DVD & Video
I was pretty anxious to try out the Miro Video Converter when I first heard about it. Being a new Droid owner I'm constantly on the prowl for new and cool ways to use my Droid. Especially ways to convert video for the Droid.
The appeal of the Miro Video converter is, besides being free, is its insanely easy user interface. You can simply drag and drop your video file on the the application, select your device from the drop-down list, and click Convert. That's it. There aren't any advance settings to muck with. That won't appeal to the more advanced users, but this app isn't targeted at them.
So, you like to croon along with your tunes? Hey, doesn't everybody? If you'd like to have the lyrics to your songs displayed right in Windows Media Player, check out the aptly named Lyrics Plugin. It's a pretty simple plug-in without any bells and whistles. The full lyrics are displayed on a single screen, rather than scrolled across like with a Karaoke machine. You'll have to scroll down if the lyrics sheet is too big to display in Media Player.
Read the full How-to article or download Lyrics Plugin for Media Player and check it out for yourself. (It's also available for Winamp)
Pazera makes some nice and basic media converter software apps that work really well for their specified task. Like the Pazera 3GP to AVI converter I documented previously. The Pazera Free Audio Extractor 1.3 is another one.
There are times when you may want to extract just the audio portion from a video file. If you have a music video and want an MP3 version to play on your portable media player. This could be from an MTV-type video you downloaded or even just some live footage of a musical performance you shot yourself with your video camera. That's what Pazera Free Audio Extractor does well. It'll rip out the audio and output as MP3, AAC, AC3, WMA, FLAC, OGG or WAV file format.
Another good scenario would be for stripping out just a section of dialog, or classic quote from a movie or your favorite TV show. To check out more details, read my full write up on Pazera Audio Extractor at How-To Geek, or download it and give a try for yourself.
The MKV format has been gaining quite a bit of popularity of late, especially for converting high definition, Blu-ray, etc. Some of the awesomeness of MKV files lies in their ability to hold an unlimited amount of audio, video, image, and subtitles. MakeMKV converts DVDs ridiculously quickly. We're talking like 15 minutes to rip a DVD. MakeMKV runs on Windows, Mac, and Linux and you can grab it here.
Not all Media players will support MKV natively, so if you run into any roadblocks when playing MKV, try downloading the latest DivX codec (which supports MKV) or try VLC Media Player.
To get all the DVD rippin', MKV makin' details, read my full article on MakeMKV at How-To Geek.
3GP has become the a popular video capture format for many smart phones, such as the Droid. One of the downsides is that not all media players will support 3GP playback. One way to combat this is to convert your 3GP files to the widely supported AVI format. Pazera Free 3GP to AVI Converter is a fairly simple application that performs the task quite nicely.
There are some nice pre-configured conversion profiles that will make choosing the proper settings a breeze for the average user, yet the videophile will still be able to tweak settings to their liking.
To see full details of how to use the app to convert your files, check out my write up over at How-To Geek.
This is a fairly common problem especially among the growing number of us with video enabled cell phones. You grab your phone to take some video footage and turn it to the side to get a "landscape view." Not much of an issue if you are just going to watch it on your phone, but if you want to transfer it to your computer to watch or burn to DVD, the video is rotated 90 degrees. Needless to say, this can make watching it comfortably an issue.
Well, here's a couple of fairly simple solutions. One is VLC Media Player. The other is Windows Movie Maker. (Now, know as Windows Live Movie Maker). These are two free applications that allow you to rotate the video for playback or converting and burning to DVD respectively.
For all the juicy, 90 degree details, check out my article on rotating video 90 degrees (or more) at How-To Geek.
With rare exception, I'm not a big fan of movie previews on DVDs. Usually when I throw in a DVD I'm ready to watch. I don't care much for the previews and I definitely don't want to see any silly commercials. Often you can just click the menu button or just skip past all that annoying excess, but sometimes the DVD won't even let you do that. Thus, you end up sitting through excessive amounts of extras before actually getting to the feature.
I recently came across this little tip on CNET that caught my eye. When the trailers begin on the DVD, press Stop, Stop, Play, on your remote control and you should skip by all the trailers.
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