Video file formats can cause a world of headaches, from compression and bandwidth issues to media players that don't support your format or compressor.

Conversion utilities help you solve these problems while making your videos viewable on cell phones, media players, and other devices.

Maybe you've tried uploading your family's home movies to a video-hosting site only to discover that the files exceeded the service's size limits or maxed out your Internet connection's bandwidth. Perhaps your company's training video isn't compatible with all media players. Or it could be that you simply want to watch a video on your iPod as you exercising on the treadmill or taking a plane trip.

In all of these cases and lots more, a video-converter utility can be just the tool you need.

Most such applications support multiple input and output formats, allow you to tweak individual settings within those formats (such as offering a choice of compressor or output dimensions), and let you clip off a designated amount from the beginning and/or end of your videos. (AVS Video Converter is the lone product in this roundup that lacks such video-editing features.)

Some video converters let you apply effects, although the kind of effect and the extent of these features vary. For example, AVS Video Converter lets you crop to adjust aspect ratio. MediaCoder takes the feature prize by including that effect plus controls for brightness, contrast, volume, hue, saturation, denoising, and other functions. With Digital Media Converter, you can adjust only your file's brightness, contrast, and volume.

AVS Video Converter is sold as part of the U.S. $40 AVS Video Tools collection. Other tools included in the package copy files between devices, transfer video from DV and VHS cams, and edit MPEG files without recompressing them. However, I reviewed only the product's video converter.

Like Any Video Converter (see below), AVS Video Converter supports deceptively few output formats. In reality, however, you can edit the settings of each program to get more bang for your conversion buck. In my tests, the utility's output was flawless. On the iPhone output test, AVS even tried looking for an attached phone to upload it to after it was done!

Figure 1. AVS Video Converter's file-conversion options are easy to access via the program's main window.

The program's trimming feature was sluggish in updating previews. It was hard to tell whether the area I marked was going to be included or deleted in the preview.

Any Video Converter comes in freeware and Professional versions. If you don't need to RIP DVDs to disk or work with many different file formats (especially sound-file formats), the freeware version may suit you fine.

The program's interface is straightforward: buttons across the top highlight the major features and file-conversion steps — Add Video, Encode, and Stop. You use the Profile drop-down on the right to choose an output format. The list of options seems short, but you can tweak the settings for each with the controls that appear below them.

In my tests, the MPEG-2 file Any Video Converter created dramatically reduced the size of my test file while maintaining an impressive degree of quality. The MPEG-4 test also succeeded in letting me convert a video for viewing on my phone.

The program's trimming (or "output duration") feature is somewhat limited, forcing you to specify cuts at the level of seconds rather than frames or milliseconds.

Any Video Converter also has a feature for downloading and converting video from YouTube.

MediaCoder is the only video converter in this roundup that is open-source. It's also one of the most thorough and full-featured of the programs I reviewed. The program even manages the difficult task of piling in numerous controls and settings without making the interface too complex or busy.

One drawback of MediaCoder is that the developers like coding a lot more than they like writing documentation. Consequently, there is no manual or help system to guide you. However, the site does provide a link to a "volunteer user guide" written by a third party.

Also, I couldn't find a split-video feature comparable to the ones I found in most of the other programs I tested.

In my MPEG-2 tests, MediaCoder seemed to produce compact results in short order. Unfortunately, Windows Media Player couldn't recognize the codec (compressor-decompressor) that MediaCoder used, so I was unable to view the result. Similarly, my MPEG-4 test wouldn't play in QuickTime and wasn't recognized by iTunes, even though I used MediaCoder's built-in settings.

Digital Media Converter is the least attractive of the programs I used, but it does offer some hand-holding to video-converter neophytes, including a Flash-based tutorial.

In both of my conversion tests, the program stopped the process to tell me I had to download an additional codec, even though I was attempting to use only settings found in its dialog boxes. At least the app offered to download and start the codec's installer for me.

Unlike other video converters, Digital Media Converter demands a lot of free disk space. I was unable to complete my tests because the program wanted me to specify a drive with more space, even though there was nearly 1GB free on my main drive.

One nice difference with this program is that, if you click Settings, the Compatibility tab shows you the viagra propecia celebrex compressors on your system and gives advice on disabling some to prevent conflicts or solve problems. If only other programs provided such useful information!

Digital Media Converter has good documentation, but the program's design needs a little more development.

A couple of products didn't make it into my full review process:

• eRightSoft's Super © consistently crashed on startup. Even before then, I had my doubts about the product, thanks to the overkill of the promotional hype on the vendor's site. I had to wade through three long pages of text extolling the virtues of this free product before I could find the obscure download link.

• Cucusoft's Ultimate Video Converter would hang in limbo each time I asked it to convert a video.