Apowersoft Video Converter Studio

Video editing and re-encoding to more convenient or compact formats is no longer a task that only media professionals can do.

With tools like Apowersoft Video Converter Studio, anyone can now enhance and convert their video files into formats that we can enjoy in a wider range of devices. As a bonus, this tool can also create stylish slideshows of your best pictures, complete with background music.

The word ‘Studio’ in the program’s name indicates that this is more than just a plain video converter – it includes some basic editing functionality as well, together with video filters and effects to enhance and/or correct your videos before converting them. A bonus toolbox will let you download other Apowersoft utilities to take screenshots of your PC screen, to compress your video files, and even to remove watermarks from video files. Apparently, the program should also allow you to download videos from the Web, but that’s a feature that I couldn’t find anywhere, at least not in this trial version.

The program will let you load any amount of files regardless of their original video codec, and convert them all at once into the output format selected. The option to assign different formats to different videos on the list is not supported, regrettably. All the most common video and audio codecs are supported – just pick a specific format from the list and then select any of the presets provided, organized by device or output quality (DVD quality, mobile quality, etc.). Additionally, you may also want to tweak a specific preset to fit your specific requirements...

You can edit each video to remove unwanted fragments or to improve the contrast or the brightness. Amazingly, you can even change the volume of the soundtrack and – most incredibly – the playback speed, a feature you don’t come across with very often. To enhance your videos even further, you can choose among a long list of effects and filters.

MV is the program’s tool to produce nice-looking slideshows complete with a custom soundtrack. It includes an extensive range of transitions that you can easily apply to all or a selected pair or group of slides using the program’s timeline-like interface.

The entire video conversion and editing processes – as well as the slideshow creation tool – are so easy to use that anyone can benefit from the program’s functionality. Apowersoft Video Converter Studio may lack other features present in some of its competitors, such as a DVD authoring tool, but it does offer much more than many other barebones video converters, which makes it a serious option to consider.