• RM/RMVB to avi
• MOV to avi
• MPEG (all) to avi
• H.264
• AAC audio
• ….and more….

Installation

The Installer has a really nice artwork linked to the authors love of anime’s so here it is

An option to set shell extensions is included the end of installation:

This not only allows files but also folders to be selected for conversion.

Main Window

From her you can select the files or folders containing the batch of files you wish to convert. The “Show All Supported Codec” button reveals a very comprehensive list of the codecs available on the PC:

The Add File and Add Folder buttons reveal standard file/folder selection windows:

If you look carefully at this screenshot you will see folders named “Converted” and “trans”. These are folders automatically created by ALLToAVI when processing. You will also see files prefixed with “cvt_”, this prefix is user definable and automatically added when processing. (The “cvt_” files are placed in the “Converted” folder, I moved them to the main folder after conversion as I wanted my Google Picasa installation to identify them under the main folder).

Clicking on the “Add Folder” button reveals an additional file type selection option in the main window:

Clicking on the “Custom” option in the dropdown brings up a further window where you type in the extension you need, in this case “.mov” for the files I was converting. (A minor annoyance was that I put the . in front of the extension the first time I used it, so it then displayed a window which told me I didn’t need to and then automatically removed it - WHY - Just remove it and don’t say anything - get a life!!!!!)

File Conversion Windows

When the file or folder is selected the program checks the file type, If it is detected as H.264 then the following dialog is shown:

Clicking on yes shows this window:

You are also shown the “No Skip” dialog:

The framerate is shown at the top right of the main window in red (see screenshot before the one above)

First Bug/Issue

When I used this simplified method the conversion worked OK for the video (placing the converted file in the “trans” folder) but there was no audio. I tried this several times and on only had audio on one occasion. In the end I gave up and used the normal window to set suitable parameters which I determined by trial and error.

The Main Conversion Window

Here you select all the options for setting up the conversion job and information is provided on the current file:

The File section details the file and folder information along with the selected file type.

There is also information about the original video:

In the Required section you set the conversion options:

The screen size can be set and is automatically completed with the width of the source file. The resizer algorithm type can be set from the dropdown.

The video encoder can be entered manually in the box or chosen from the dropdown:

If PSP is chosen the following window is displayed:

This details the options that must be set.

The video bitrate can be entered manually in the box or chosen from the dropdown:

Second Bug/Issue

When I set this to “High Quality” the file produced was will below the standard of the original .mov file and about a quarter of the size. Setting to 4000 produce a good standard of conversion which was slightly larger than the original. This needs a bit of “trial and error” TO WORK OUT WHAT IS ABOUT RIGHT AND I didn’t experiment with other than .mov file types which may also make a difference to the quality of the converted file.

I also tried using the “Quantizer” option which produced a file about 6x larger than the original using the 1.0 parameter which should equal the quality of the original, so why is it 6x the size? (see screenshot below) . Again maybe experimenting with the parameter for “Quantizer” may have produce a file of acceptable size and quality.

However - The underlying fact is that you want a utility where the developer has already worked out these parameters for you or at least provides some information.

I don’t want to be unduly harsh as this is freeware and we should be grateful that the developer puts his time and effort into something for our benefit. I also haven’t looked through the forums, etc. which may make reference to the issues and propose fixes.

The audio bitrate can also be entered manually in the box or chosen from the dropdown:

There are also options for subtitles.

Conversion

Clicking on the “Convert!” button starts the process and a progress window is displayed - this didn’t update very well on my PC but this is not a major problem:

Right Click File/Folder Context Menu

Right clicking on an appropriate file or folder shows the following dialog which automatically starts the AllTo AVI utility:

There are also option to open your web browser at various help, support, Forum, news and bug links shown at the bottom of the main screen.

What are the Technical Details & Compatibility?

What is the My Free Review Experience?

Personally I rate this as a useful utility that did what I needed. It seems to need a little bit of work but is is clear that the developer is working on the program and there is a beta build currently available. It seemed to be quite resource intensive when converting but without making direct comparisons on my PC to other utilities I could not say whether this is out of the ordinary. If you are going to use it to convert large files allow plenty of time and find something else to do, preferably not on the PC it is running on , you might also want to use something like Process Tamer - Free Up CPU Resources - Another Winner from DonationCoder.

Easy to Use - Good Options - Does the Job

What Could Make it be Better?

Fix the issues noted above

Get a better recording of Pachebel’s Canon in D and on violins!
(You’ll have to try the program to understand this )

What Other Posts are Relevant?

Budget HD Camcorder and Camera - Aiptek AHD-200 (A-HD 720P USA)

Process Tamer - Free Up CPU Resources - Another Winner from DonationCoder

Why I decided to Write This Blog

What are the Tags?

Technorati Tags: Video Conversion, Audio, Digital Video, codecs, XVID, DIVX, Freeware, Pro Reviewer, Programs, Software, Utilities, Windows, Windows XP

Popularity: 49% [?]

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This entry was posted on Saturday, May 17th, 2008 at 9:31 pm and is filed under Freeware. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.