At a Glance
If I’d downloaded the trial version of this program on my own, I
might very well have removed it before actually trying it. Not only
is there a opening nag screen, but the program bugs you to acquire
various codecs such as FreeMPEG-2, DivX, etc. Then there are the
buy-this-program and buy-this-other-program-of-ours screens that
pop up when you shut the program down. The coup de grace is yet
another nag for Deskshare’s newsletter the second time you run the
program. These mostly disappear if you fork over the moola for the
full program, but sheesh.
For you, dear reader (and my writer’s fee), I persevered. Though
the program is way too reliant on external codecs, it’s easy to use
and produced good results. The demo version watermarks video, and
for longer files it places the first three minutes of audio in a
separate audio-only file, but it gives you a good idea of the
quality of the quite acceptable transcoding. The program didn’t
like my HD files–complaining about bit rates, it did import and
convert Real Media files to other types after I installed the Real
Alternative 1.60 codec–despite a file open dialog without a *.rm,
*rma, etc. template for loading them. This leads me to believe that
it might import any type of file for which you have a DirectShow
filter, though I attempt it with any others.
All in all, Digital Media Converter is worth a try, though the
price tag is hefty. And you might want to apply the money to a
multimedia suite which will do the same thing and more.
–Jon L. Jacobi