Online file format conversion is a tiny niche within the huge Web 2.0 space, where startups base their hopes of success on the fact that most users don’t know how to convert a file from one format to another. This is not a bad idea. How to convert an MP3 to a ringtone, or how to convert a DVD to DivX are questions asked by millions every day, and with a reason: converting video files from one format to another, and doing it well, can be a complicated task.

Fairly recently I’ve covered Zamzar, an online service that can convert a respectable array of files to another format, including videos, text, audio files and images. I’ve also known about Hey!Watch for a while. However, three new similar applications came to my attention: Vixy, Media Convert, and Media Converter. Vixy and Hey!Watch can only convert videos, Media Converter works for audio and video files, while Media Convert covers many different formats, similar to Zamzar. I’ve decided to test these applications with a couple of sample files and see how well they stack against each other (the text is quite detailed; if you want the quick scoop, hurry over to the end of this page).

The files used for testing will be:

1. A Microsoft Word 2003 file full of lorem ipsum text, 200 KB. Will be converted to TXT and PDF format.
2. An MP3 audio file: Taxi - People Come Running (from the 2002 Rejazz compilation from Infracom). Will be converted to OGG format.
3. A YouTube video (FLV format), a 1:05 minute clip from the movie Nacho Libre. Will be converted to AVI.
4. Due to the huge number of different conversion possibilities, I’ve run a couple of additional video conversion tests for each of the applications listed.

1. Zamzar

Zamzar works fast (files were downloaded at about 70 KB/s), it’s not too ad-ridden and the design of the website is decent. It requires no registration whatsoever, but it does require a working e-mail, since the link to your converted file will be sent to you via e-mail.

In the first test, Zamzar converted the doc file to txt without any problems. The txt file had the basic paragraph formatting preserved, and other than two “weird” characters the conversion was perfect. The file was available immediately. The conversion of the same file to PDF also took less than one second, and it was even better than the conversion to txt - absolutely perfect. My first thought was that I was too easy on these apps, so I’ve added an inline image into the text, as well as a single link to make it a bit more complex. However Zamzar passed this test with flying colors too - PDF was perfect again, while the text file even had the formatting completely preserved, together with the empty space where the image should be. Impressive.

Converting an MP3 file to OGG was, again, an easy task for Zamzar. The quality of the file is preserved - as far as my Sennheiser HD 202 headphones can tell - very well. The file had no clicks, pops or glitches.

The short video clip from YouTube initially caused an error from Zamzar, but in the second try it was converted into AVI in only 57 seconds. Since AVI is just a container format, I’ve used GSpot to discover to what format the file was actually converted; it was a 4.6 MB MP42 (S-Mpeg 4 version 2) video with 64 Kbit/s MP3 audio. To my disappointment, the result was farm from stellar. The audio was a fraction of a second late compared to the original file, which was especially annoying because the video included singing. The quality of the video wasn’t spectacular, with many more artifacts than in the original, while the colors were a little off.

Zamzar: audio and video slightly desynced, colors a bit bland, quality so-so

I’ve also tried converting the same file to 3GP, which resulted in a 1.7 MB file, with really poor video and audio quality. Interestingly enough, and unlike the first attempt, audio and video were synced perfectly. All in all, while I can say that Zamzar passed the video conversion test, the overall results were far from perfect.

2. Media Convert

Media Convert’s home page has quite a few ads, but nothing that will keep you from normally using the service. No registration is needed; the input format is automatically (and, in my tests, correctly) detected, and you can download the file from the same window immediately after it’s converted.

In the first test, Media Convert, surprisingly, failed. I say surprisingly because in theory it supports a huge number of formats, so one would expect the basics to be covered better. It was very fast, just like Zamzar, but paragraph formatting from the original document was lost in the text file, while the PDF file was unreadable.

Converting the audio file was even faster than with Zamzar. Media Convert even asks you for the desired quality of the output file - I chose the default, 7. The quality was top-notch - to my ear, identical to Zamzar’s - and the file size was 8.3 MB, compared to Zamzar’s 7.3 MB, which can probably be reduced by choosing lower quality.

Media Convert: the quality is OK, but the audio is way off.

While converting the video file to avi, I was greeted by a multitude of options for the actual file format, as well as the bitrates, which is something none of the other applications offer. I chose MP42 again (as well as 128 Kbit/s MP3) for better comparison with Zamzar. Unfortunately, the resulting file’s audio and video were completely out of sync, and the file was unusable. I tried converting the same file to a DivX AVI as well as WMV, but the results were equally bad. So, although Media Convert offers a huge amount of options, which would indicate that a great deal of effort was put into the project, sadly it completely failed two out of three of my tests.

3. Vixy

Vixy is the simplest of all the apps described here, and can only convert Flash files from the web to several video formats. Thus, only the video conversion test was conducted. However, at the first try I’ve received the following message: “Error: Sorry, server is too buzy..” (yes, buzy with a z). The second try yielded a different message: “Error: URL resolve error. (YouTube.com is down??)“, although YouTube worked fine. So, after at least 10 tries, I finally got the file converted to a DivX AVI. The image quality was good, the audio/video sync was OK, but the playback was choppy for reasons I could not determine.

Vixy: great results in a tiny 2.3 MB DivX file

I’ve also tried converting the same file to 3GP format, which took even more tries to work, but the result was again really good. 1.9 MB heavy file with perfect audio/video sync. It’s actually a pity that Vixy’s servers aren’t working as well as its conversion algorithms.

4. Hey!Watch

Just like Vixy, Hey!Watch only converts videos, but it’s a much more ambitious service. It can grab files from the web or your hard disk, and even via an RSS feed (great for continuous podcast conversions). You can use it from their website, via a bookmarklet or through a Firefox plugin. Finally, the focus is on converting a video file to formats that can be recognized by portable video players - Zune, iPod, iRiver and the like. Hey!Watch requires registration before use, but since it’s a very common feat among Web 2.0 services we won’t write that down as a minus.

After registering, you will be greeted by Hey!Watch’s friendly and informative interface, which has a log, jobs status and a progress bar. The videos you upload to Hey!Watch stay there for 6 hours, unless you upgrade to a paid service, after which this time will be extended to 12 hours, with several other benefits.

For the first test, I’ve converted the YouTube video to DivX, which resulted in a 7.6 MB video (which, unfortunately, you can’t download directly, you can only open it in a media player. There are ways to get to the converted video, but an option to save the video to disk would have been handy). Video quality was pretty good, with colors being a bit too strong compared to the original, but audio and video were, again, out of sync, which seems to be the biggest problem for online video converters. Luckily, the audio was late only by a tiny fraction of a second; it was tolerable, but still noticeable.

Hey!Watch: the quality is not spectacular, but it’s not bad either.

In try number two I’ve decided to convert the video to MPEG4, which - finally - resulted in a well converted, 6.1 MB heavy video file, with no problems with audio/video syncing. Lastly, I’ve encoded the file to a format my iRiver H340 can recognize - and this conversion, too, worked well, although the video was a bit choppy due to the low framerate. All this makes Hey!Watch a clear winner as far as video conversion goes.

5. Media Converter

*update: within minutes from publishing this text the author of Media Converter, Pascal Beyeler, contacted me assuring me that the speed issue is a temporary problem which should be solved in a couple of days.

Media Converter can convert several video and audio formats, but not text documents, so I was only able to run the second and third test. It works very similar to Zamzar, in the sense that it also requires an email address to which it sends the link for the converted file.

From the first second it was quite obvious that Media Converter is not on the same level with the other programs reviewed here. The choice of available file formats is quite limited, and some of them are buggy by admission of the authors. Furthermore, Media Converter couldn’t swallow my MP3 file because it had spaces in the name which is annoying to deal with, and quite easy to fix. When I renamed and uploaded the file, the email with the link to the file displayed a log full of errors, and the converted file had only 1.7 MB, and - not surprisingly - sounded quite horrible.

Media Converter: average quality, and you better be ready to wait for it.

After the poor results of the first test, I didn’t expect much from the video conversion. Media Converter can’t convert files directly from the web, except from YouTube, and to use this particular feature you’ll have to register. The conversion took way too long, over 30 minutes. To my surprise, when I finally downloaded the file converted to AVI (mpeg4v2 video, MP3 64 Kbit/s audio), the audio/video sync was OK. So, Media Converter is able to do the important part good, although the service needs much polishing to be competitive.

Conclusion

As is often the case with detailed reviews of online applications, there is no clear winner - this time due to a number of shortcomings that all these applications exhibit. So, here’s a short scoop for each application:

Zamzar - good all-rounder, great conversion of documents, relatively poor video conversion
Vixy - very unreliable, only supports video conversion to a small number of formats, yields quite good results
Media Convert - ambitious, lots of options, good audio conversion, failed both document and video conversion test
Media Converter - slow, audio conversion didn’t work, video conversion is quite good
Hey!Watch - great GUI, requires registration, huge number of formats, solid video conversion, great for converting videos to your iPod