FAQ

If you need to retrieve a lost serial number, please visit our Registration Help Page to receive immediate help.

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If you have installed our trial version, you do not need to download anything else. After you buy the program all you need to do is to register it. To register the software you have to click the ABOUT button on the main toolbar (the first window you see when you start your downloaded trial version). You will see a registration box. Please enter the unlock key which you have received from us.

Important note: Internet connection is obligatory for the software registration!

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AVS Video Tools is not sold in boxed version.

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The ad banner is only in the trial version. If you purchase the program, there will be no text or other messages in your movies.

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If you want to reinstall the program, please uninstall the previous version first. To do that go to windows Start menu, select All Programs -> AVSMedia -> AVS Video Tools (or AVS Video Converter) -> Uninstall AVS Video Tools (Uninstall AVS Video Converter). After you receive the notice that the program was successfully removed from your computer, you can follow the link to download the latest version of the program, copy the file to your hard drive and then run .exe file. To register the program you will have to use your registration key.

Important note: Internet connection is obligatory for the software registration!

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Internet connection is necessary to contact our server and complete the registration process. AVS Video Tools use Internet connection only once when you register them.

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Upgrade to AVS Video Tools 5.1 for the registered users of AVS Video Converter 4.1, 4.2 and 4.3 is provided free of charge. You will only need to confirm your previous registration after you install and run the program for the first time.

Upgrade to AVS Video Tools from the earlier versions of AVS Video Converter is provided at additional charge. Please click HERE to learn more about upgrade options.

Important note: Internet connection is obligatory for the software registration!

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There is not need to convert wmv to asf. Windows Media Server supports wmv files perfectly. WMV is a more advanced format than ASF, we may say that ASF is a previous version of WMV.

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You can rotate an entire media file with the Rotation effect.

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You can easily find out if your registration is complete or not.

First, if you have an unregistered version installed at your computer, the title of the AVS Video Converter main window says AVS Video Converter - Unregistered .

In About menu there are Help and E-mail us... buttons in registered version instead of Registration... and Buy now... buttons in the trial version.

And finally there is no watermark banner in the middle of the screen of output files.

Please, note!! If you are upgrading from versions 3.1 or earlier to versions 3.2 and later, you need a NEW registration key. Upgrade to version 5.1 is provided at additional charge.

Upgrade to AVS Video Tools 5.1 for the registered users of AVS Video Converter 4.1, 4.2 and 4.3 is provided free of charge. You will only need to confirm your previous registration after you install and run the program for the first time.

Upgrade to AVS Video Tools from the earlier versions of AVS Video Converter is provided at additional charge. Please click HERE to learn more about upgrade options.

 Please click HERE to learn more about upgrade options.

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You can use either our Online Help which is available at our web site, or download the offline help file from the site, or contact our support team at support@avsmedia.com every time you experience any difficulties using our software.

After you download and run the help file, it will be installed and you will be able to use it from the windows Start menu - All Programs -> AVSMedia -> AVS Video Tools (or AVS Video Converter) -> AVS Video Tools Help (AVS Video Converter Help) or pressing the F1 button when the program is running.

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AVS Video Converter supports decoding of Windows Media 9 into other formats, moreover we are watching for the new releases of Microsoft and include support for them in our program. WM Profile list box includes all profiles related to WMV series 9 format except ones named Windows Media 8.

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A video or audio Codec (COmpression/DECompression) is a software component allowing to encode data to be stored on a media (CD, DVD, etc...) and/ to decode it to be visualized or heard. There are also so-called "hard" codecs usually embedded to camcorders or digital video players or professional and semi-professional video cards for video editing and composing.

See the 3rd party Codecs page to find more detail and download different codecs.

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Basically AVS Video Converter works with all of the video codecs installed at your computer. Here is the description of the most common ones:

"XviD MPEG-4 Video Codec" http://www.xvid.org/

XviD is an MPEG4 video codec which is being developed under the open source model, much like the LAME MP3 encoder. It's based upon the efforts made in the Open Source project "OpenDivX" by DivX Networks, which shut it down and closed the source with all the ideas and work spent by many coders from the net. Since the start-over, XviD is developing very fast and is evolving into a very high quality codec.

"DivX 5.0.5 Codec" http://www.divx.com/

DivX was originally a hack of the Microsoft MPEG4v3 codec, but has since become a completely separate codec. It is available in both free and purchased versions.

DivX is the most common codec used in the groups, although you will find several versions of the DivX codec that are all used.

The most common versions are 3.11, 4.0n, and 5.0. Officially, installing the most recent version of the codec will allow playing older versions, however, there have been complaints of lowered quality and compatibility when playing files created with the older codecs. Version 3.11 can be installed separately of later versions without much hassle. Getting versions 4 and 5 to coexist on a single computer is very difficult.

"MS MPEG-4 v1,2,3 driver 4.1.0.3927"

These three codecs were the first MPEG4 codecs used. Because better codecs that are also freely available are now present, these codecs should no longer be used for new encodes. It is, however, still necessary to install some or all of these codecs depending on your operating system to support older encodes.

See the 3rd party Codecs page to find more detail and download different codecs.

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AVI

is short for "Audio Video Interleave", the original Microsoft file format for Microsoft's Video for Windows standard. It is an audio video standard designed by Microsoft and is apparently proprietary and Microsoft Windows specific. It is a format developed for storing video and audio information. Files in this format have an .AVI extension. However, Video for Windows does not require any special hardware, making it the lowest common denominator for multimedia applications.

MPEG

Gives excellent compression with little loss in quality of the video. MPEG support three types of data - video, audio and streaming. There are a number of standards: among them there are two flavors of MPEG available today. MPEG-1 was designed to provide VHS video quality and CD audio quality at a combined data rate of 150 kilobytes per second. MPEG-1 is displayed at 30 frames per second in a frame that is 352x240 (horizontal x vertical) pixels in size. This allows relatively high quality video images to be stored in relatively small file sizes for playback across computer networks or CD-ROM delivery. MPEG-2 is the other side of the compression coin. It is a broadcast standard specifying a playback size of 720 x 480 pixels at 60 fields per second. Data rates can range from 2 to 10 megabits per second. This means large file sizes and data rates that require specialized hardware for playback. MPEG-2 is one of the core compression technologies for DVD. See the MPEG site for more information.

WMV

This is Microsoft's new standard for audio and video which is closely tied with the Windows Operating System. The player is able to play Windows Media Video (.wmv) and Advanced Streaming Format (.asf) files, and also other formats such as QuickTime, AVI, MPEG and MP3. See the Windows Media site for more information.

RM

RealMedia provides one of the oldest and most widespread (85% of all web-accessing computers have RealPlayer installed) Web delivery formats. The RealMedia files (.rm) can be viewed using RealPlayer 3 and above. For more information see the RealNetworks site and their user information site.

VOB

DVD video movie file. DVD is the new generation of optical disc storage technology. DVD is essentially a bigger, faster CD that can hold cinema-like video, better-than-CD audio, still photos, and computer data. DVD aims to encompass home entertainment, computers, and business information with a single digital format. It has replaced laserdisc, is well on the way to replacing videotape and video game cartridges, and could eventually replace audio CD and CD-ROM. DVD has widespread support from all major electronics companies, all major computer hardware companies, and all major movie and music studios.

MOV

MOV is a file extension for QuickTime Video Clip. QuickTime is a video and animation system developed by Apple Computer. QuickTime is built into the Macintosh operating system and is used by most Mac applications that include video or animation. PCs can also run files in QuickTime format, but they require a special QuickTime driver. QuickTime supports most encoding formats, including Cinepak, JPEG, and MPEG. QuickTime is competing with a number of other standards, including AVI and ActiveMovie. For more information see the Apple site and their Support page.

MPEG-4

ISO/IEC open standard for video encoding developed by MPEG (Moving Picture Experts Group). It is characterized by a small output video file size and quite good picture quality even when a relatively low bit rate is used. The most known resulting output when you use MPEG-4 format for compression is the AVI file type which is commonly used in home video. It is coded with XviD, DivX, 3ivx, Nero Digital and other video codecs. Other file types can be found in the output file format section.

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Bit rate very often used when speaking of video or audio quality and file size - defines how much physical space one second of audio or video takes in bits (note: not in bytes). The higher the bit rate, the more times per second the original sound is sampled, thus yielding a more faithful reproduction and better sound. When choosing an MP3, weigh the advantage of a higher bit rate against the size of the file. Generally speaking, a bit rate of 128 kbps or higher will provide satisfactory sound quality.

The same is with the video picture: the higher the bit rate, the better the picture quality although the output video file size also gets larger. If it is possible to save the output file onto a storage with a large capacity the use of higher video bit rates can be recommended.

Selecting the proper audio and video bit rate for your projects depends on the playback target: if you're making a VCD for playback on a DVD player, the video must be exactly 1150 Kbps and the audio 224 Kbps. See also the Video bit rate and Audio bit rate sections of the AVS Smart Converter Advanced Settings section for more details.

Selecting the proper bit rate for your projects depends on the playback target.

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In basic terms, a video can be thought of as being made up of numerous snapshots, called frames. Frame Rate defines how many pictures e.g.. frames one second of video or audio contains, normally used acronym for framerate is fps - frames per second. Human eye can't see picture changes after the framerate is more than ~24fps.

Video files with higher frame rates show motion better but have larger file sizes. Typical frame rates are 29.97 for  NTSC video (in American TV system), 25 for PAL (European system) video, and 24 for film. When exporting low-bandwidth versions, select a frame rate that is 1/2, 1/3, or 1/4 of the original frame rate. Setting a frame rate higher than the original frame rate will make the file larger but will not improve the quality.

Note that MPEG format only supports 23.976, 24, 25, 29.97, 30 frame rates.

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Windows Media Player requires installation of special plug-ins to be able to play DVDs. You can download them from the official Microsoft site.

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My computer DVD player handles my newly converted DVD files, but my home DVD player won't take them! How do I go about it?

We do not guarantee that our software supports all home DVD players. That's why we strongly recommend that you test DVD's created with the help of AVS Video Converter on your home DVD-players before purchase.

Also, make sure that your DVD-disc is compatible with your DVD drive and DVD player (check that your drive and player accept DVD-R, DVD+R, DVD-RW, DVD+RW, depending on your disc).

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When I capture video, there seems to be a file size limitation of 4 GB per file. How can I change this?

Certain file systems have file size limitation. If your HDD is formatted using FAT32 system, you cannot create files larger than 4 GB on it. If your files are splitted into 4 GB files when you capture, and you are sure that you haven't set this split, it means that your HDD is using FAT32 file system. Normally, Windows XP and 2000 offer to format your HDD using NTFS, but you can also select FAT32, when you install the OS. The only way out of this situation is reformat your HDD using a more up-to-date NTFS file system, or capture video to a HDD which is already using this file system.

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I have recorded a DVD, but on my home hardware DVD player it only plays in black and white. Why is it so and what can be done?

The television standards differ in different countries. That's why it is possible, that either your hardware DVD player or your television set support only one of the standards. For instance, you recorded your DVD disc in PAL standard (using DVD PAL preset), but your hardware player is only NTSC compatible (which is quite common for North America). So you should pay attention to what standard you choose, when you select the preset for creating DVD, VCD or SVCD video discs. If you do not know what standard is supported by the television sets and DVD players in your country, see the table below:

Countries with TV broadcast in SECAM standard (Andorra, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Benin, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cambodia (Kampuchea), Central African Republic, Chad, Congo (Democratic Republic), Congo (People's Republic), Cote d'Ivoire, Djibouti, Equatorial Guinea, France, French Guiana, French Polynesia, Gabon, Georgia, Guadeloupe, Iran, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Libya, Madagascar, Mali, Martinique, Mauritania, Mauritius, Moldova, Monaco, Mongolia, Morocco, New Caledonia, Niger, Reunion, Russia, Rwanda, Saint-Pierre and Miquelon, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, Tahiti, Tajikistan, Togo, Tunisia, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Wallis and Futuna) use DVD players with PAL support.

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