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In search of ... A/V converter

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barney:
There are several threads extant on this subject, but none recent for what I thimk  :-\ I need  ;).

On this thread I talked about hardware for converting VHS to DVD.  That is finally in process, and I should be able to report in a week or so.

However, this is a bit different.  I need opinions on software - preferably free, 'cause I won't be the only one using it, there's a tightwad involved  :P - that will convert anything to anything, or at least close to that.  I just tried Any Video Converter, but it keeps choking:  any time I attempt to load a file for subsequent conversion, I get a runtime error, request to terminate in an unusual way.  There's a query with the source site as to what I might do, but I've no idea how quickly - or if  :huh: - they'll respond, and I'm in somewhat of a time crunch.

At the moment, I need to convert a .wmv file, prolly to .mp4, for embedding on a Web site.  There'll be two (2) conversions:

* a full clip to be played at user discretion
* two (2) short segments of that clip to be looped on the home page.The full clip will have sound, controls, all the normal bells and whistles.  The looping segments will be silent, no controls.

Oh, yeah, it would be nice to be able to control the sound format as well.  This'll be done in HTML5 with a degrade, as yet undecided but prolly .swf, for browsers that don't understand HTML5.

I've never done anything of this nature before, so I'm running blind.  Any opinions/suggestions on conversion software? 

4wd:
FWIW, I use Freemake Video Converter for a lot of conversions - just don't blindly click-through on the install.

It's simple and has the output formats you want - I found it produces very good quality, (as it should using the ffmpeg engine).

The offline installation files are found here.

barney:
I'll try Freemake next.  I saw some bad press on it, so downloaded Hamster instead.  Had to be very cautious with the install, and it still installed some stuff I didn't want or need - 7Zip works just fine, I don't need Hamster Zip  :mad:! - but it's taking an abominably long time to convert a 47K .wmv file to .mp4.  System went to sleep on it the first run, so I restarted, but hope for this one is diminishing rapidly.

Off to find Freemake.

4wd:
I should of mentioned, you need .NET v4 for Freemake Video Converter.

When installing FVC, choose Advanced and deselect all the optional crap, (Bing!, etc) - it didn't install anything extra on my machine when I did that but it has been shown that sometimes some of these 'optional' items are region dependent.

barney:
Don't like .NET, but that's not a problem - have too many other things that need it  :(.  Installed OK - at least it, unlike Hamster, was honest about the optional installs.

But ...

Freemake won't even load the file I have to convert.  Doesn't say why, just says it can't load.  This after a reboot, so not a residuals problem, although might be a problem with other stuff running.

This simply is not my night, ya know?  Kinda like the techies idea of Hell - everything looks perfect, but nothing works  :P.

OK, off to find another converter  :o.

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