Video to Go (Wondershare 3GP Video Converter)
Author : Grahamt
Product : Wondershare 3GP Video Converter
| Date: | 15.11.07 (140 review reads) |
| Rating: |  |
Advantages: Simple to use; great value; excellent support
Disadvantages: Separate versions for video file and DVD conversion
For reasons I won't go into here, I recently purchased my first ever mobile phone. Previously I had always used one provided by my employer so had never had a choice of make or model For various reasons I elected to go for a Pay-as-you-Go deal with 3, who supplied me with a Nokia 6288 for just under £100. I due course I will write a review of the Nokia but now is not the time or place.
The Nokia 6288 is a slide phone with a decent sized screen though nowhere near the same as a proper PDA phone, but good enough. It has a slot for a MiniSD card, up to 2Gig and so portable entertainment possibilities are there. It comes with both a Media Player and a Music Player, both of which are reasonably effective. I particularly liked the idea of being able to load up programmes recorded from the TV, to enjoy during long journeys. The only problem with this is that the 6288 is quite fussy about the format in which it likes to have the material. Try and play standard MP4s and then result will likely be un-viewable. The program will be jumpy although the sound seems to play OK.
What I needed was something that would enable me to convert the material to Nokia's preferred format, 3GP (an MP4 variant) and screen size suitable for the screen (320x240 pixels). 3GP is the protocol used by service providers for streaming video and the 6288 seems to be optimised only for this format, whether played from a static file or over the network.
I researched a number of media converters, including Nokia's own one, which is no longer being actively developed. I also looked at Avidemux (a freeware program developed on Sourceforge - http://avidemux.sourceforge.net/), MediaCell (http://www.media-cell.com/) and a number of other but all had deficiencies in one way or another that detracted from their value, even the freeware ones.
Let me just give you a clue as to what I was looking for. I wanted an application that would enable me to select my input media file, choose the output format easily (preferably simply by selecting the screen size from a drop-down); choosing to keep the aspect ratio of the original, cutting the converted file in letterbox format if desired; cropping the output screen by simply dragging a frame; anything else would simply be a bonus.
The product I found that got all the ticks in all the right boxes was the Wondershare 3GP Video Converter (http://www.wondershare.net/).
I have never heard of Wondershare but it appears that they are a company emerging out of the computer powerhouse that is mainland China. They are based in Shenzhen in Guangdong province. I must admit that this had me initially a little nervous. If you check, as I often do, the origins of the Internet attacks that my firewall blocks, it seems that 90% come out of China. It appears that China's draconian laws don't do anything to deter this unwelcome traffic. However, I decided to give them a try anyway.
The Wondershare 3GP Video Converter is not freeware; a copy will cost you $19.95 which, at today's Dollar/Pound exchange rate has to be a bargain. They offer a trial but the copy that you download produces a convertion with an “Evaluation Trial” watermark across the screen.
Downloading and installing was a doddle and I powered it up for the first time. Nothing seemed to go wrong so the first hurdle was overcome at least. My anti-virus software detected nothing untoward. The application window couldn't be simpler; just a single window Add, Edit and Option at the top on the left and Register, Help and About on the right. A big window in the middle on the left explains exactly what you do:
1. Click Add to import a video
2. Click Edit to crop and adjust the video
3. Click Setting to set the output options
4. Click Start to convert the video file.
What could be simpler? On the right of this is a video window in which you can see the video you are converting. So, let's get started. I clicked on Add to add a video clip that I was using as a test file. The application froze with the hourglass showing. Not a good sign! Try as I may I couldn't get anything to work properly. Each time I had to kill the application through the Task Manager.
So, now is the time to test the sort of support available from the software developer. Let me just say at this point that I had had problems with some of the other applications I had tried and, to be frank, generally support was dire or non-existent. More often than not emails to advertised support help desks were totally ignored.
Not so Wondershare. Raising the problem with them brought an immediate response, well, as immediate as it possible from the other side of the World, considering the difference in time zones. I got a response from a Grace (probably her “European” name; you know how help desks work!) and, to be honest I've rarely had better support from any organisation. She was willing to work with me to find a solution to the problem, including providing me with diagnosis versions of the code to generate an audit trail so as to pinpoint the part of the code affected.
At no time did she give up, which is always a good sign of a professional organisation. In the end I uncovered the problem myself (37 years in the IT industry does have its uses), which turned out to be a copy of ffdshow, which I had installed for another bit of software, since removed. Once I had deleted that, everything sprang into life.
Once you have selected your video, the instruction pane turns into a table with the selected video shown at the top. You can add additional files if you wish and get Wondershare to combine them into a single output file, such as putting together number of episodes of a show.
Below the table are two fields for the output Format and the Output destination directory. Next to the Format field, where you can choose other formats than pure 3GP, is a Settings button and this is probably the first thing you are going to want to do. Clicking this button pops up a window where, amongst other things, you can choose the desired resolution, from a drop-down list. I chose 320x240 for the 6288.
One of the buttons immediately below the table is Crop and this pops up an second window on top where the video start playing. On the left is a drop-down menu box called Zoom for the desired output aspect ratio, which includes 16x9 and 4x3. On the right, where the video is playing, the visible picture is surrounded by a frame with drag handles top and bottom, left and right. Cropping the output video is as simple as clicking on the handles and dragging them to where you want them.
I tried converting a full width wide-screen video (cinema aspect) but on the 6288 it was unusable. However, cropping off the outside edges produced a usable result, without distorting what remained. In addition to cropping you can also change picture quality and sound volume with slider controls and you see the immediate effect on the video.
The Options button has as one of its main functions the ability to snapshot a frame from the video to a bitmap or jpeg file. Above the video window on the right is a Trim button and here you can cut down the video if there are bits that you want to eliminate. From there you just click Start to fire off the conversion. On my machine (Acer TravelMate 8204WLMi with an Intel 2.00Ghz Dual Core processor and 2Gig of memory) a one and a half hour video captured from TV in high-definition converted from nearly an 800Mbs file to one of just under 100Mbs in just under 20 minutes.
And that's about it. It couldn't be simpler. Not only that but the results it produces are excellent. Loading the converted files onto the 6288 via the Nokia PC Suite did produce a message saying that the files could only be loaded for transport but, they played perfectly nevertheless. What more could you ask; simple to use, produces good results, well supported by the Developer and at a reasonable price. I may even lay out $24.95 dollars for the version that converts directly from a DVD.
I rest my case.
Summary: The video converter for mobile phones that anyone can use.
