Converting digital video files?

[KitchenKitten99]

I have an Olympus Stylus710 camera that takes video. It is automatically formatted to Quicktime. I want to convert those files to ones I can use on media player or other video format. I can't seem to do this on the program that came with the camera itself (at least there isn't anything in the help files on how to convert video). And if you want to burn them onto a DVD disc, not a CD, you have to guy the upgrade. Being the cheapskate that I am, I don't want to do this. I can burn it on a blank CD that will play in some DVD players, however I want to make sure the DVD will play in all players (some burned video CD's won't), so I want to burn it to a DVD disc. I can do this for no charge or requirements to upgrade with Windows Movie Maker, but WMM won't support Quicktime files.

So how can I convert the files to a windows supported file?

Thanks in advance!

[KitchenKitten99]

I feel kinda dumb answering my own question, but out of curiosity, I typed in my question into my search engine, and I actually found something useful. This website, which not only tells you where to get the FREE software, but shows you how to use it, step by step. So far it has been working great, and it hasn't changed the original file. It basically looks like it makes a copy and stores it as the conversion. And you can even do multiple files at once. For example, my camera media program stores the photos and video files by date they were taken. So if I have more than one video on the date that I have up, I can do them in a 'batch', and just have to 'ok' before each file is converted.

website i found: http://paininthetech.com/convert_qui...o_avi_for_free

Maybe this will help someone else in the same situation.

[Gaffer]

Cool glad you found something. I was going to recommend searching the web, as there are lots of conversion programs out there.

[KitchenKitten99]

Cool glad you found something. I was going to recommend searching the web, as there are lots of conversion programs out there.

well, i realyy couldn't wait much longer, and I am very wary of random 'free' software on the internet, and wanted something someone I know to recommend.

[Gaffer]

well, i realyy couldn't wait much longer, and I am very wary of random 'free' software on the internet, and wanted something someone I know to recommend.

A lot of times the free stuff can turn out to be better than the commerical stuff. But as you say its best to be wary of the freeware. Usually sites that have freeware will have a rating system so you can check out what others say about it before downloading.