avi

Avis Budget Group, best known for its car rental services has moved to acquire car-sharing company Zipcar for $500 million.

The companies announced the deal today, saying that Avis paid $12.25 per share for Zipcar, representing a 49 percent premium on its $8.24 closing price on December 31. Zipcar's board of directors unanimously approved the deal, and shareholders owning about 32 percent of Zipcar have already signed off.

Zipcar offers a unique service in the car business. Rather than rent out cars in the traditional way, like Avis, Zipcar offers a "sharing" service that places … Read more

Being able to rip your DVDs just like you would your CDs would be awesome, right? 123 DVD Converter will do it for you, but it all comes with a price tag. Even though this software produces high-quality video in tons of formats, it is a little overpriced for what it does and has a difficult barrier to entry.

Even though the interface is very easy to navigate, 123 DVD Converter expects you to know how to rip DVDs already. If you don't, you'll be confused trying to find and rip the clip you actually want. For the … Read more

Handling many popular file formats, DivX Plus for Mac is the latest DivX player for the Mac platform. With its editing and conversion options as well, we found it to be a great potential addition to any user's Mac toolbox.

As you would expect, DivX Plus for Mac handles DivX format video files, as well as MKV and AVI files. This latest version of the player also allows for conversion from MP4 format, so you can format existing video files for use on the iPhone and iPad. You can also use DivX Plus for Mac as a streaming platform … Read more

Simplicity, ease of use, and playing the widest variety of file extensions are what give any free, open-source media player the edge. While the AVI Player app is definitely not the only multiformat media player available, it is specifically designed to make AVI files directly accessible on your smartphone.

The AVI Player app offers a single menu through which to access available files. There is no welcome page and the interface does not have a front end. You just need to select any AVI file to play it. We used a slightly older Android 2.2 phone in our tests … Read more

Perian is a software app that makes viewing your media files easier. Basically, Perian enables QuickTime application support for a wide variety of media files. Perian is available from several sources, but not the App Store when we looked. It installs easily as long as you have no software already installed that can conflict with Perian.

Perian supports a variety of file types for both video and audio files. All the standard file formats are supported, but there's a ton of less-commonly found file formats supported by Perian, too. Perian works without you realizing it is there. When QuickTime … Read more

Total Video Converter is a program for converting and ripping videos to formats that are supported by a number of common electronic devices like the iPhone.

The overall design and features of this program are simple and easy to navigate. The main features are all accessible from the main window, and Total Video Converter also gives you quick and easy instructions on startup. The conversion time will be different for each task that you do, depending on the file size as well as format, but it handles most of the popular formats, including mp4, 3gp, xvid, divx mpeg4 avi, amr … Read more

Flip4Mac WMV Player is used to play Windows .WMV files on your MacBook or iMac. Since WMV files are ubiquitous on the Internet, the ability to play these files natively without converting them is a nice feature. Flip4Mac WMV Player plays WMV files through QuickTime, so any application that supports QuickTime can be used to play WMV files, including Mac-supported Web browsers like Safari, Chrome and Firefox.

Flip4Mac WMV Player is free, although there is limited functionality unless you upgrade to the full Pro (or higher) version. Flip4Mac WMV Player Pro has some conversion capabilities, so you can convert WMV … Read more

The Power Video Cutter is a tool for converting videos from one format to another and to perform simple editing to cut out part of a file and create a new file. While novice users might need to spend some time with the Help file before cutting files, the app proved easy to use.

The program's compact interface looks professional and clean, with large buttons to locate the source file and output directory. Nearly 20 file types are supported, including FLV, DVD, MP4, and AVI. The download process for acquiring videos off of YouTube is quick and they have … Read more

HyperCam 2 is a free software program that gives you a way to capture your screen in AVI video, showing cursor movement and every task accomplished on your desktop.

The interface is a little advanced for a novice computer user. Its overall look is a little crowded and therefore not as easy to navigate as we would hope. Its basic functions are at least easy to use, though it produced video of variable quality. We tested how it would function with a YouTube video capture and Select Window resulted in a delayed and out-of-sync recording. Select Region had good quality, … Read more