Because geek is cool and clever

Video to go December 26, 2008

If you were lucky enough to receive some form of electronic gadgetry in your Christmas stocking this year, there’s a good chance that said device will play video.

iPods, iPhones, portable gaming systems and even the most basic mobile phones all have de rigueur colour screens that display movies even if they sometimes are of eye-wateringly small dimensions.

But there’s a problem and it’s one that I get asked about regularly.

Most of us can use our mobiles to watch a video that we shot with it, but how do watch stuff on your phone or MP3 player that you obtained elsewhere?

The bad news is that the web is awash with so-called video conversion software and much of it is of very poor quality or can even contain viruses – those would-be hackers realising it’s a commonly requested tool that people are regularly searching for.

Another common experience is that the software you downloaded which said it was free is actually a trial that stamps your clips with a watermark which requires a paid license to remove.

Sound familiar? If so, you’re frustration is about to be soothed thanks the The Pirate Bay.

Yes, the very same Pirate Bay, based in Sweden, that indexes and tracks all those BitTorrent files has released some software called Vio, specifically designed to convert full movies, film clips, music videos to a format that you can then play from your favourite portable device.

When converting your video you simply select what you want the conversion to be optimised for (phone make, iPod etc) and decide on what you expect from the output. This can be based either on picture quality or a required final size if storage space is an issue. Choosing the latter will simply compress your file sufficiently to fit the size you specify.

Vio is currently Windows only software and unfortunately I couldn’t find mention of any plans to release it for Mac or Linux, but I deemed it worthy of my Windows box and was very pleased with the outcome.

If you want a simple and yet powerful video conversion application that actually works the way it’s supposed to and doesn’t cost anything, head over to http://vio.thepiratebay.org/

This festive period you can watch The Wizard of Oz on a 2 inch screen!