Any Video Converter Review: Is It the Right Program for You

Any Video Converter is a star product developed by AnvSoft Inc. for converting videos and audio for viewing on a variety of devices. It won awards from CNET and Lifehacker over a decade ago, and was also ranked as one of the best video converters in our previous articles: Top 9 Free Video Converters and Best Video Converters for Windows 10.

But time has passed. Is Any Video Converter still a smart choice today? What exactly can it do for you? Do you have other options? In this in-depth Any Video Converter review, I’ll cover it all.

Important: Anvsoft has launched three types of AVC, including AVC Free, AVC Ultimate, and AVC Pro. I’ve downloaded all three programs to test and it turned out that AVC Free and AVC Pro are the same program, while AVC Ultimate is the upgraded version of the previous AVC Free. So, currently, there are two AVC programs, namely AVC Free (often referred to as AVC) and AVC Ultimate. I will explain more differences between the two programs later.

Also, note that AVC now takes a brand new look that’s very different from the old versions. I’ve used the old version before and quite liked it, but here, I want to review AVC 9.0.5, which is the latest version as of writing this article.

OS: Microsoft Windows 10 Pro

CPU: Intel Core i7-4790 CPU 3.60GHz

GPU: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 750

RAM: 8GB

Although AVC is primarily a video converter, the new version offers tons of other tools that you don’t expect in a video converter program. Here are what you can benefit from AVC:

• Convert between mainstream video and audio formats, including video-video, audio-audio, and video-audio conversions.
• Download video and audio from various sites like YouTube, Vimeo, and Instagram.
• Add hard and soft subtitles to videos.
• Insert background music or add a second audio track to a video.
• Remove audio and subtitles from videos.
• Add text or image watermarks to videos.
• Trim video to shorten the length or into multiple segments.
• Merge multiple videos into one single file.
• Compress videos to the target size.
• Crop video to remove unwanted portions from videos.
• Adjust the colors of videos.
• Adjust the video playback speed.
• Transcribe audio to text with AI models.
• Apply audio filters to videos and modify the effect.
• Record computer screen with audio.
• Overlay multiple videos on top of another video.
• Burn videos onto DVD5 and DVD9 with menu.

These features can help you make a fine video project that’s not only happily viewable but also easily shareable. But too many features that you don’t need may be a minus to the program, especially knowing that it will take up almost 900MB of space on your disk. Compared to the old versions, while the features are slimed, it is lightweight and less resource-intensive. You can jump to this part to see the comparison of the two versions.

Note: When you open the AVC interface, you will also see an AI video enhancer tool, but this is not a feature included in AVC. If you want to use the feature, you need to download a different program called AVCLabs Video Enhancer AI.

AVC is known for its simplicity that you can complete your desired video process within a few clicks. The new version comes with a new look that somehow has changed things a bit. But overall, it remains easy to use.

Unlike the old versions where there are only three working modules, the new version separates every feature as a distinct module and you can easily find the target solution when you’re sure what you want specifically. And once in the module you selected, you can complete the wanted process at your fingertips, hence making the whole process easier and faster.

But personally, I still prefer the old interface where tools are assembled and don’t look this “messy”.

One thing that has not changed after the major update from the old look to this modern layout is that the theme can be switched between light and dark.

As a professional video converter, AVC supports almost all mainstream video and audio formats. You can easily convert files you encounter in daily life, but the output options are relatively narrow. Here are what you can convert with AVC:

After I switched from the old version to the new app, I found it a pity that AVC has removed the device output options that used to be such a life-saver when you don’t know what format to convert to. Now, you can only choose the specific format without being sure if it’ll work with your device. Also, the DVD/CD input option was removed.

I noticed that some old codecs are canceled as well. Like when converting files to MP4 format, it no longer gives MPEG4 and Xvid that may still be useful when working on old devices. The only relief is that it has updated some advanced codecs such as HEVC and AV1, which can make your video files more storage-efficient and maintain high video quality.

Unfortunately, AVC did not have a satisfactory speed during my test.

When converting a 10-minute SD quality MPEG-2 VOB to H.264 MP4 with other settings remained the same, it took about 2 minutes to complete, which is pretty slow compared to other free video converters that usually take less than one minute.

AVC does not have a top output video quality because it always transcodes the videos, even if I set the same encoder. Therefore, converting videos with AVC will lead to quality loss to some degree. But it may not be noticeable using modern codecs like HEVC and AV1.

AVC has an excellent YouTube downloader that I’d recommend to anyone who wants to download a single video, an entire playlist, or a whole channel from YouTube. It just needs you to copy the URL of the video or playlist you want, then it can auto-detect the URL from your clipboard and you could just hit Analyze to fetch all the videos that it can download.

By default, it downloads the video with original quality. You can also select to save the video with subtitles. What I found very useful is that it can download the video directly as audio. In this way, I can save podcasts and speech as pure audio files to play on my MP3 player.

However, you can’t customize the download options, such as specifying the download format and quality, unless upgrading to the paid version.

It has a pretty fast downloading performance, far better than the converter in my opinion.

AVC has many free features, such as its convert and download options. But its full version can provide you with more functions without restrictions, including the ability to batch convert video simultaneously and select the downloading format and quality. You can also enjoy extra features like speech to text, unlimited screen recording, and adding watermarks to your videos once upgraded.

When you click on a pro feature in the app, it won’t let you use it but shows you the limits that the free version currently has, as shown in this screenshot.

But in fact, you can unlock more features that are not shown here, including:

• Split a video into more than 5 segments at one time;
• Merge more than 5 clips into one video;

As mentioned, the latest AVC adopts a brand-new look and is equipped with new features. But compared to old versions, some users (like me) still prefer how it is used and looked like before. In that case, let’s do a full comparison of each version and see what’s more suitable for you.

Tip: If you prefer the old version, you can reverse to the classic AVC 7.1.8 here: https://www.any-video-converter.com/en8/for_video_free/whatnew.html

Yes. AVC is completely safe to download and use.

While there used to be reports of additional adware being downloaded during the installation process, this is no longer a problem as long as you download the app from the official website.

It won’t inject malware or viruses into your system either. I’ve scanned all three AVC programs using VirusTotal, a comprehensive platform for detecting malicious apps, and all came back clean. Here is the report of AVC 9.0.5: https://www.virustotal.com/gui/file/f6468a8c6373a0514f37e4f4aa4c045b38f2c4912fdc51492aba4f77e11c6cce

Yes. Any Video Converter is free to use. But it also has a paid version which can unlock the features you can’t use in the free version. You can go back and see the comparison of the free version vs. the full (paid) version.

If you want to upgrade to the paid version, you have three plans to choose from:

• $14.95/month for 1 PC
• $49.95/life for 1 PC
• $29.95/year for 1PC

Any Video Converter is indeed a good free video converter that can take care of your everyday conversion needs. But it’s not the only option nor the best one out there. There are other programs that can handle conversions better than AVC, with faster speeds and higher quality. If you're interested in learning more options, here are three great free video converters I'd like to introduce to you.

This is a completely free, safe, and easy-to-use video converter for Windows that can convert almost all video and audio files to more than 600 output options, including devices, which allows you to quickly make files compatible without further configurations.

Compared to AVC, the software is faster. While AVC takes about 2 minutes to convert a 10-minute SD quality MPEG-2 VOB to H.264 MP4, WonderFox can do it in less than 40 seconds. Meanwhile, although the software also transcodes the video, it produces better output quality by automatically allocating more bitrate.

Before export, you can also edit the video or audio by trimming, merging, cropping, rotating, adding watermarks, and applying filters. It also allows you to adjust the output settings to reduce the file size. In addition, WonderFox includes a YouTube downloader that’s very similar to AVC.

👉 Download WonderFox Free HD Video Converter Factory Download WonderFox Free HD Video Converter Factory

HandBrake is a well-known open-source and cross-platform video transcoder that’s capable of converting any non-protected digital files, including videos and discs, into formats that can be played easily on your devices.

It’s a program of versatile video options, which can help you control your video file to every detail, such as video filters, dimensions, encoding methods, etc. Therefore, HandBrake is more suitable for those who have advanced conversion needs. That said, it can be used for simple video conversion, thanks to its extended list of ready-made presets.

One thing to keep in mind is that while HandBrake supports a wide range of input videos, it can only output them to MP4, MKV, and WebM formats. It does not support editing or downloading functions.

👉 Download HandBrake

VLC is in fact an open-source and cross-platform media player that has universal playback ability. But under that hood lies an FFmpeg encode engine that can also help you convert video and audio files to and from various formats.

It supports almost all file inputs, including DVDs and Blu-rays, and it offers popular profiles for not only formats but also devices and platforms. You can adjust the profile manually and save it as a new profile, which is a paid feature in AVC.

With VLC, you can also edit videos like rotating, trimming, merging, and more. But the steps are quite complex. Luckily, VLC has a huge active user base and forum where you can find all VLC-related questions and answers easily.

👉 Download VLC

Depending on what features you need, you may find Any Video Converter worth it when you need to do more than just convert or download video files. Otherwise, the free version of AVC or other free alternatives can also be good choices.

No. Any Video Converter does not contain malware or viruses. But be sure to install the app from the official website and do not trust any cracked versions that are suspicious.

You can find history releases of AVC on this page: https://www.any-video-converter.com/en8/for_video_free/whatnew.html

Yes. There are many free video converters you can choose from besides AVC. These include:

• WonderFox Free HD Video Converter Factory
• HandBrake
• VLC