iSquint
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Dear Aunt TUAW: Apple TV and oddball video formats
Hey Auntie TUAW, I just ordered my new Apple TV, and have a ton of footage in MKV, AVI, etc. which probably won't work with iTunes, let alone my Apple TV. What can I do to batch convert and import all my movies to iTunes, which will work with Apple TV and be as high-rez as possible? With all my love, Ari
Evom beta takes up iSquint's mantle, effortlessly converts video formats
While still in beta, Evom (from The Little App Factory, makers of iPodRip) looks ready to pick up where iSquint left off. It easily and quickly converts videos to formats compatible with iTunes, YouTube, your iPod, and Apple TV. It couldn't be a simpler drag-and-drop operation: drop the video on the Evom window, and select a destination. After that, Evom does the heavy lifting and (optionally) adds the finished video to iTunes. The output quality is good -- it uses the same technical foundation as ffmpegX. You get the same high quality without all the fiddly controls of ffmpegX. Evom also includes a bookmarklet that lets you save off YouTube videos to your computer with a single click. The quality of the output there mostly depends on how good the source video is, but it couldn't be easier. iSquint, my favorite "as if by magic" video conversion tool, was discontinued after Techspansion (also the makers of iSquint's bigger brother VisualHub) shut their doors last October. The VisualHub codebase is still being developed, however, in a new project called Video Monkey that Aron covered in March, which is also well worth a look. Evom is in beta, but unlike iSquint, it appears like it may cost something when the final version is released. It also appears limited to converting 60 items until it's registered, and trying to register the app leads to a non-existent shopping cart area. Even so, the simple interface and easy installation will be worth a few bucks to me. [Via Daring Fireball.]
Roxio to announce Crunch, a new video conversion app
Looks like VisualHub and iSquint are going to have some competition on their hands, as Roxio on Monday will announce Crunch, their own entry into the software video conversion market. With computer-based video leaving the nest for devices like the Apple TV, the iPod and soon the iPhone, tools that can easily convert video from a plethora of sources and formats are becoming ever the more useful. Roxio looks to make a decent splash in the market with Crunch, as it features their typical UI (which, personally, I detest) and a nice array of features, including batch encoding of multiple files, conversion of DVDs created with Toast, iMovie, and other video editing apps (in other words: it won't rip and encode commercial DVDs), support for a very wide array of video formats including the elusive MPEG-1, presets for specific devices and one killer and rare feature you don't see in many (if any) other apps: encoding from VIDEO_TS files that are ripped straight from a DVD.Still, all this comes at a price: Crunch will cost $50, whereas similar solutions that don't do DVD or VIDEO_TS conversion, like VisualHub, can be had for half that. Still, we'll have to reserve a final judgment until we can get our hands on a copy. Until then, check out our gallery of Crunch screenshots to get a better perspective on whether you should try out a demo.[Correction: VisualHub does convert VIDEO_TS folders as of version 1.1; our apologies.]%Gallery-2967%
iSquint 1.5
iSquint, the little video encoder that could, has hit version 1.5. New things in iSquint 1.5 include a new icon, 640x480 H.264 low complexity support (whatever that means), Flash 8 video can be converted to iPod friendly formats, and faster tagging for videos in iTunes.All of this for the low, low price of free. However, iSquint is a one trick pony (but it does that one trick very well) so if you're looking for a more robust encoder check out VisualHub.
iSquint 1.4.1 with 'MPEG-in-.mov' goodness
iSquint, the fantastic little iPod video converter that we've mentioned before, has been updated to version 1.4.1 with a big new feature: handling QuickTime files that contain MPEG video that most other players/encoders will balk at. Various other code tweaks have brought some big speed improvements and fixes for issues with 10.3.9.iSquint is surprisingly still donationware and available from iSquint.org.
Handbrake Lite
The fine folks who brought us iSquint, now give us Handbrake Lite. You may remember Handbrake as that super cool app that rips DVD's into tons of different formats. Handbrake Lite is just like that, only it rips your DVD's into an iPod ready format (320x* MPEG-4 SP, ffmpeg, 1000kbps avg, 48000KHz 128kbps audio) and that's all it does.What if you want more options? Use Handbrake.Thanks, Tony.
