Name: Bender Converter
URL: http://www.benderconverter.com

Last Friday a very good friend asked me to convert some YouTube videos into a format that her old computer could actually play, and burn a CD with the resulting files. There were about fifteen of them, and they were all by the same Finnish band: HIM. I don’t have to tell you such a thing wasn’t necessarily topping my list of priorities for that particular weekend. But there was no way I would let her down.

I came across this site when looking for a fast way to get that job done. And while I wouldn’t say that Bender Converter is “the best” website of its class, it did the job quite competently and I have bookmarked it.

You see, Bender Converter lets you supply the URL of the video that has to be converted and then choose an output format. There is no need for you to upload anything, and that’s always a big plus. So is the fact that a ton of video hosting services are supported. These include YouTube, Vimeo, DailMotion, Veoh and Blip.tv.

And some of the output formats that you can go for are .AVI, .MOV, .FLV, .3GP… in fact, you can even have a video converted into an audio MP3. Useful for these ultra-rare live clips and prehistoric TV performances that some sympathetic chums upload to YouTube for mere mortals like you and me to rejoice.

And it gets even better, as Bender Converter can be used for free. Converting a video costs nothing. Nil. Nada. Just paste the link that has to be converted and Bob’s your uncle.