Recently, I needed to edit a video review I found on YouTube so that I could post it on one of my other blogs as part of a graphic novel review I'm writing. The YouTube version started with a thirty-second commercial that I didn't want to show my readers.
After a few minutes of searching, I found a short tutorial that walked through the basic steps. Before I could edit the video, I needed to convert it to something I could download to my hard drive. That entailed copying the url of the YouTube video, then going to Media Converter to do the actual conversion.
After reading the very easy to follow instructions on the Media Converter website, I pasted the YouTube url into the appropriate textbox and followed the directions on the screen. In a few short minutes I was able download the resulting mpeg file to my hard drive.
Media Converter—the fastest free online audio and video converter—allows you to convert five files per day. If you need to convert more files per day or you need to download files bigger than 100mb you will have to pay for their premium service.
Media Converter supports many different sources from which to to convert files: blip.tv, metacafe.com, dailymotion.com. It can convert to all these formats: 3g2, 3gp, asf, avi, flv, m4v, mkv, mov, mp3, mp4, mpeg, ogg, rm, wav, wma, wmv.
This just goes to show that if someone tells you what you want can't be done or can't be found and it's something related to computers, they are probably wrong. Just go to your favorite search engine and do some research. More often than not, you will find what you are looking for and it will probably be free. Of course, if you want it bigger, faster, or easier, then you might have to pay for it.
