Portable VidCoder

You never know when you might need to convert a video: it's not often that you need to do that, but having a dedicated tool for the job is always a welcome addition to any computer. While there are plenty of solutions available to users, you hardly find portable software in this category.

Things are a bit different with Portable VidCoder, which is a program that, per its name, requires no installation and grants its users the ability to convert their videos to many formats, while also being able to tweak their encoding.

This is portable software, which means that no prior installation is required to get it to work: simply launch the executable, and you're set. The first thing you'll notice is the small footprint of the interface, which occupies little screen real estate.

Add your footage in, then interact with the Encoding Settings option: the default is Fast 1080p30, which prioritizes file size without compromising much visual fidelity. It's a good starting point, but if you're looking for something else, the dropdown should offer plenty more options for all kinds of users. If you wish to save even more space, but maintain the 1080P quality, the Very Fast preset should work, and the same is true for all resolutions.

Clicking the icon above Encoding Settings will bring up a menu that will allow you to further customize the footage: for starters, you can choose a video format, add filters such as denoise, sharpen, deblock, and so on. If you want to tamper with the encoding, you can change it in the designated tab: modify the video codec and the framerate, set a size threshold, and more. Audio encoding options are also available.

If you don't want to concern yourself with any of the abovementioned parameters, the tool provides many ready-made presets to cover numerous use cases: make your clips ready for platforms like Discord, YouTube, Vimeo, Gmail, or for devices like Amazon Fire, Chromecast, iOS or Android phones, and many others.

Even though it requires no installation, Portable VidCoder is a surprisingly comprehensive program. By providing so many templates and options to configure, the tool is just as easy to recommend to casual users as it is to advanced ones.