Freemake Video Converter 4.0 Update brings Gold Pack option

Martin Brinkmann
Mar 11, 2013
Music and Video, Video
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15

My video to DVD converter of choice is ConvertXtoDVD. While not free, it is offering in my opinion unparalleled comfort in regards to converting more or less all video files you come across to video DVDs. If you do not like the idea of paying for a program to create video DVDs, you may have stumbled upon Freemake Video Converter before.

It is a free program that you can use to convert video files to various formats, including DVD but also for mobile use, as audio files or to generic video file formats. You can use it to burn videos to DVD, and while you do not get a lot of advanced options, it does serve its purpose nicely in most cases.

Some of the issues that you may run into are that the conversions to video DVD add black bars to the video that are too large to ignore. Plus, you can't really make any changes to bitrates or the quality of the output as it is all handled by the program automatically.

The developers of the program have released version 4.0 of Freemake Video Converter today, and along with it comes something that is called the Gold Pack. I'm probably not the only one interested in what the Gold Pack has to offer.

My first thought after reading about it was that it is some kind of premium upgrade to the program that adds features to it when you pay for it. This as it turns out is not completely correct.

freemake video converter gold pack

When you click on install after you have opened Freemake Video Converter 4.0, you are taken to a screen where you get two options to upgrade the program with the Gold Pack:

  • Donate: Donate to Freemake to get access to the Gold Pack
  • Free: Install Freemake as the customized search provider and homepage in installed browsers on the system.

What you get for that? The Gold Pack adds the following features to the video converter:

  • Black Bars Removal: The developers promise that black bars will be automatically detected and removed from videos.
  • Exclusive DVD Menus: Additional DVD menus to choose from when creating video DVDs.
  • Any DVD background: Add custom DVD backgrounds to the DVD menus and add custom titltes.
  • Automatic Backup: All modifications you make to projects are automatically backed up.

Is it worth letting the program make the browser modifications on your system? Considering that you can easily uninstall the modifications again at any time, I'd say it is worth a thought if you ran into black bar issues before using the program.

Version 4.0 of Freemake Video Converter introduces less than a handful of features that are not related to the Gold Pack. The developers state that they have fixed a problem with the temporary DVD folder, improved the software's overall stability, and made minor interface changes.

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Comments

  1. Scott Kendall said on February 3, 2020 at 11:13 am
    Reply

    I was happy using freemake. this is until recently when it started telling me that I had to pay for Gold pack to do all the things I had recently been doing for free. I mean now it tells me I need to pay for gold pack to past urls. And it tell me I need to pay for gold pack to use the mp3 conversion. When before I did all that without having to pay for some stupid ass gold pack that I have to pay for. This software is supposed to be free. And it was up until this.

  2. robert ives said on November 22, 2019 at 11:40 pm
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    I use Freemake software frequently, it is the best conversion software I have ever used. and no I do not work for Freemake or any other organization. I purchased the gold pack a couple of years ago on a special offer. I have never ever had a problem with it. you do need to have a bit of common sense to use it properly.

  3. Mike said on September 26, 2017 at 9:25 am
    Reply

    I’ve used Freemake since like 2008 and I like the easy use, but for years now it has had a bad stability problem. The newest version of Freemake (4.1.0) has no additional 3rd party adware or malware, but it still crashes constantly. My thing is I like to burn long play DVDs of music videos from YouTube, say like roughly 80 music videos equals around 6 hrs duration, but when I try to load the videos into the Freemake converter it crashes every time. It doesn’t matter what videos the Freemake does NOT like lots of short files. I have tried contacting Freemake in their forum & on Facebook and they never respond back. I challenge them to do what I said: Download 6 hrs worth of music videos from YouTube then try to burn them with the Freemake. It crashes every time, even though it says it can burn up to 10 hrs before the video quality gets bad.
    I have made the suggestion repeatedly to Freemake for years that they should make the Freemake converter so that it can take a “Snapshot” of the files on your hard drive to be converted, then upload those files as jpegs to their server and do ALL the conversion “in the cloud” on their server before transmitting “Snapshots” of the converted files back to the users converter which would then turn the “Snapshots” back into full files or burn them to a DVD. This would eliminate the future need for any updates on the users end and ALL conversion would be handled on their server so they could fix any problems extremely easy. Freemake has also never responded to my idea, and they have yet to fix the converter. ConvertXDVD is hard to use, isn’t really Free just the trial version is and ConvertX doesn’t like burning long play DVDs constantly saying that the files wont fit on the disc.
    The early Freemake video converter (from around 2008) was much better (so long as you made sure to uncheck the boxes during installation that ask if you want to install the 3rd party adware / malware).

    1. Jeff said on January 29, 2018 at 9:12 pm
      Reply

      I think you are confused about how video transcoding takes place. Videos would not be uploaded as jpegs — they would be uploaded (if that were to happen) in the format that they were in which would mean a very large amount of data being uploaded (whatever the files amounted to). From there whatever server Freemake was using would likely crash or be slowed to a standstill as it would be overwhelmed with the amount of resources required to convert all those videos from all the users attempting to do this. Then there would be another huge transfer as the now transcoded videos were downloaded back to the users computer. While Adobe does this kind of thing, its important to keep in mind that it also charges many customers a very high monthly rate which allows it to invest in the kind of hardware necessary for an undertaking this big.

  4. Real Raven said on August 3, 2017 at 7:46 pm
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    The Web Pack is not even documented and I bought the Gold Pack and can’t evene DOWNLOAD YOUTUBE VIDEOS ANYMORE. this is fraudulent.

  5. Ayla said on July 10, 2017 at 4:29 am
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    Hi,

    As I was about to download videos at both Freemake Video Downloader and Freemake Video Converter,I found out that at video downloader,I saw the words “remove branding” on it.And at video converter I found out that there’s not one but two stupid stink’n new features I don’t want…that those two features are known are “Super Speed Pack” and “Web Pack”.The Freemake staff needs to either get rid of those features plus the premium pack on the latest versions of the two freemake programs or I’m gonna be filling a lawsuit against them for Thirty five hundred thousand dollars.

    Thanks for reading this message
    Warmly regards,
    Ayla

  6. Charles Berry said on May 11, 2017 at 11:00 am
    Reply

    Just downloaded freemake. Simple to instal and looks very uncomplicated. Conversion worked but audio and video are violently out of sync. Tried output to AVI and also MP4. It seems the video is converting at a much slower rate than the audio resulting in the non-sync. I used to convert video with a free web-based application called Acethinker Video Converter, never had that problem.

  7. Gerard Lloyd said on October 9, 2014 at 12:31 am
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    I recently donated to get the Gold Pack to get rid of the black bars. It worked a few times at first. a little box would come up and I’d check delete black boxes. Now the box it doesn’t come up and I can’t remove black boxes. I’ve gone through options and checked off black boxes that way. I’m wasting a lot of time and dvds trying to get a full screen. Very irritating. also every time I have to go back to my email to re-insert the key that tells me I’ve installed the Gold Pack. Shouldn’t it just say Freemake Gold Pack. I have the extra menu screens like it promised but cannot remove the black bars. I can’t get any answers through the support page. any help from anybody would be greatly appreciated.

  8. Brian said on October 3, 2014 at 8:42 am
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    I like freemake DVD ripper, but I am having trouble after downloading it on a usb stick, the movie plays but no sound, can you help

  9. Paul said on July 6, 2014 at 1:55 pm
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    Dear Martin,
    I hope you will email me soon, and hopefully set my mind at rest re Freemake Video Converter:
    To my horror I found that when I load a 4:3 ratio video, into the converter, and then a 16:9 ratio video and burn to a DVD, on playback, both videos have been recognised as 4:3. That is to say, the 16:9 video interprets as an oblong in the center of the widescreen tv, with thick black bars all around! A sheer waste of a good 16:9 picture. So, as it stands you cannot mix the ratios on this converter and expect them to reproduce properly. The 16:9 should truly FILL THE ENTIRE widescreen, not be relegated to a small oblong in the center of the screen.
    Your article talked about Gold Packs: Would this be the solution, how to make the converter remove the black bars from only the 16:9 videos and yet leave the 4:3’s to keep their proper black bars left and right as they should be on a widescreen television?
    I cannot believe how stupid Freemake have been to belitle the 16:9 ratios in this way, when mixing both types of ratio onto one DVD. Windows DVD Maker does the job properly but only allows 2 1/2 hours dvd time. Freemake does 4 hours and has a brilliant editor, as well as 40 charecters of title type to work with on the top menu. That is why I am reluctant to go elsewhere to burn my dvd’s. So please tell me if Gold Packs will remedy this vexing problem? It is important to be able to burn both 4:3 and 16:9 all on the same dvd.

  10. zack said on November 13, 2013 at 4:57 am
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    can anyone help me out? I’m trying to figure out how to make a custom DVD menu with personalized image background on freemake, any insight is greatly appreciated

  11. Deenz said on August 28, 2013 at 8:00 pm
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    I have used Freemake for nearly 5 years now, and I am speechlessly satisfied with it. Will continue to use this program for a long time to come, and I will try to donate regularly.

  12. lilly said on March 21, 2013 at 7:52 am
    Reply

    Freemake is not bad, but it can only be used either by donating first or installing some adware, not pretty. I ran across this Reincubate Video Converter software, real easy to use and supports a variety of formats – DVD, AVI, 3GP, MKV, WMV and many more.

    1. Anonymous said on February 5, 2014 at 5:26 pm
      Reply

      I REALLY LIKED FREEMAKE AND WAS DOING WELL WITH IT. EXCEPT I DID NOT LIKE THE LOGO IN BETWEEN MY VIDEOS. I WAS TOLD THE GOLD PACK WOULD REMOVE THIS, SO I MADE THE DONATION. IMEEDIATELY AFTER INSTALL OF GOLD PACK THE PROGRAM BEGAN RUNNING SOOOO SLOW THAT IT WASN’T REALLY EVEN RUNNING. AFTER SEVERAL HOURS TIME, IT WAS SHOWING ZERO PROGRESS WHEN TRYING TO BURN BOTH A DISC AND A DISC FILE. ALSO, THE FILE CONVERSION HAD SLOWN DOWN BY ABOUT 70%. WHEN I STARTED LOOKING INTO THIS, I FOUND THAT THERE WERE NUMEROUS NEW FILES, ADDINS AND EXTENSIONS ADDED TO MY COMPUTER! I HAVE BEEN UP ALL NIGHT TRYING TO DELETE THEM. AT FIRST THE PROGRAM FILES WOULD NOT UNINSTALL AND THE FOLDERS WOULD NOT LET ME DELETE THEM. I WAS GETTING MESSAGES THAT THEY WERE IN USE, BUT THEY WEREN’T. FINALLY I HAD THE THOUGHT TO TURN ON FILE MANAGER AND TURN OFF ANY ACTIVE PROCESSES RELATED TO THESE FILES. THIS WORKED. ALSO, THE FILES WERE ALL MARKED READ ONLY. AFTER LITERALLY HOURS AND HOURS OF WORK, I BELIEVE THAT I HAVE DELETED MOST OF THE FILES. HOWEVER, THE ADINS ARE STILL SHOWING IN MY ADINS. I HAVE DISABLED THEM BUT CANNOT FIND THE FILES TO DELETE AFTER SEARCHING BY THE NAMES GIVEN IN THE DETAILS OF THE ADINS FILES. I HAVE EVEN MANUALLY SEARCHED THROUGH ALL OF (OR AS MANY OF) MY .DLLL FILES I COULD. I DID FIND ONE WHICH IS MALAWARE. HOWEVER, I HAVE NO WAY OF KNOWING IF FREEMAKE IS THE SUSPECT (THOUGH IT IS CERTAILY POSSIBLE). iTS TOO BAD BECAUSE I LOVE THE PROGRAM AND WOULD SIMPLY BUY IT. HOWEVER, THE STALLING TO NON FUNCTIONING THING REALLY STINKS. I MAY GO BACK AND SEE IF I CAN GET AN OLDER COPY OF THE SOFTWARE AND SET IT UP NOT TO COMMUNICATE WITH THE WEB. I WILL SEE. VERY DISAPPOINTED!

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