For about a year, since the last Summer Olympics in Beijing actually, I’ve had some Hauppauge HD video stored on my computers. Why were they stored? Simply because they were too large to put on a DVD, for one reason. For another, I couldn’t do anything with them in order to move them. If I put the raw,  recorded video, which is in Mpeg4 format, onto any other medium, including moving them to another folder on my hard drives, nothing would play them.

I tried many programs in an attempt to convert the files to either DIVX or Xvid or FLV in order to make them smaller which would allow me to archive them. I didn’t have all of the Olympics, mind you, just the equestrian events which I saved for my daughter and the opening and closing ceremonies which I saved for posterity. Say what you will about the Chinese government but the Olympic ceremonies were incredible.

Fast forward to yesterday, July 4, 2009, a day that will rest in memory forever! For me anyway. I followed a link from a forum I am a member of to a piece of software called Format Factory.  Here is the link in proper form : http://www.formatoz.com/

Format Factory is totally free, and works better than anything I have every used before to convert video. It also converts audio and will automatically convert your saved videos to the format which fits your particular mp3/audio/video player, just in case you don’t know which format your player uses. Format Factory has other uses, too, but once you download the software you can figure all of this out for yourself.

If you have any sort of Hauppauge HD video tuner, you’re stuck in the same situation I was in before I downloaded Format Factory. Nothing can touch the recorded HD video. Even the Hauppauge website FAQ mentions that you cannot make a DVD out of the recorded HD video. Well, Format Factory proved them wrong.

Not only is Format Factory free, it’s very fast. I have been using the free DIVX converter in the past and I have also tried SUPER, among others. Super works well but it still would not convert the Hauppauge videos to any other format. Both Super and the free DIVX converter crashed when I tried to convert the Hauppauge HD videos, with no way to resolve the error or find a solution.

From time to time I will rave about a particular piece of software here but I think Format Factory wins as the BEST EVER converter available on the Internet. At 15 megs, it’s not a small download but it’s certainly worth it. Get it. Use it. Love it!