With the number of electric devices for both on the go and at home growing every day, the low cost of high definition camcorders and the wide range of video editing software currently available I think it is safe to say that video is here and it won't be going anyplace anytime soon.

However, there is one problem with all of this. Most portable hand held video supporting devices use different formats, resolutions, color depths, compression and more. Add in the needs of computer software editors, set top boxes for the TV and what you have is a need for a very wide range of video formats, resolutions and others such technical mumbo-jumbo.

No matter what kind of camcorder you have, in fact no matter what your source of video is you can't simply use it as is on all of your devices. You need to convert your video source to other formats usually something different for each device. In the last few years there have been products offered that were supposed to help you do this. However, most of them were either hard to use, leaving you to try an figure out what resolutions, formats and the like you need for a particular device or they just didn't work all that well. Some being buggy, some just not doing a very good job of the conversion. That has changed.

Xilisoft's Video Converter Ultimate 5.0 not only has a simple to use and understand interface. It comes complete with pre-done profiles for the most common devices and video formats. For example it includes presets for general video, general audio, iPod, iPhone, Apple TV, PSP, PS3, Xbox, mobile phones, windows mobile, PMP, HD Video, Lossless Audio, Picture and Animation and you can even create your own using the User Defined option. Within each of these categories are many more choices. For example under Apple TV you have Apple TV Mpeg-4 High 480P, Apple TV Mpeg-4 Low 480P, Apple TV Mpeg-4 Normal 480P, Apple TV h264 480P, Apple TV h264 720P, and Apple TV h264 (320*240).

You have control over resolutions, video quality, audio quality, audio channels and you can even split videos based on preset times or file sizes or create your own, the minimum you can do is 1 minute or 1 MB. The resulting video while dependant on the quality of the source material is superb. Footage from my Canon HF-100 HD camcorder, which is a secure digital memory card based camcorder is excellent when converted for use with such devices as Apple TV, iPhone or the web.

With its easy to use interface and wide selection of presets for the most popular output options and the ability to do it your way makes Xilisoft's Video Converter Ultimate 5.0 an excellent choice especially considering the $55.00 price tag.

System Requirements:

• Microsoft Windows XP Service Pack 2, Windows Vista Home Premium, Business, Enterprise or Ultimate;
  
• Intel Pentium 4, Intel Centrino, Intel Xeon, Intel Core Duo (or compatible) processor;
  
• 512 MB RAM or more;
  
• More than 30 MB free hard disk space;
  
• 800x600 or higher Resolution, 16 bit or higher Graphic card.

Company Information:

Xilisoft Corporation
http://www.xilisoft.com