Users of Freeware iPod Media Converters

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Hints for Users of Freeware iPod Media Converters

An iPod media converter serves the task of converting your video files (formats such as MPEG, DivX etc.) into iPod-compatible video streams. And so you can carry your favorite media on your iPod regardless of how you get it (either by download or recording from TV tuner). There are a fair amount of freeware iPod converters available having different sets of features and functions.

Here is the check list to guide you in selection of a decent freeware iPod media converter:
- Media converter program ideally must accept the majority of media file types (divx, mov, wmv, mpeg, avi, just to name a few). Such programs can have an option of converting popular audio formats (m4a, ogg, ape, mp3, wav, etc.) as well. But primarily, make sure that codec for the type of media files you are going to convert is provided with that freeware.

- Time it takes to convert video. Unfortunately, numerous freeware converters don’t show good stability, which means that they often cause system to hang or crash, which is never a good experience. Check the specification to find out whether the software features multithreaded execution or option to work in background. Also, a batch processing feature would be nice.

- Find out, is the iPod media video converter capable of cutting a segment of the video. This feature is crucial if you use to watch parts of concerts or sports events on your iPod. A good media converter will have an option to preview resulting imagery before starting conversion.

- The interface of freeware of your choice is not supposed to be the cause of even least confusion, as it can be very frustrating when in the end of 4-hour converting process you find out that you didn’t set certain options properly (because of complicated interface) and the time is purely wasted. Similarly, polished interface as a rule is a sign of high quality software.

- Converted video stream clarity. When an iPod converter is surprisingly fast, this often is not good because the media quality you get after conversion is significantly lower than that of original. Another possible “artifacts” of conversion may include: desynchronization of audio and video, dropped frames, color misrepresentation. So be sure that your converter provides means to adjust bitrate (i.e. quality) of resulting stream, and carefully set up that option.