General Purpose Conversion Utilities
Audio and video files come in many varieties and settings within them. More are being develped monthly and you often need to convert from one type to another.
Movie Maker was developed to work great with DV tapes (digital8 or mini-DV) when the camcorders are connected to the computer by firewire. But, as of February 2009 my local Sams Club no longer sells such camcorders. They carry only DVD, hard-drive and flash card camcorders. With few exceptions the files on them need conversion before using in Movie Maker.
The explosion of available online files has many users wanting to convert downloaded flash files to ones that work in Movie Maker. And, afer saving a movie to DV-AVI or WMV format, the only choices available, getting it someplace else such as a video DVD or an iPod video requires yet another file conversion.
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I tend to use specific software tools to do each kind of conversion. Others use tools that offer a free and easy one-size-fits-all process.... but for whatever reason(s) such tools often fall short when delivering their promises.
The pages of the Import Movie Source Files > Video section cover suggested conversion tools for specific file types. This page covers my recommended general-purpose conversion utilities.
All-Purpose Conversion Tools
As time passes there are more choices of cameras, camcorders, webcams, phones, screen captures, and other video taking devices. And there are more types of digital file formats and compression codecs. Many or most of the files don't work in Movie Maker without doing a file conversion. The new Windows Live Movie Maker promises to resolve the disparity, but we are still waiting for it to be published. And it won't work in XP.
There's a couple main approaches to file conversions:
As file types and codec choices keep expanding, so do conversion tools. I've never found the perfect all-purpose tool, so my website pages lean more toward tools that make specific conversions. They usually need more learning about specific settings to use than all-purpose ones, but results are consistently good. If you have the time to learn and your preference is for 'free software' they offer the best options.
The Xilisoft Video Converter tools are the first general purpose converters I endorse. They are not perfect, so I suggest checking the file types you typically use with the trial versions before purchasing.
If you're converting HD sized video, here's a link to a website that provides a checklist of features for their pick of the the top rated 8 conversion utilities.
Xilisoft Video Converter
Many users look for a free one-size-fits-all conversion tool. It's a great concept, something that makes for a simple conversion. But each system is different and each user has different needs; something that works great for one doesn't for another. The conversion utility I've found closest to an all-purpose converter is Xilisoft's Video Converter.
It comes in 3 versions. I have the trial version of each on my website... feel free to download one or more and check them out yourself:
Xilisoft Video Converter Ultimate
Xilisoft Video Converter Platinum
Xilisoft Video Converter Standard
Here's Xilisoft's website with a table showing the differences among versions.
For this screen shot I dragged and dropped 14 random items from my library of test files, selected random output file types, pressed the red button, and watched it go through the conversions. You can see the only failure was converting a .3g2 file to an iPhone Movie file. For me it's not important as I don't use .3g2 files and don't have an iPhone.
My usual settings when converting any input file to a wmv that works in Movie Maker are:
If and when you decide to purchase the full version, use the main menu > Help > Buy Xilisoft Video Converter option from your trial version.
The trial version is more of a demo rather than a full featured app. It converts the first 5 minutes of a longer video, and it'll only do half of the files that are less then 5 minutes. It's enough to check it on your system, but not to use for regular conversions.
I'm studying other all-purpose tools such as the 'free' Quick Media Converter... it's good but doesn't do as many file types as Xilisoft's converters, and does less of a quality job, such as not retaining widescreen settings.
I see the free Format Factory being suggested by John Inzer, always a quality source. My first test files using v2.15 were a VOB and two AVCH HighDef files, converting them to WMV files that played fine in WMP. The app is available at
SUPER is routinely recommended by neophyte at windowsmoviemakers
