Freemake Video Converter 1.1.8

CNET Editors' review

by: Jasmine France on August 10, 2010

Freemake Video Converter promises to be to Windows users what Handbrake is to Mac users. This free app is built using Microsoft's .NET Framework 4, which is a programming model that allows developers to provide software with interfaces that are easy to use and visually-appealing. Certainly, both are true when it comes to Freemake, which offers a Mac-like window with rounded edges and large, explicit function buttons.

Downloading and installing Freemake Video Converter is a painless process, and the app takes up a moderate amount of space (30MB) on your hard drive. As noted, the main window is very straightforward. Lining the top are media buttons for video, audio, DVD, and photo, each with a plus symbol adjacent to indicate that's how one can add the various file types. Once files are added, another set of soft keys along the bottom of the window lets you easily select the format you want to convert to.

Freemake Video Converter can transcode a huge array of video file types, including AVI, MOV, M4V, MP4, and FLV, and it can convert from virtually any audio file type into MP3. It also throws in photo support as an added bonus (not necessary, in our opinion, but still nice). It also works for backing up DVDs into a variety of video formats, and the program includes some handy helpers for converting video directly into a file type that's compatible with a particular device such as an iPhone 4, a Sony PSP, or a Zune. Freemake also offers companion freeware--Video Downloader--that lets you download content directly from sites such as Veoh and YouTube and covert in the process.

In our tests, we focused mainly on the video aspect of Freemake since that's its main purpose. The software converted a variety of file types flawlessly to MP4 for our iPod Touch. The process was fairly slow--three videos totaling 17 minutes took more than 20 minutes to convert. Ripping from DVD presented some problems; the program crashed during once and was generally painfully slow. But it did get the job done--for free--so we're willing to forgive some shortcomings. To improve performance and avoid impatience, we recommend doing your conversion jobs overnight.

Freemake Video Converter - Convert video between 250+ video formats and 100+ devices - Download Video Previews:

Publisher's Description

From Freemake:

Freemake Video Converter is a handy, easy-to-use free video converter that enables you to import videos from different sources, photos, music, DVD and convert them to AVI, MP4, WMV, DVD, 3GP, MP3, YouTube. Convert videos to devices: iPod, iPhone, iPad, PSP, Blackberry, Xbox, Apple TV, smartphones. Rip unprotected DVD. Burn DVD. Create photo slide shows, and music visualizations. Extract MP3. Cut, join, flip, rotate video. Upload videos, photos, music to YouTube directly without having to access the Web site. Other features include: batch mode support; netbooks optimization.

What's new in this version: Version 1.1.8 adds the ability of uploading DVD to YouTube, adds support for Double-Layer DVD and Mini DVD, increases YouTube video uploading limit from 10 to 15 minutes, adds the preset 320x240 for 3GP.