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Have you ever needed to convert a video or audio file to a different format, but didn't have a tool that wasn't a pain to use? Perhaps you didn't want to launch your video editor to perform a simple file conversion, or you didn't want to hunt around the Internet for a shareware or freeware application that might or might not proficiently perform the conversion. Ulead Systems might just have the tool for you with its Ulead Video ToolBox. It carries a $49 price tag, and with its wide ranging conversion capabilities, it may well be worth the price for relatively headache free video file conversions.
Video ToolBox 2 is a no frills file conversion tool that converts your videos into the following formats; MPEG-1, MPEG-2, Windows Media Video, AVI, and MPEG-4.
How it Works
The VideoTool Box interface is basic, with an opening screen that A. Helps you to choose a format to convert to; and B. Helps you to choose the video quality. Your choices here include Improved, which creates a high quality video file, Default, which creates a standard quality video file, and Reduced, which creates a highly compressed video file for playback on the Web or for attaching to emails. Once you choose the format and video quality, you click the big Enter button.
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| The main interface |
The Enter button takes you to the next window in the software, which is where you import the file that you want to be converted. After you click Enter, the window changes a bit, starting at the left side of the window, which shows you the three step process you go through to get the finished file, the media playback window, in the center, and the Edit/Add Media section to the right. You have five different media choices to choose from in this section; insert video, insert image, insert DVD, capture digital video from camcorder, and capture analog video.
You can also clip video segments from a clip, cut the video clip in two, and even auto-enhance the clip, which enhances the brightness of the clip. Clicking next sends you to the next window, which enables you to add a style to the clip if you want. The default is no style, but you can choose from several different styles to further enhance the look of the clip. When you add a style, you can add text to that style via the text tool, which gives you text controls such as the font, size, position (horizontal, vertical, centered, left justified, right justified), bold, color, and shadow. When you add a style, an audio track is also added to the file, as well as some basic effects. You can also choose to have no effect as well.
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| You can choose from several styles and transitions. |
Click the next button yet again and Video ToolBox gives you some options. If you have chosen MPEG-1 or MPEG-2, you have an option to burn that file to disc provided you have Ulead DVD Movie Factory or Ulead VideoStudio 8 installed on your computer. The Burn button in this case is an available option. If you don't have one of these applications open or if you chose to convert your video file to WMV, AVI, or MPEG-4, the Burn button is grayed out. The Output window gives details of the specification of your outputted file. Details include the file type, bit rate, resolution, frames per second, NTSC/PAL video specification, video data rate, and audio format. When you click create, the Video Toolbox begins the conversion. A progress bar let's you know how much of the video has been converted, and when it finishes the process. Video Toolbox plays back the converted video.
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| You can also batch convert audio and still image files |
In addition to converting video files, Video Toolbox also gives you the capability to convert audio files and images files in batches or individually. You can convert audio files to MPEG audio, Microsoft WAV, or Windows Media Audio. You can specify the audio type (stereo, mono, joint stereo), the frequency (32000, 44100, 48000), and the audio bit rate (from 64 to 384). For image files, you can convert to most of the popular image file formats as well as image files colors, be it black and white all the way to 48-bit true color.
First Impressions
The Video Toolbox comes in two flavors; the Home Edition, which converts video, image, and audio files via a simple interface, and the Home Edition for Mobile Phones, which enables you to convert videos that play back on 3G mobile phones. This version enables you to import and edit video in AVI, MPEG-1, MPEG-2, MPEG-4, and WMV, and output that video to 3GPP/3GPP2. The version reviewed here is the Home Edition. The application easily converts video, image, and audio files fairly painlessly. It also offers the capability to add simple 3D effects and transitions to your videos, as well as simple titles. You can do quick cuts of the video as well. The application is simplistic enough to get most of your file conversion tasks done. Only the more popular video formats are supported in this release. Formats such as DiVX and Xvid are not supported. And QuickTime is not officially supported, although I was able to import a 4MB QuickTime MOV file and convert it out as a 110MB Microsoft AVI file. I have no idea why it blew up in file size. Also, the image quality of converted still images could stand for some improvements. While batch converting BMPs to JPEGs for web use, the final JPEG files came out unacceptable. I had to use my standard web image editor for acceptable results. For the $49 cost of entry, you can save a lot of time when it comes to converting image and audio files, but at the expense of image quality. For video, there seems to be a lot of gimmickry such as transitions and adding titles and stuff. I think those tools are better served in the video editor. Leave the converting of the video files to Video Toolbox.
Recommended system requirements for Video Toolbox are an 800MHz Intel Pentium III with 256MB RAM, 300MB free hard disk space, 4GB+ hard drive space for video capture, and a Windows compatible display that supports 1024x768 resolution. For more information, or to download a trial version of the software (highly recommended) visit www.ulead.com
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John Virata is senior editor of Digital Media Online. You can email him at jvirata@digitalmedianet.com
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