It's great to have a portable multimedia device such as a PSP, an iPod or a Zune to watch movies on the go. The problem comes when you need to convert those videos from the PC to a suitable format so that you can watch those videos while commuting or traveling.

Koyote Free Video Converter can help you handle this issue in a very simple way. Far from complicated, bloated converting tools, this easy app lets you convert videos in a snap. You can choose between a wide range of formats, including those which are used in all popular portable devices. Available formats are presented as profiles with set preferences, but you can easily tweak them to suit your preferences.

Koyote Free Video Converter includes a small video window, but sadly it's only intended to watch video frames as the conversion process is working. It would have been nice to be able to use it also as video player to preview the contents of the movie before converting it.

With Koyote Free Video Converter you can easily convert videos to a variety of formats, including those suitable for portable devices.

Download Koyote Free Video Converter 1.2 in Softonic

The evolution of computers reveals a trend towards multimedia centres where users can listen to music, watch videos, surf the net, work and view photo albums. If you’ve gotten your hands on media files, you’ve probably been in the situation at least once where you had to convert the files to transfer them on a different device (such as a phone or an iPod) or in order to play it in another application. SUPER makes audio and video conversion a breeze thanks to a well presented interface and a slew of options.

SUPER’s single window interface is divided into audio and video and the selection of output options is done via the three drop down menus at the top. We appreciated the number of formats available. SUPER allows you to convert movies and music to play on recent devices such as Apple iPod, Sony PSP and 3gp for use on Sony Ericsson and Nokia mobile phones. The huge bit rate menu, from 64 to 9792 Kbps, means you can truly optimize and quicken the conversion process. We were disappointed however that SUPER only offered 2 video codec outputs (H263 and MPEG-4) and 3 audio codecs (AAC, AMR wideband and narrowband).

On the audio side, SUPER allows you to select your language from individual tracks, but audio is limited to one channel and one sampling frequency (8000). It seems the program is more suited to video conversion. Luckily the program includes recognized encoders such as ff mpeg or mencoder, ensuring a decent conversion process for both audio and video.

Use the buttons at the bottom of the interface to play files and check their quality after having converted them. The ’Player Options’ button gives you the chance to tweak video features such as aspect, saturation, hue, brightness and contrast. All files converted or waiting to be converted are visible in a list and you can verify the streaming link and the output status.

In SUPER, we found a very open media converter that even the klutziest of users will get to grips with. If you watch a lot of videos and movie clips and would like to be able to enjoy them anywhere and on any device, SUPER is a program you’ll need to get your hands on.

Download SUPER 2008.30 in Softonic

While the audio technology behind DVDs and computer speaker systems has improved greatly over the last few years, the applications designed to play DVDs on your PC are often less advanced. AVS DVD Player has been designed with this factor in mind. It aims to ensure that you get the maximum benefit from any surround sound or multi-channel soundtracks that your films have.

AVS DVD’s interface is typical enough, although it does include a handy shortcut button which lets you burn the file you are watching to a DVD. The program also distinguishes itself with an inbuilt set of codecs that will play most files, meaning you don’t have to trawl the internet for the right decoder just when you want to watch a movie. AVS is really flexible, supporting all the regular DVD and DivX formats but also Real Media, Quicktime and 3GP (mobile video) formats. It’s sound processing where AVS really excels, however, and if you’ve got a decent set of surround sound speakers, you’ll really notice the difference. AVS DVD includes a surround equaliser which distributes sound according to your setup. Currently, this multi-channel surround sound feature supports 3.1, 5.1 and 7.1 speaker configurations.

There is a price to pay, however, for this emphasis on sound. Unfortunately, AVS DVD player is hindered by several basic flaws. Firstly, it’s very heavy on resources. Even if you own a machine with a high-end processor and graphics card, you’ll notice that AVS hogs your CPU power, so it’s advisable to close absolutely every other application to prevent your system from becoming unstable. One technical drawback is that it does not de-interlace images. This means that if you’re watching torrents or DivX files taken from TV shows, you could experience poor image quality, especially around the borders of the screen. This is due to the image resolution in TV broadcasts which operate at a lower frequency than those made for DVD.

Another annoying problem is that you can’t make the playback controls stay visible on the screen in full playback mode. You end up having to return to a smaller viewing window to control the film you are watching. This is not an issue if you just plan on watching a film from start to finish but it is if you plan to stop and start it a lot. One other minor issue is the lack of extra skins available. The black default skin looks great and there are a few more to choose from but nowhere near as many as other players such as WinDVD.

For a totally free DVD Player, AVS is not a bad product and it certainly looks good. However, as many users report, the developers seem to have focused too much on design and sound features than the bread and butter of usability. Nevertheless, if you’ve got a serious sound system or want to feel the full thrilling sound of your films, it’s certainly worth a try.

Download AVS DVD Player 2.2.8.110 in Softonic