converter

Update: According to software developer WonderFox Soft, iWonderSky Software is not allowed to give away WonderFox DVD Ripper licenses. Therefore, at the former's request, we have removed the link for the promotion.

Why settle for one freebie when you can get three?

From now until October 19, iWonderSky Software (which I believe was formally known as WonderFox Software) is offering CNET readers this exclusive: three Windows video utilities absolutely free.

First up: WonderFox DVD Ripper. Normally $39.95, it can convert just about any DVD into just about any digital format. It comes with profiles for a wide variety … Read more

YouTube hosts thousands of free songs in all genres, many posted with video montages, slideshows, and sometimes shots of a spinning turntable. While the quality is hardly the best, the quantity is staggering; YouTube is often the fastest and easiest way to hear a song. That's where DVDVideoSoft's Free YouTube to MP3 Converter steps in. Fast, simple, and free, it quickly downloads, converts, and saves audio tracks from YouTube videos as MP3s of several quality levels. It extracts audio from any YouTube video, not just songs, of course. You can save clips and play them on your audio … Read more

Converting videos to play on your phone or tablet isn't as easy as it should be, unless you have 4Free Video Converter. With the easy-to-use Profile wizard, you just pick your device or file type and add your files, and 4Free Video Converter does the rest. It supports the most popular video formats, including HD and Flash, and a lot of less popular ones, too. It also merges files; extracts audio, video, and images; edits video files; and adds effects.

While 4Free Video Converter's user interface isn't exactly a crowd-stopper, it's cleanly and logically configured with … Read more

Dozen of new PCs are launching alongside Windows 8. Some are inventive new designs with sliding keyboards and removable screens, others are simple retreads of existing products, occasionally augmented by a new touch screen.

Here you'll find links to all the major new Windows 8 hardware being released this holiday season, sorted by brand. Many of these systems are available to preorder now, and most will ship when Windows 8 launches on October 26 (a handful have yet to even be announced, so we'll add those to this list when they are).

We've … Read more

An IDC analyst doesn't like what he's seeing so far from PC makers and their pricing for Windows 8 products.

Lenovo and Acer this week began disclosing pricing for tablets and convertibles that range between $499 (Acer) and $1,099 (Lenovo). Bob O'Donnell, program vice president of clients and displays at IDC, doesn't think this kind of traditional PC pricing bodes well for the sales of newfangled hybrid devices.

"The problem is these things are priced way too high. Look at the history of tablet products priced above the iPad. Not pretty," he said … Read more

Converting videos to allow them to be shown on an iMac, iPhone, or iPad can be a tricky process if you don't know what to do. Dual-OS users already know the frustration of converting videos supported by Windows (such as WMV or AVI) into the MacOS environment. Any Video Converter Lite is a free product that can perform conversions several ways, readying your video clips for the supported formats of an iDevice.

Any Video Converter Lite installs on an iMac or MacBook Pro quickly and easily. The entire process took just a few seconds. Once installed, converting video files … Read more

Nearly everyone who plays videos on a PC will come across a file that can't be played. The quick answer is to convert the file to a format your media player can handle. Your media player might even include a file converter, but finding it and figuring out how to use it could take longer than simply downloading and running Hamster Free Video Converter. Its wizard-style interface walks you through each step of converting your unfamiliar video files to a format you can play. You can also use it to standardize your videos in one universally compatible format. Hamster … Read more

Printer-based freeware PDF utilities like Softland's doPDF Free are unobtrusive yet flexible and a great choice for the home office, small business, and individual user. You just have to click the Print command in any application, and then select the program from your list of installed printers. Instead of printing out your converted document, the program saves it as a PDF. You can set basic output options like document size and resolution, but doPDF is designed to be as simple and lightweight as possible.

Although doPDF works like a print driver, it installs normally like any Windows program. During … Read more

Although Smart Converter promises better and faster results than most of its competitors, it fails to achieve this goal. Its simple, intuitive user interface is excellent, providing a great user experience; beginner-level converters will appreciate it. The results aren't as stellar as expected, especially the audio, but the movie conversion is worth the additional minutes spent waiting.

Smart Converter could easily become one of the most convenient beginner-level converter tools, because users will love being able to just drag and drop their movie or audio files and choose an output format from the available list -- which is kind … Read more