Archive for the ‘News’ Category
Convert MTS files to AVI, MOV, MP4, WMV and more – online and free
Filed under: Announcements, News | Tags: blu ray, convert mts, mts, mts to avi, mts to mov, mts to mp4, mts to wmv
Leave a Comment 
Zamzar now supports the conversion of MTS files, generated by Blu-ray Discs to a variety of other video formats, including AVI, MOV and WMV – online and free !
MTS files are typically created by HD camcorders such as those from Panasonic and Sony which save videos out in the AVCHD (Advanced Video Coding High Definition) format, in either 1080i or 720p resolutions. These files are common on the Sony HDR-SR camcorder series and tend to use the MPEG-4 AVC/H.264 standard to encode video and audio. MTS files are also found on many Blu-ray Discs, but most commercially produced titles are encrypted.
You can now convert MTS files into any one of the following formats:
- 3gp – 3GPP Multimedia File
- 3g2 – 3GPP2 Multimedia File
- aac – Advanced Audio Coding File
- ac3 – AC3 Audio File
- avi – Windows video file
- flac – Free Lossless Audio Codec
- flv – Flash video
- gif – Compuserve graphics interchange
- iPad – MPEG-4 (H264) Video File
- iPhone – MPEG-4 (H264) Video File
- iPod – MPEG-4 Video File
- mp3 – Compressed audio file
- mov – Apple QuickTime Movie
- mp4 – MPEG-4 Video File
- mpg – Moving Picture Experts Group File
- ogg – Ogg Vorbis Compressed Audio File
- wav – Windows audio file
- webm – Multimedia Container Format
- wmv – Windows Media Video
Head over to Zamzar to convert your MTS file today !
Happy converting,
The Zamzar Team.
Convert 3GA files to MP3, MP4, OGG, WAV and others – online and free !
Filed under: Announcements, News | Tags: 3ga to mp3, 3ga to mp4, 3ga to ogg, 3ga to wav, android, convert 3ga, Nokia, Samsung Galaxy
Leave a Comment 
You can now use Zamzar to convert 3GA files to a variety of other audio formats – online and free !
3GA is a file format developed by the 3GPP organisation (Third Generation Partnership Project) that is supported by variety of mobile phone producers including Samsung, Nokia and Android phones. It is used as the default recording format for audio in popular mobile phones such as the Samsung Galaxy S2/S3/S4 and contains audio data in a variety of different codecs,such as AMR-WB+, AMR-NB, AMR-WB, AAC-LC, HE-AAC v1/ and HE-AAC v2.
See the list of supported conversions that we now support from the 3GA file format below:
- aac – Advanced Audio Coding File
- ac3 – AC3 Audio File
- flac – Free Lossless Audio Codec
- m4a – Compressed Video File
- mp3 – Compressed audio file
- mp4 – MPEG-4 Video File
- ogg – Ogg Vorbis Compressed Audio File
- wav – Windows audio file
- wma – Windows media file
We hope this new feature will help all of you who have been stuck looking for a way to convert your 3GA files into a different audio format.
Don’t take our word for it – Go try it out for yourself today !
Happy converting,
The Zamzar Team.
Using OCR to help the Guardian convert PDF’s to text
Filed under: News, Technology | Tags: guardian, OCR, PDF to text, Search PDFs
Leave a Comment What do you do if someone shares a PDF with you and the PDF contains scanned images of text ? How do you get at that text if you want to copy and paste it, search it, or even edit it ? In short how do you liberate it ?
The Guardian Newspaper’s unsearchable PDFs …
Last Friday (22nd February 2012) the Guardian newspaper found itself in just such an unenviable position after the BBC released a slew of PDF files (relating to an independent review of the BBC’s handling of the Jimmy Saville scandal) containing scanned, un-searchable text. Not exactly the most helpful format for journalists looking to make use of the files in a hurry !
Optical Character Recognition & Zamzar to the rescue
Fortunately Zamzar was able to step in and help – We used specialist OCR (Optical Character Recognition) technology to analyse the 30+ PDF files and produce readable, searchable text.
You can read more about our assistance in a story by the Guardian’s technology editor Charles Arthur : “BBC Pollard inquiry: why is it so hard to search the documents?“
OCR (Optical Character Recognition) technology has a reputation for being costly and difficult to use, so we are pleased to say that we’re currently working hard to make it available on the main Zamzar site so that we can help to liberate more documents ! Do let us know if this might be of interest to you.
Happy Converting !
The Zamzar Team.
Convert multilingual filenames with Zamzar
Filed under: Announcements, News | Tags: convert multilingual filenames, convert utf8
Leave a Comment 
We’re pleased to announce that we have just added support to Zamzar for filenames from all of the world’s major languages.
This means you can now convert your files regardless of whether they are named in Russian or Hebrew, Greek or Swedish … and pretty much any other language you can think of (Esperanto anyone ?).
We hope this helps make converting your files even easier 
Convertissez vos fichiers maintenant – en ligne et gratuit!
Konvertera dina filer nu – online och gratis!
Konvertieren Sie Ihre Dateien jetzt – online und kostenlos!
Convertire i file ora – online e gratis!
Convierte tus archivos ahora – en línea y gratis!
Преобразование файлов теперь – онлайн и бесплатно!
แปลงไฟล์ของคุณตอนนี้ – ออนไลน์และฟรี!
המר קבצים שלך עכשיו – האינטרנט ובחינם!
Μετατρέψτε τα αρχεία σας τώρα – σε απευθείας σύνδεση και δωρεάν!
تحويل الملفات الآن – على الانترنت ومجانا!
今あなたのファイルを変換する – オンラインで無料！
转换您的文件 – 在线免费 !
Go convert your file now !
The Zamzar Team.
Drag & drop file uploads, faster file conversions
Filed under: Features, News | Tags: faster file conversion, multiple file conversion, Zamzar
Leave a Comment We’re pleased to announce that you can now use Zamzar to convert your files faster and more easily – Here’s what you can now do:
Drag & Drop Your Files !
We’ve upgraded our upload tool so that you can now drag & drop multiple files into the main window rather than having to select them individually – this is especially handy if you have lots of files to convert at once.
Multiple File Select
You can still use the file picker tool if you want but we’ve upgraded that too, so that you can select multiple files there as well (using ⌘ on Mac, or shift on Windows):
Faster Conversions
We’ve also improved our conversion process to give you even faster conversions – When you upload multiple files we now start converting as soon as each file has uploaded (as the other files upload in the background). We report the status of these conversions back to you in the progress column of the status window:
Why not try out the shiny new upload & conversion process today ?
Happy Converting !
The Zamzar Team.
Can’t export Google Apps files to doc, ppt or xls ? Zamzar to the rescue …
Filed under: News | Tags: doc, Google Apps, Microsoft Office, ppt, xls
Leave a Comment 
There’s an interesting article over at the Next Web where Emil Protalinkski reports that Google just announced the imminent end of support for exporting Google Apps documents, spreadsheets and presentations to Microsoft Office ’97-2003 formats (.doc, .xls and .ppt).
This is a kick in the face for the many millions of people still using and relying on older versions of Microsoft Office to prepare and view their documents, especially in corporate and government circles where employees can be stuck 2 or 3 revisions behind the latest software. Some might argue that it’s nothing more than a cynical ploy by Google to drive traffic back to their Apps products by forcing users to view documents in Google’s walled garden, rather than on a local computer. Either way it’s the user that gets hurt. What’s worse is that they have given users just five days notice.
We’re pleased to say that Zamzar can help you out – If you are a Google Apps user who needs to share a file in an older Microsoft office format we’ll convert your file for you for free (up to 100MB in size) – Just follow these 2 simple steps:
- Export your document from Google Apps as a .docx, .xlsx or .pptx file
- Head over to Zamzar, upload your file for conversion and select .doc, .xls or .ppt as the output format
It’s that simple !
As an added benefit if you signup for any of our premium accounts we’ll give you a 50% discount on your first month’s payment – Just use the promo code GOOGLE_REFUGEE on our signup page
Happy Google Apps Converting !
The Zamzar Team.
Why Zamzar is supporting the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF)
Filed under: Announcements, News | Tags: EFF, Electronic Frontier Foundation, Zamzar
Leave a Comment 
We’re pleased to announce today that Zamzar has made a significant contribution in support of the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), the world-leading organization which defends free speech, privacy and innovation online.
The EFF is renowned on the web for taking on the kind of David v Goliath cases that others shy away from – Since they were founded in 1990 the EFF has represented ordinary people against the likes of the U.S Department of Justice, MGM, Sony BMG and Apple. They fight on behalf of the average person to protect the freedom which we have grown accustomed to on the Internet.
We’re no strangers to online bullies here at Zamzar, having recently been threatened with legal action by Google and we are proud to be able to help the EFF continue the fight against big government and overzealous corporations.
The EFF is a non-profit organization and depends entirely on public support to continue successfully defending your digital rights. If you want to join us in helping why not donate to the EFF today ?
The Internet stands for freedom – let’s keep it that way.
Thanks,
The Zamzar Team.
Downloading YouTube videos – no longer supported
We have received a notice from Google requesting that Zamzar stops offering users the ability to download video files from YouTube, as this is in apparent violation of YouTube’s terms of service. Unfortunately this means we have been left with no choice but to cease to offer video downloads from YouTube via Zamzar with immediate effect.
Zamzar will continue to function as normal for all other conversions. We will continue to offer support for the conversion of hundreds of different file formats that are relied upon by thousands of people everyday. We are also planning to expand the number of conversions on offer and will be developing a range of exciting new features over the coming weeks and months.
We realise that the ability to download and view YouTube videos locally will be missed by many of you (especially teachers), and we’re sorry we can’t do more to support this – Unfortunately this decision was taken out of our control:
Zamzar has been around for over 5 years, we know many of you love using the service, and we have received the odd comment that we’ve saved lives (ok not literally!) We hope you will continue to use Zamzar for all your file conversion needs.
Happy Converting !
The Zamzar Team.
Help Harry Help Others
Zamzar is excited to announce our support for the Help Harry Help Others campaign. The campaign is supported by the Cancer Research UK charity and was inspired by a young man named Harry Moseley.
Harry was diagnosed with an inoperable brain tumour at the age of 7. Sadly he died when he was 11, but not before he had raised £500,000 through his “Help Harry Help Others” campaign as part of his wish to rid the world of brain tumours. Zamzar is proud to support his campaign, having donated financially and helped to raise awareness of the cause, and we hope that some of you may wish to get involved too.
A group of 7 men and women are aiming to run all 430 miles of the London Underground in their pyjama bottoms to raise money and awareness for Harry’s campaign. They are running 25 half marathons every week and 4 marathons over the course of 6 months. So far they have raised over £7,000 but they are keen to raise more, and have issued an invitation for you to join them, wherever you are in the world !
International Tube Run for Harry Moseley
On Saturday March 10th Harry’s Tube Runners are organising the International Tube Run for Harry Moseley.
If you live within close proximity to a tube, subway or tram and can walk or run just one mile then they woud love for you to get involved.
Why not invite friends and family to join you, get your pyjama bottoms on, get sponsored and head down to your local tube / subway / tram stop and walk or run a mile ?
So far there are runners signed up from London, Delhi, Auckland, New York, Madrid, Sydney, Hong Kong, Chennai, Barcelona and Bangalore. The Zamzar staff will be getting their own PJ bottoms on and running part of the London Underground for the cause !
For more information visit the tube runner blog, drop them an email with photos of your efforts, or visit the donation page. We hope you can join us on 10th March in raising money and awareness for this incredible charity.
Using the Zamzar Web Browser Button with Google Chrome
Filed under: News | Tags: bookmarklet, chrome, YouTube, Zamzar
Leave a Comment Happy 2012 to everyone ! We start the year here at Zamzar HQ with the curious case of the button, the browser and the global international mega-corp …
The Button
The Zamzar Web Browser Button has been around for a few years now, and is the best way of converting your files at the touch of a button from within your web browser. If you don’t have it already stop everything and get it here now !.
The Problem
Recently some of you who use the button reported it isn’t working in the Google Chrome web browser when trying to convert YouTube videos.
We’ve taken a look into this problem and there is a bug in Chrome which is causing this to break. If you want the juicy technical details you can see them here, but in layman’s terms we can tell you:
“Google broke it”.
How to fix it
Fortunately there is a simple way to fix the problem … unfortunately it’s something you need to do rather than us.
Step 1 – Open a new tab in Chrome and click “Apps” at the bottom of the browser
Step 2 – Right click the YouTube app and select “Remove from Chrome”
Step 3 – Click uninstall
Step 4 – Restart the web browser
Step 5 (optional) – Sing joyfully
Hopefully this will help if you come up against the problem whilst we wait for Google to pull their fingers out and fix things in Chrome
Happy Converting !
The Zamzar Team.
RSS Feed
