iRadar: Arista – A Two-Click Video Conversion Tool For Linux

Saturday, December 04, 2010

Arista – A Two-Click Video Conversion Tool For Linux

Arista – A Two-Click Video Conversion Tool For Linux: "

Quickly convert any video file or DVD to play on your iPhone, Playstation or Android device. Arista makes doing this and more dead simple on any Linux computer, without the need for knowledge of cryptic concepts such as codecs or bitrates.

We’ve covered applications to convert video and audio files in Linux before, but none can hold a candle to the simplicity of Arista Transcoder. Select your file, select what you’re converting to and you’re ready to go. Best of all: you can queue a number of files and then walk away, knowing the conversion will be handled for you.

Really Simple Interface

Fire up Arista and you’ll hardly believe you’re looking at a Linux video conversion tool:

linux video converter

That really is all there is to it. Select your source file or disc, select the device you want to play your video on and, if you want, pick a preset. When you’re done simply click “Add To Queue” and Arista will get to work converting the file.

No, really: that’s it. Video conversion doesn’t get easier than this.

Optional items include subtitles, of course: you can pick a file with subtitles to embed, and you can even select whatever font you like. This is useful should you want to watch a French film on your iPod. Finding subtitle files online is easy.

Many Supported Devices

Wondering if Arista can convert videos to playback on your device of choice? Well, by default, exporting to the following devices is supported:

linux video editor

That’s hardly the end of it, though; there are lots more devices you can download from Arista Transcoder’s presets page, so be sure to check that out.

Just download the file, then open Arista. Click “File” followed by “Install device preset” and point the program toward your new file. Voila! You now have support for an additional device; find it in the drop-down menu.

Still not enough? You are picky, aren’t you?

linux video converter

Don’t worry; you can create your own preset on Arista’s website. This, of course, will require a bit of knowledge on your part but it’s always nice to have the option. Be sure to share any working presets you create with the community!

Install Arista Transcoder

Getting Arista working on your computer is pretty easy. Just click here to install Arista on Ubuntu, or find the source code on Arista’s download page. Users of other distributions not wanting to compile from source should check their distro’s package manager.

Conclusion

Linux users in general, and Ubuntu users especially, have long argued that their operating system of choice is easy to use. Software like Arista Transcoder helps prove this.

This program stays out of your way and lets you quickly accomplish a simple task: converting video. This is done without hindering the end user’s ability to customize the program, should they choose to do so. Simply put: I love software like this.

What do you think? Is this a program you could see yourself using in the near future? Please share in the comments below!

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