If you're a Windows user who's looking for a way to convert your audio or video from one format to another, there are hundreds of possibilities. Simply go to Google and search for audio converter or video converter and wait for the results to roll in. It can sometimes be hard to figure out what's good, what's not, what's cheap or free, and what is simply a free trial before you are expected to pay for the software. In Linux, there are options to place conversion choices in a Nautilus or Dolphin contextual menu, which is handy. Simply right-click on an item or items you wish to convert, then choose the format from a pop-up list.
If you're a Windows user, there is something very similar, called Oxelon Media Converter. It can convert between audio or video formats, extract tracks without encoding, all from a contextual menu. Best yet, once you've selected your target format, you have fine-grained control over the bitrate and resolution of your audio and video files.
Here's how to install it.
First, head to the project's homepage, located here.
Now click the "Browse All Files" link located under the large green button.
This page only has a single option, so click on the "oxelonmediaconv" folder to see a couple other folders (which have installers we need in them).
Finally, on the next page, you'll see two folders – "oxelonplugins" and "oxelonmedia" – which contain identically named installers.
Go ahead and enter both folders and download the installers contained within. We downloaded them to our Desktop, but wherever you want will work just fine. We won't show the process (it's very basic and if you've installed something in Windows before, you'll know what to do), but go ahead and install each package.
Once installed, you're ready to start converting. Simply right-click on a file or files, then choose whether to convert to an audio or a video format. You'll see this menu when converting to an audio format.
There are more video formats available, so the menu for this conversion is a bit longer.
Once you've selected the correct format, the main Exelon Media Convert window will open. You can click any of the preset options to change them, including the format and codec used. Here we've decided to directly copy the video stream instead of encoding it. This will give us the exact video in our original file, with no loss of quality.
You also have very detailed control over the conversion process, including the resolution of your video and the bitrate of the audio.
If you're not exactly sure what formats your original file contains, right-click it in the queue, and an information window will appear.
You can also tweak some basic Oxelon settings, such as turning on and off the contextual menu in Explorer, and more.
Finally, when you're ready for the conversion process to begin, click the Conversion button and your file will be converted to your specifications.
And that's it! Oxelon Media Converter is fairly old (it doesn't seem to have been updated in more than a couple years), but in our tests it works great. It supports a ton of different formats, would be a great tool for converting your video before uploading to a video sharing website, as well as converting your audio for playback on a portable device. It's fast, simple to use, and works well. If you've been looking for a good converter, Oxelon is a nice option to have, and well worth the effort of installing it and getting to learn how it works.
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