Convert Video Formats Quickly with WinFF

When it comes to mentioning the open source tools for video or audio format conversion and trans-coding, the first name that comes to our mind is FFMPEG. But FFMPEG is a command line tool with too many command line parameters to remember. The difficulty involved in using this command line program is solved by an open source GUI for FFMPEG called WinFF. It is a free GUI for FFMPEG for Windows operating system and lets you easily convert any video file into formats supported by FFMPEG.

You can download the WinFF from its Google Code website. The download is available in form of an installer package of more than 15 megabytes. After the installation, you can run it from its desktop or Start Menu shortcuts. The WinFF window has a simple interface. To begin with the video format conversion, first of all select a preset from the Preset drop-down list. There are so many presets for various devices and resolutions like Blackberry, iPod, iPhone, Google WebM, Android, Nokia, LG phones, Creative Zen and many more.

Convert Video Formats Quickly with WinFF

Then you have to add video files to the WinFF window. You can drag-n-drop video files to the WinFF window or click on the Add button to add files. You also have to select the output folder which is the user’s profile folder by default. There are other options for conversion like cropping the video, video and audio bitrates and time duration. There is also option to manually change the FFMPEG command.

Convert Video Formats Quickly with WinFF

When you are ready, click on the Convert button in the toolbar. This issues the FFMPEG command in a new command line interface (CLI) window. The conversion process does not take a very long time for the video conversion and you can see the process in the window. In the end the CLI would pause indicating that video conversion is complete.

WinFF is very simple yet very powerful video conversion application for Windows. It is powered with FFMPEG and this is why it supports so many output formats, video cropping and other advanced features. It can be used equally by the beginners and the advanced users alike.

You can download WinFF from http://code.google.com/p/winff/.