Sniptools » Audio/Video

Convert WMA to MP3 on OSX

Shanx — Wed, 16 Jul 2008 02:13:19 +0000

Panic, the makers of some fantastic software such as Transmit or Panic, also have the most light-weight audio converter for the Mac OSX platform.

It's called Audion: get it here.

It's now a FREE software. Just use the free serial provided:

RNL07P0-030HWMV-4MAGDS3-4U17REX

Works perfectly.

Convert subtitles from ssa to srt with Subtitle Workshop

Shanx — Wed, 25 Jul 2007 04:04:06 +0000

I use the excellent Submerge to flatten subtitles into my AVI files and other movies. But sometimes, subtitles are available from sources such as SubScene or AllSubs as not the usual *.srt files (SubRip format) but as *.ssa or *.sub.

While searching for a converter between the captioned formats, Google did not turn up too much. After some searching I found a nifty little utility that allows you to convert between many formats of subtitles. It's Windows only, so if you are not on Windows you may have to use this within a virtual machine:

Download Subtitle Workshop

Usage is as simple as loading a subtitle file from the File menu, and then Save As and Bob's your uncle.

Cruxy Mux Video Converter

Shanx — Fri, 04 May 2007 19:11:14 +0000

Convert from (m)any video format to any other.

There's no dearth of freeware tools available for video conversion these days, with sporadic levels of success. Download.com is your friend with the search keyword "video converter".

But you need to download them, feed them the video you wish to convert (which means you need to have downloaded the video on your computer — I use the excellent VideoDownloader extension on Firefox when I must do this), and wait for the converted video to be created on your desktop. Altogether a cycle that requires the presence of several bits of software on your machine.

This is why I like the Cruxy Mux Video Converter. As you'll see in the immensely exciting screenshot below, you only need to specify the URL of your video (Youtube, Google Video, and such URLs are welcome), specify one of the formats available (all necessary ones are), and press Submit. Voila. It'll send you an email when it's done.

Cruxy Mux Video Converter

I promptly went and gave it a shot with the Burusu Wirrisu video on Youtube (Japanese Bruce Willis look-alike). I had the email in less than five minutes. Nice.

Nifty Feature: Second Life Mux!

To sweeten the deal, there's the Second Life Mux that will result in a URL "that can be used by land owners as their parcel's media stream for one day". Brilliant.

Convert MKV to AVI for free (on Windows and OSX)

Shanx — Fri, 30 Mar 2007 11:13:50 +0000

The MKV format, although never originally intended to share stuff online because it's large and really high quality, has now become standard. Especially now with Blu-Ray becoming a standard. But some of us are happy storing AVI for our own use especially if we can have it in decent-enough quality (MKV files are usually 1GB or more for, say, a film).

Google is full of tools and utilities that allow MKV to AVI conversion. Many of them are shareware. You download them free but then you have to cough up $29.99.

I have found the FREE tool, All2AVI ( http://sourceforge.net/projects/alltoavi/ ) does the job and does it superbly. It's fast, free, and the conversion from MKV and other formats to AVI happens pretty efficiently and reliably.

If you're on OSX, you can use VisualHub or Submerge, but both of them are a bit unreliable. VisualHub in particular is a fantastic way to do any conversion on Mac OSX, but if it collapses with a cryptic "Sorry, could not convert for some reason", then you may wish to use AlltoAVI inside an XP virtual machine.