Robert Irvine recommends new programs that won’t cost you a thing
VIDEO CONVERTERAny Video Converter Free 8.2.4
www.snipca.com/48883
What you need: Windows 7, 8.1, 10 or 11
Almost exactly a year ago (Issue 649, page 18), we wrote about Any Video Converter (AVC) 8, which completely redesigned the popular program for converting videos. Controversially, the revamped software ditched several useful tools, though developer Anvsoft has continued to offer the old version (7.18) through its website (www.snipca.com/48882).
AVC 8.2.4 redresses the balance by bringing back one of the most-missed options: the ability to burn videos to DVD, so you can watch them on your TV. Click the BurnDVD button on the Home screen and select the video you want to burn – supported formats include MP4, MKV, AVI, MPEG and WEBM, though AVC can convert any that aren’t listed. Choose the disc type in the Burn Location menu (single-layer DVD5 or dual-layer DVD9), select PAL as the TV standard and specify the aspect ratio – 4:3 or 16:9. You can also pick a design for the DVD menu screen, such as Beach, Leaves or Wedding. Click ‘Start’ to encode your video in DVD format.
Another handy addition to AVC is the ‘Speech to Text’ feature, which uses AI to extract the audio from your videos and convert it into a text file. This allows you to generate your own subtitles in SRT format, save transcripts as TXT files and even copy lyrics from music videos in LRC format – just choose your preference in the Output Options menu.
Some AVC features – including the ability to download videos in high quality, record more than three minutes of screen activity and split large files into three or more segments – are limited to its Pro version, which costs £9.96 a month. But the free program has plenty of tools for editing, enhancing and of course converting your home movies.
One annoyance that hasn’t been fixed is that when you visit AVC’s download page, an audio tutorial auto-plays. Mute the browser tab to avoid hearing this.
1Any Video Converter’s ‘toolkits’ are all easily accessible from its Home screen, which is split across several pages. Click the arrows to move between them and the star icons to add your favourite tools to the first screen.
2To save you switching between tools and videos, you can create a Workflow of all the options and files you plan to use in the current session. Click the Workflow button and select items in the left-hand toolbar.
3As well
