Finding the right tool for a job is often easier said then done. Especially if the tool is a quality software program. My recent dilemma was finding a good video convertor to transform movies and videos from AVI format to a more Apple friendly format such as MP4. Yes, Apple are bastards when it comes to format restrictions (among other things) on their devices. Usually a Google search is enough to find what you’re looking for, but in my case it only produced results of commercial software with poor reviews. The next trick is to search forums (Neowin and Whirlpool are two of the best) to see what other people are using. Bingo.

Handbrake is an open source, free utility for converting a variety of popular video formats into MP4 or MKV. It is available for Windows, Mac OS X and Linux and is relatively straight forward and easy to use. Select a file to convert, select a preset for the device you will be using it on, click start and wait for it to finish.

Converting video to MP4 or MKV using Handbrake

As of the current version (0.9.4) there is no iPad preset. However, Handbrake has a great community and a thread search produced this guide containing specific settings to use when converting for the iPad.

Next time you would like to transfer movies/videos in an unsupported video format to an iDevice, or just want your vids in MP4 or MKV format, look no further than Handbrake. It does the job, and it does it well.

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