Hey all,
 
Just curious what is the current best program out there to convert videos sent me to for scoring to .avi. Obviously it seems like Sonar likes .avi's best, so whenever I get a video whether it be mp4, mov, and whatever encoding settings all these different people use, first thing I do is boot up my girlfriend's copy of Premiere and convert the file then send it over to my computer, but it seems like overkill when I'm sure there's a good program out there that can do it. Unfortunately alot of the video conversion software out there seems kind of SPAMMY haha... I'm willing to pay for a piece of software, it doesn't have to be freeware or anything... I'm just hoping to find one that doesn't constantly advertise the new 2014 version and the 2014 Ultimate version, and send me 100 e-mails about all their other ripping and converting software and all that crap haha.
 
So anyway yea, any suggestions?

Thanks.

Before you do anything get the X3 D patch if you are using X3. It has upgraded video import ability. It will import more types of video now. 

Oh wow... OK. I actually purchased X3 (and X2 and X1 haha) but am still on 8.5 because a) I've been in the middle of two huge projects for the last few years that I didn't want to end up messing anything up on in the switchover and b) I'm an idiot. So I have on my to-do list to finally install it in the next couple weeks so maybe that will help so I don't have to convert stuff anymore, that would be beautiful...

Oh you know what... Follow up question...
 
Now assuming Sonar is going to now support importing most of these file formats... what is the easiest quickest app (and again, lack of ads and crap would be nice) to just quickly split up a video file into multiple files. I like to usually chop up a film into scenes so I'm working with smaller files... Although with shorter shorts it's not always necessary...
 
Any suggestions? Again currently I'm using Premiere but it just seems like overkill.

I'm a Vegas Pro user but I have recently been using Pinnacle Studio Ultimate for simple things. They are now at version 17.  

I will definitely check out Pinnacle Studio... I've seen it around but never really checked it out. Thanks.

Vegas studio or premeiere elements are worth looking at for simple things as well.  You say you have premiere.  Wich version are you using?  If you are on cloud model you already have access to a simplified intake tool , Prelude.  It pretty much is designed to break raw footage into clips and log with metadata if you choose.  Otherwise just split the clips up export them in batch.

Actually no it's CS5... Who knows it might have a tool like that too that I don't even know about but I always just load it up put it on a timeline and then just export with certain sections selected... takes FOREVER...

Is it the process or the export itself that takes forever? Cs5 does not include prelude. Not sure how much faster it would be anyway.

It's more the process... I mean the export takes plenty of time... It also almost always crashes if I try to do multiple exports at once (split it into 4 scenes for example in one batch process) but if I just do one at a time it never crashes so I just do that which of course takes way longer because I have to keep going in and starting the process over for each scene...