OT: Two Completely Unrelated Questions

[AgentZero]

OK, #1, does anyone know of a good FREE program that can be used to convert video files from one format to another (ie: AVI to MPG and vice versa)? I've got me a sweet new MP3 player that can also play video, but you have to convert the video to a MPEG4 using it's special software (which resizes the video to fit the screen, amongst other things), but the software doesn't seem to like converting existing MPGs, but it's well happy with AVIs. So I figure if I convert a few MPGs to AVIs, then run the player's conversion software, it should be all fine & dandy.

Question #2, my computer's running a bit sluggishly lately, & I figure it's about time for me to wipe Windows & do a clean install. Last time I did this I put Windows on it's own partition, so I could just format that & reinstall without having to backup shedloads of data, since it'd be safe on the other partition. Now the question I have is, if I do said operation, how screwed will I be if I don't reinstall all my software on the main partition. Reason I'm asking is coz I've got a couple MMOGs on there and the concept of redownloading all the patches again makes me wanna cry.

Cheerio!

[Suicide Junkie]

Maybe some of the items from here?
http://www.brothersoft.com/video_too...ownload_1.html


If you installed the programs on the windows partition, they'll be totally gone when you wipe it, of course. Try copying the whole program folder to your safe partition, and then do the following.

If you installed them to the other drive, you're in a better position. First thing to do is to just try running the program.
If it works, great. You may have to enter your settings and preferences again, but that's not a problem.
If it dosen't work, you can run the installer again. Point it to a new directory, so it dosen't destroy your files. Try running the original copy of the program again. If it works, you can delete the new copy of the game that the installer made, and your old copy should still be patched up.

[Fyron]

http://www.virtualdub.org/ is a great converter, but I believe it is only creates AVIs (which is what you need anyways).

[AgentZero]

Thanks Fyron. Works like a charm. VirtualDub converts the mpgs into a lovely uncompressed AVI, then my player's software compresses it back into a player friendly format. Beautiful.