Pros
- Free!
- Wide range of popular formats
- Trimming and watermarking
Cons
- Supports .srt subtitles only
- Device presets no longer part of the app
Our Rating
9 / 10
It’s amazing how frequently it crops up that I need a video converter of some kind. To make a finished video with random assets, you have to do a lot of what I call “consolidation,” or more correctly, “conforming,” or making everything the same or similar. More often than not I need some kind of video conversion. If I’m away from my studio or working on an unfamiliar computer, I have to grab something off the Internet, and fast. This review takes a look at Icecream Video Converter to see if it’s one of the few good video converters.
This is a sponsored article and was made possible by Icecream Apps. The actual contents and opinions are the sole views of the author who maintains editorial independence even when a post is sponsored.
Transforming Video
Icecream Video Converter is a free utility from Icecream Apps that enables you to convert a video from one format to another. It’s as simple as that. Within the simple and easy-to-quickly-comprehend interface, you can drop a video on the window, select how you’d like to convert it and press the “Convert” button.
It does have hidden depths, of course. There is bulk conversion, whereby you throw more than one video onto the interface to convert them all at the same time. It caters to a nice range of popular formats, such as MP4, AVI, MKV, WEBM, MOV, and MPEG.
Deeper still, you can trim the videos. By setting an in and out point, the finished videos can be just a clip of the original full video. You can also burn in subtitles from any “.srt” file and add watermarks to your videos to brand them. Additionally, remove the sound from videos, which is handy when you record the ambient sound on a camcorder or phone and want to mix it with music further down the line.
Icecream Video Converter has plenty of other little tricks up its sleeve, like video to mp3, but let’s go through it in a bit more detail.
Not Basic but Clean
I like that Icecream Video Converter, in common with some of its sister apps, is free, simple and clean. This is what I used to call a hamster: a single topic app that does one thing only – but really well, over and over, like a rodent running on a wheel. The look is very minimal – uncluttered is probably a better description. (Also, you’ll notice there is a very lovely dark mode option in the settings.)
It’s common to see video converters, even fairly basic ones, for sale on the Web. Often they are quite expensive, so it’s refreshing to find a free one that will always be free – especially one that is so full-featured and lightweight.
As a busy video producer, it’s common to be sent a batch of clips in a variety of different formats. While you can just throw them on the timeline of your video-editing software and hope for the best, it wastes time and processing power if you have to remove sound, trim massive chunks off the top and tail, and other repetitive tasks.
This is where the bulk conversion feature comes in very handy. You can have a handful of clips – in a variety of formats, such as MOV, MKV, and Webm, with only some having sound and some being an hour long – but you only need a 10-minute video.
Just throw all the clips on the app, then go through and set them all to MP4 video and turn the sound off. Trim the long clip and set it to the same. When you press “Convert,” all the clips will be neat and tidy and take up no extra time and bandwidth in your edit later on.
Trimming videos for conversion is very simple. Click the trim button and set the in and out points. When you convert it, only the area of the video you selected will be shown. You can also add watermarks to your videos, either in a single location or tiled across the screen. This makes it really problematic for others to copy your videos, as the watermark cannot be easily removed.
The video to mp3 function is a nice one, too. If you set it to convert from video to mp3, you can make music files from video files. There are many possible applications for this.
It’s also possible that by using a tool like Icecream Video Converter, you could save disk space or system resources. You may have a more bloated piece of software that you keep on your drive only because it converts more formats of video. Now you can erase it from your system and keep this much lighter solution instead.
There are no real downsides to this software: it’s free and works brilliantly. The only minor nitpicky thing I noticed is that the website mentions built-in device presets to export for various devices, such as for an iPad or PS5. Apparently, this functionality is no longer part of the app, but it wasn’t clear why this was so. Yet, it will not affect your enjoyment of the app, as it works perfectly without it.
Additionally, it only supports .srt subtitle files, but again, that’s not a huge problem, as the vast majority of subtitle files are in this format.
Summary
Icecream Video Converter is free and available on its website. I really enjoyed using it: it works fast, is lightweight and uncomplicated. It’s a simple piece of software but one that might save the day. If you need any kind of video conversion tool, Icecream Video Converter is very good to keep handy. While you’re checking out the website, also take a look at Icecream’s amazing lineup of other apps.