Creating customized DVD movies is a piece of cake with Droppix DVD Maker. The program takes care of everything so that you only have to worry about enjoying your favorite videos from the couch.

You can use any video files stored in your local drive (the program supports the most popular formats) or import videos right away from famous video websites like Youtube, Daily Motion or Google Video with just a single click. Droppix DVD Maker also includes several ready-to-use menu templates you can use to create personalized DVD menus, though the method to change them is not very well implemented (a double click on the current menu image would be much more intuitive than having to open the program's settings menu).

Another drawback to Droppix DVD Maker is the fact that you can't preview the video before converting and recording it to the actual disc, while other similar tools usually include a built-in player. At least the conversion process is easy and quite fast too.

Droppix DVD Maker lets you create customized DVD movies in a very easy way, but lacks some handy features found in other similar tools.

Download Droppix DVD Maker 1.5.0 in Softonic

If you have a large collection of videos and a video-capable portable device, this might be the perfect app for you.

ImTOO MPEG Encoder Ultimate provides you with a straightforward tool to convert video files between a wide array of formats, with special attention to mobile devices, handheld consoles and multimedia players such as iPod, iPhone, iRiver and Zune. All supported formats are saved as profiles that you simply choose from a drop-down list, though you can also create your own format profiles by tweaking a few settings.

Besides converting, ImTOO MPEG Encoder Ultimate includes some extra tools with which you preview the video, take a snapshot, add special effects, trim the image or even add a watermark to it. Too bad the program was so unstable during our tests: it crashed every now and then without any apparent reason.

Despite these crashes, ImTOO MPEG Encoder Ultimate is a very complete video converting tool that well deserves a try.

Download ImTOO MPEG Encoder 5.0.9.9 Ultimate in Softonic

Have you ever wanted to search for and download your favourite videos without using your browser? Free FLV Converter lets you automatically access sites such as YouTube, DailyMotion, Google and Metacafé without opening anything else.

You can search by keyword and preview each video found in the rather basic interface and also download them in FLV format. After that, you can convert the files to AVI, IPod, IPhone, 3GP or PSP format. It also works vice versa and if the files in question are already in FLV format, it can convert to DivX, Xvid, MPEG, DVD and AVI with automatic HTML embed links. This means you can paste them into your website or blog to share instantly with the world. If you don't require these functions, the program interface still provides a convenient search platform because you can browse and watch videos at the same time. With just one click, you can download the video you are previewing. For ease of use, it allows you to create a download list of videos you want to save. Once it's complete, you can just leave the program to download the videos whilst you get on with something else although unfortunately, it still doesn't support batch downloading.

A very useful application for those who are not content with only having videos on the Internet but also want them on their hard drive but don't want to visit each video content site seperately.

Download Free FLV Converter 5.6 in Softonic

DVD protection is advancing at an ever increasing rate but unfortunately for the manufacturers, so are the ripping programs. If you’ve ever had problem’s copying one of your favourite DVD’s (just to make sure you’ve got a backup of course) then DVDFab could be what you’reve been looking for. It has proved popular a hit with thousands of Softonic users so far and there seems little prospect of its popularity waning.

DVDFab is an all-in-one DVD copying/converting/burning software. In just one or two steps, you can copy DVD’s to DVDR/PSP and even iPods. For such a powerful package, it only requires a mere 1.3MB of your hard drive hardrive so its not bulky like similar packages. However, note that this is the ‘lite’ version of the software; and the fully featured Express edition will probably weigh-in at somewhat more than this.

The conversion process itself couldn’t be easier. There are 5 DVD to DVD copy modes available - Full Disc, Main Movie, Split, Customize and Clone. To use any, its simply a matter of inserting your disk and Windows will ask you if you want to open it with DVDFab amongst other programs installed on your PC. In Full Disc mode, all movies, menus and trailers, are copied to a DVD in one click. In “Main Movie” mode, only the movie is copied with your specified audio. In “Split”’ mode, you can copy a DVD-9 onto two DVD-5 discs but also preserve the original menus on both discs. According to the developers, this rare little feature is apparently ideal for TV series DVD’s.

The handy “customize” mode allows you to personalize your DVD’s by recording such things as only your favourite scenes, removing adverts or selecting only certain audio tracks. Finally, “Clone”’ mode allows you to make exact 1:1 bit-to-bit copy of DVDs or even copy games disks such as PS2 DVD’s. There is also a DVD to Mobile option so you can reduce your favourite films to watch on your iPod or other favourite hand held device. Formats available include MPEG-4, DivX, XVID and Mp4.

DVDFab is a tough cookie – even those disks that refuse to be copied with other programmes can usually be cracked. The customise option allows you to get rid of pesky files that stand in your way and just rip the actual movie or essential files. It can also help in reconstituting recovering scratched or dirty disks that don’t play properly in your DVD player anymore. In addition, the ripping speed is remarkably fast. Depending on the size of disk, you can record a new one in less than 10 minutes although the average time is around 30 minutes.

One of the minor drawbacks to this ripper is that the inevitably heavy processing power needed to rip a disk often results in crashes. This will obviously be less of a problem on more powerful machines but on machines with old processors, using DVDFab may become impractical. Many user forums are however full of praise for DVDFab claiming that it can rip more disks and whatsmore, faster than comparable products such as DVD Shrink or ShrinkTo5. At the end of the day, most users consistently report they appreciate the simplicity and power of this rip-roaring ripper.

Download DVDFab HD Decrypter 5.0.9.0 in Softonic

Forget paying for a program to rip your DVDs to your computer because thanks to the wonders of open source, HandBrake is here to convert disks to MPEG for free. Considering it doesn't cost a dime, the application delivers exceptional results. Converting any type of DVD through a simple-to-understand UI, the program whizzes through the process of producing an MPEG-4 file to save on your machine.

You'll need to have the right codec installed for the type of file you wish to convert (DivX, Xvid, OGM, 3ivx, etc.) but HandBrake lets you perform two-pass conversions and to codify a double soundtrack. Another great feature is the bitrate calculator, which alters the quality of the video according to the final file size you wish to achieve. You can even trim the black bands around a movie to maximise the size of the file. Although I experienced a couple of crashes with this version of HandBrake, it's nevertheless a great open source solution for ripping your DVDs.

Download HandBrake 0.9.2 in Softonic

Sometimes I prefer watching movies and TV series on the computer rather than doing it on the couch. The image quality in my PC monitor is better and I can handle more formats than just DVD.

Of course, I need a good video player in order to enjoy my favorite movies at their most, and my choice is no other than BSPlayer. This great video player features anything you need to watch movies or any other kind of video on your PC. It supports all popular video formats (and audio as well, in case you were wondering) and though its basic interface is not really the nicest one I've seen, you can easily customize it with skins.

BSPlayer supports video subtitles, takes screenshots of movie currently playing, lets you create bookmarks and chapters to move along videos more easily and has also support for plug-ins. I especially liked the way you can control playback, either by using keyboard shortcuts or simply your mouse: one click to stop the video, two clicks to go full screen, mouse wheel to raise or low the volume…

The only thing I didn't like was the fact that, being a free version, you're obliged to install an adware element on your PC that displays ads from time to time while you're browsing the way. It's a safe app that doesn't compromise your privacy, but still it's not my cup of tea. I guess it's just the price you have to pay for having such a great video player for free.

BSPlayer lets you enjoy your favorite movies on the PC with a wide range of features (subtitles, screenshots, bookmarks and more) provided you're willing to accept some ads on your desktop.

Download BS.Player Free 2.31.974 in Softonic

With multimedia portable devices growing in popularity and features, it's not surprising that DVD ripping tools like Xilisoft DVD Ripper Ultimate have started to offer support for them so that you can take your favorite movies anywhere with you.

Xilisoft DVD Ripper Ultimate is one of those applications: a full featured DVD ripper than can extract all data inside your DVD movies and convert it right away to another video format, including the most popular ones and – of course – video formats for mobile devices such as the iPod, the iPhone and the PSP.

Xilisoft DVD Ripper Ultimate lets you choose the video size, image quality and audio quality, and also create and use different profiles according to the target format or device. Also, Xilisoft DVD Ripper Ultimate lets you trim specific video fragments, edit video effects, adjust subtitles and even add a watermark so that you obtain fully customized DVD video and audio files.

Additionally, Xilisoft DVD Ripper Ultimate can help you clip video segment, crop video size, edit video effects, adjust subtitle, and add video watermark, to get the customized DVD audio and video files.

In addition to ripping the whole DVD, you can also select specific chapters and convert only those. The whole process is done via drop-down menus and Xilisoft DVD Ripper Ultimate is generally very easy to use.

With Xilisoft DVD Ripper Ultimate you can rip the contents of your favorite DVD movies and convert them to different formats – including mobile video - in just a few easy steps.

Download Xilisoft DVD Ripper Ultimate 5.0.40.0729 in Softonic

There's nothing more annoying than downloading or ripping a film and then reaslising you don't have th right codecs to play it.

Or worse, the codecs that you have are corrupt and don't playback properly. If you've found yourself in this situation then m5Studio Codec is a neat little package which brings together most of the most important codecs you'll need. m5Studio Codec includes all the major codecs you'll need to make sure that you'll never have problems playing a film again.

Among the codecs included in m5Studio Codec are DivX or XviD, Ogg Vorbis or Cinepak or AC3 plus some some lesser known ones such as CoreAVC and Fraunhoffer IIS. Installation is simply a matter of double clicking EXE file and you've got a few configuration controls to control exactly how you want the codecs to perform.

m5Studio Codec is a useful codec package that will be able to playback most of the major formats that you can download or rip films to.

Download m5Studio Codec 8.3a in Softonic

123 DVD Converter provides a fast and easy way to copy onto your hard drive your DVD movies or just the parts of the movie that you want. It copies in high quality AVI (DivX, XviD, MPEG-4...), VCD (MPEG-1) and SVCD (MPEG-2) formats. It also extracts audio tracks from DVDs.

Features:

• Fast DVD conversion, keeping same quality and taking up less room on hard drive.
• Ability to select DVD clips or chapters for the ripping, instead of converting an entire movie into one huge file.
• Ability to copy protected DVD movies.

Download 123 DVD Converter 4.6.5 in Softonic

Portable VLC media player is the popular VLC media player packaged as a portable app, so you can take your audio and video files along with everything you need to play them on the go. It reads all types of formats like MPEG-1, MPEG-2, MPEG-4, DivX, XviD, WMV, DVDs, VCDs and streaming.

Download Portable VLC Media Player 0.8.6i in Softonic

StaxRip allows you to easily convert your DVD's, DVB or DV captures, or almost any other source format. As a open source application StaxRip is completely free. The program supports the most popular video formats (DivX, XviD, x264, MPEG-2, MPEG-4), audio formats (MP3, AC3, MP2/MPA, AAC, DTS, WAV) and container formats (AVI, MP4, MPG, MKV, DivX).

Features of StaxRip:

• No spyware, adware or any other form of malware
• No registry bloat, settings are saved in files within the application's directory
• No lost settings after a fresh windows installation
• No awkward setup/installer, no system changes, system bloat and trash
• Easy to use and highly customizable
• Reasonable default values for filters, codecs etc.
• Rich help system including, online help, context sensitive help and forum support
• Rich and convenient cutting facilities e.g. to remove ads
• Batch processing (jobs)
• Rich feature set to manage, integrate and download required third party application
• AviSynth powered to achieve excellent video quality and support of virtually any source format

Download StaxRip 1.1.1.0 in Softonic

With the number of portable multimedia devices constantly growing, converting tools are becoming increasingly more important for the average user.

If what you want to convert is videos, Plato Video Converter is the tool you need. This neat video converter supports the most popular video formats, including those used on mobile devices such as mobile phones, iPod, iPhone, PSP, Zune and more.

The program supports a wide range of source formats and is very easy to use. Simply load the video or videos you want to convert and tweak the conversion options to meet your needs: video size, bitrate, frame rate, aspect ratio and a lot more. The program also includes a built-in player to preview the video.

I liked the simplicity of use and the wide range of formats supported by Plato Video Converter. On the downside, the interface is a bit too dull and has no general option other that being able to set to automatically shut down the computer when the conversion is finished.

If you want to convert your favorite videos to other formats with fully customizable settings, this is the tool you need.

Download Plato Video Converter 7.76 in Softonic

With so many Flash video sites out there, it's important to have a way t convert your videos to something more conventional or editable such as AVI.

Flash2Video supports the conversion of Macromedia Flash SWF files to AVI and can then compress them to DIV and XVID if you have the codecs installed. The developers claim it "has the fastest conversion speed in the world" which is definitely exagerating a bit but it is remarkably quick. The program supports a range of diemnsions and resolutions and so it doesn't matter what size your video is although larger file sizes take slightly longer. You can line up videos for conversion at your leisure so the best thing to do is just make a conversion list and leave it running while you are away from your PC. One excellent feature is the ability to preview your videos as they upload - so you can check whether your conversions are being carried out successfully. The image and sound quality is generally excellent for converted videos and the interface is very user friendly. If you get stuck at any stage, the program also has an extensive and well annotated help file.

Easy to use and lightening fast, Flash2Video is a powerful converter although it would be nice if it supported more output formats.

Download Flash2Video 5.36 in Softonic

My Video Converter is one of the most powerful video conversion tools you'll ever use with the ability to convert to AVI, MPEG, VCD, DVD and WMV formats. The range of this program is really impressive as it converts almost every imaginable video format such as AVI/DIVX/XVID/DIV, MPEG/MPG/DAT, WMV/ASF/ASX, RM/RMVB, MOV/QT, 3GP/3G2, MP4/M4V, and FLV.

The interface is simple but elegant with main features including adjust output video quality, adjust 4:3 or 16:9 video aspect. Whatsmore, all the latest encoders and codecs are built-in and regularly updated ensuring no errors during converting.

The conversion process consists of nothing more than selecting the video file, choosing the format and making the adjustments required i.e. type, aspect ratio, video resolution etc. The whole process is fast and easy although for some strange reason, the developers have not included a DVD, VCD or SVCD burner for your creations.

Download My Video Converter 1.2.29 in Softonic

River Past Audio Converter is River Past's award winning audio converter and extractor. Convert from almost any audio format to WAV, MP3, WMA, or audio-only AVI. We support a variety of input formats, including the standard WAV, MP3, WMA, AIFF, RealAudio, and the not-so-standard OGG, AIFF, and Unix Audio. Extract audio from the standard AVI, ASF, WMV, MPEG-1 and MPEG-2, RealMedia, and the not-so-standard QuickTime MOV and MPEG-4. If the file format exists, River Past Audio Converter probably support it.

Download River Past Audio Converter 7.7.6 in Softonic

WinFF is the Windows version of one of the most popular video converters on Linux. It enables you to covert video files into several different video formats including Xvid and WMV.

WinFF has a basic GUI with a multitude of options and functionalities that will help you select the videos you need, previsualize them and define the format of the conversion. In addition, there are other specialised options such as the ability to change the ratio of the conversion, the resolution or the quality of the audio track.

Although WinFF is a fairly stable converter, it does struggle with long names especially those with unusual characters. To avoid problem, I advise you simply all of the names of the files that you want to convert. Otherwise, you might find that the program simply rejects the files for no apparent reason.

This is a convenient and quick file converter that still needs a few bugs ironing out before it would be my number one choice.

Download WinFF 0.42 in Softonic

Ultra DVD Creator is a powerful and handy tool to create DVD VCD SVCD Video Disc from almost all formats of video files including AVI DivX XVid MP4 MPEG DAT ASF WMV MOV QT, So you can play movies on your home DVD Player. It is a revolutionary and versatile DVD creator.

With this software, you can convert any video files to DVD VCD SVCD compatible mpeg file and burn to CD or DVD disc.Use this software to create VCD/DVD from your digital video recorder, Webcam, or downloaded files. You can create video VCD/DVD disc freely without any special knowledge in this field, every thing it left you is easy.

Download Ultra DVD Creator 2.4.0622 in Softonic

There are so many video and audio formats that sometimes you need a helping hand just to know which codec you need to play that darn file that won't open up in your multimedia player.

This is where MediaInfo comes in handy, by analyzing any media file you open with it and displaying a complete report with all the information available about that specific file. This information includes basic data such as file name, playtime, file size and the likes, as well as more specific details like used codec, bitrate, channel, sample rate and resolution, among others.

The information provided by the program can be displayed in a variety of ways, from a basic data sheet or plain text to a tree-like structure or an HTML document. It can also be exported to a file but surprisingly enough there's no option to obtain a printed copy.

Also, I missed the possibility to obtain more information from the Internet (a web link would have been enough) or being able to download the necessary codec if it's not present in the system.

With MediaInfo you can obtain a complete report on any audio or video file, display it in several ways and also export it to several formats though it doesn't support printing and lacks some advanced functionality.

Download MediaInfo 0.7.7.2 in Softonic

Say you have a video on your computer that you'd like to take with you on your mobile phone. Are you having trouble in finding the right app you convert it?

Plato Video to 3GP Converter is the solution. This neat video converter has been especially developed to convert the most popular video formats to the standard video used for most mobile devices, 3GP.

The program supports a wide range of source formats and is very easy to use. Simply load the video or videos you want to convert and tweak the conversion options to meet your needs: video size, bitrate, frame rate, aspect ratio and a lot more. The program can also be set to automatically shut down the computer when the conversion is finished.

I liked the simplicity of use and the wide range of formats supported by Plato Video to 3GP Converter. On the downside, the interface is a bit too dull. Also, it would be great to have predefined profiles for certain devices, such as the iPod, the iPhone or the PSP.

If you want to convert your favorite videos to 3GP and carry them on your mobile device wherever you go, this is the tool you need.

Download Plato Video to 3GP Converter 5.87 in Softonic

You may have an astounding DVD movie collection, but unfortunately you can only enjoy it while sitting on the couch in your dining-room. Wouldn't it be nice to be able to watch DVD movies just anywhere?

This is precisely what you can do with Plato DVD Ripper Professional. This tool rips the contents of your favorite DVD movies and converts it to several other video formats, like those used in portable devices (such as iPod, iPhone, PSP or Zune), popular video devices like AppleTV and other video standards like the Youtube website or multimedia mobile phones.

Plato DVD Ripper Professional is very easy to use. Load the DVD movie, select the target format by clicking on its icon on the left side panel and finally click on the convert button. Every format includes several converting profiles to match different criteria, but if you don't like any of them you can create your own profile by customizing its settings at will. Besides these tweaks, the program doesn't really offer any other settings, except for scheduling the PC to automatically shut down after the recording is finished.

With Plato DVD Ripper Professional you can easily convert your favorite DVD movies to other video formats and enjoy them anywhere.

Download Plato DVD Ripper Professional 6.66.13 in Softonic