Prism Video File Converter

Prism is a shareware video file converter from NCH Software. It can convert files from and to most common formats, including AVI, MPG, VOB, WMV, and FLV, singly or in batches, and it also converts any file format based on a DirectShow codec into AVI and WMV files. Basically, if you can play it with Windows Media Player, you can convert it with Prism, according to the developer. It also fetches and converts files directly from DVDs and multimedia devices.Prism's gridded main view and control icons have the familiar look of most such tools, largely dictated by function and efficiency. Icons labeled Add Folder, Add DVD, Remove, Remove All, Play, and Convert hardly need much in the way of an explanation, and we quickly added an MPG file from our library to the program's convert list. Beneath the main view, we could browse to and select an output folder and format for our converted videos. Clicking Encoder Options called up a small dialog labeled AVI Encoding Settings with settings for video and sound compression standards as well as digital audio frequency and sample rate in both mono and stereo formats. The Video Options dialog let us resize the video and change the frame rate, while the Effects suite let us adjust brightness, contrast, and gamma; apply filtering; and add text for a title or captions in a font color of our choosing. Once we'd made all our choices, we clicked Convert, and Prism quickly processed our file and saved the finished job in our chosen folder. When we clicked on our converted video, it opened and played normally, to our eyes a perfect copy of the original.