Convert Files Online with Youconvertit
I had planned to review this website earlier but then forgot about it till Jajay commented about it in one of Martin’s earlier articles. Most of us will have needed to convert files between different formats at one time or the other. The most common reason would be that a particular file format is not supported by your machine.
For people who do a lot of converting, it’s okay to install special conversion software on your computer. However, if you only convert files once in a while, it does not make much sense. To solve this issue, a whole host of online conversion sites have sprung up.
One of these sites is aptly named youconvertit. This site is definitely one of the better ones out there. It has lots of options and can convert between a ton of formats. The first option allows you to convert a file on your machine itself. This is great because sometimes you just cannot get a particular file in your preferred format. Another plus is that you can convert up to 5 files at one time.
The second option lets you convert an online file. This is especially handy for online videos that are in flv format and cannot be played on all media players. You can enter the url of the file and then either convert it directly or download it to your computer.
The site even lets you send files to a recipient’s email address. Just type in the address, select up to 5 files and press ‘send’. A final bonus is the unit conversion software, which lets you convert between different quantities and other units. However, this is not that big a deal since you can do this with plain old Google as well.
The big advantage is that Youconvertit offers plenty of conversion options. A look at the supported formats revealed options for images, documents, audio, video, and archives. I have not even heard of half these formats. I tried converting a test file and the results were pretty good. The conversion was fairly quick and the resultant file played fine.
I’ve bookmarked the site since I think this is bound to come in handy once in a while. Have you tried any online conversion sites before? Were you satisfied with the performance? Do let me know.
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I would be very careful converting my files online. There’s certainly no problem with many files and online videos, but files from my desktop contain personal information in some cases (e.g. word files etc). I would think twice about uploading it to convert them online, since I cannot really control what is happening to those files on their server afterwards.
The same goes btw for online bookmarking services. The person who uploads his whole bookmarks to one service should know, that bookmarks are some sort of a user profile. You won’t believe how much information you can squeeze out of a good bookmark collection, it’s horrible.
This is already offtopic, but I was generally wondering, if the us secret services may just open up some web 2.0 firms and collect the data, the users are voluntarily uploading. :-) There is no easier way to gather information, since in some cases the users are maintaining it even by theirselves.
An interesting article. The problem with such sites is generally with a slow net connection it takes ages to upload a file and then convert it. I wonder are there any online flash to avi converters? Youconvertit was down when i checked.
I agree with Jedi. The site is not really helpful for folks with a slow net connection. But I guess I would give this one a shot if I was really in need.
Hey, this sounds like a pretty cool site. Now I can convert all my Youtube videos directly.
I personally prefer Zamzar if I need to convert anything. It’s pretty efficient and I haven’t had any problems so far. The only thing is you can only convert one file at a time.