Free Studio

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by: Download.com staff on May 22, 2011

Free Studio bundles DVDVideoSoft's numerous free video, audio, and image tools into a versatile suite. Despite its many choices, a well-designed control panel makes it extremely easy to access just what you need.

Free Studio requires at least 278MB of free disk space, quite a substantial package for freeware. The check boxes that set the developer's Web site and search engine as defaults were already selected by the installation wizard (can't blame them for trying); we unchecked them, of course. Free Studio's unique interface is one of the most sensibly designed we've seen. Aside from its attractive 3D graphics, it's laid out in eight large buttons accessing important features: YouTube, for Web video; MP3 & Audio, for your tunes; CD, BD, DVD, for ripping, burning, dubbing, and converting; DVD & Video, for playback; Photos & Images, for your pictures; Mobiles, for cell phone vids and apps; Apple Devices; and 3D, for making 3D videos and images. A slider button on top of Free Studio's interface toggles the animated intro on and off.

We were curious about the 3D items, so we started there. The 3D button accesses two tools, Free 3D Photo Maker and Free 3D Video Maker. The photo tool seemed very easy to use, but it requires 3D glasses to view images, which we didn't have handy, so we moved on to the Mobile selection, which offered a page full of small apps designed for specific brands, formats, and devices, such as Android, Nokia, Samsung, Sony PSP, XBox, and Nintendo. Each shared a simple, wizard-based interface, as did most of the other tools bundled in Free Studio; for instance, the disc-burning section contained not only audio and video disc burners but also video and audio conversion tools like Free Audio CD to MP3. The DVD & Video section offers 10 tools for recording, converting, dubbing, and sharing video. Some tools, such as the 3D video and photo apps, show up in more than one section, which we think is fine since it makes them more accessible.

DVDVideoSoft's multimedia tools are easy to use and good performers. We'd like to see links to a Help file or other assistance for the individual tools, though we encountered nothing confusing or unclear. We think Free Studio is a great idea, bundling together a full suite of competent, straightforward video and audio freeware.

From DVDVideoSoft:

Free Studio Manager is a completely redesigned all-in-one package for more than 45 programs. It contains eight sections to bundle all free multimedia applications which have been developed by DVDVideoSoft. These sections the following: YouTube, MP3 and Audio, CD-DVD-BD, DVD and Video, Photo and Images, Mobiles, Apple Devices, 3D. Thus all the programs are included in the new interface for easy access to any of them.

With this free software you can convert video and audio files between different formats and to iPod, PSP, iPhone, BlackBerry, and all popular mobile phones and devices burn and rip DVDs and audio CDs upload and download YouTube videos and music to your computer, iPod, PSP, iPhone, and BlackBerry perform basic editing of audio and video files as well as record videos and make snapshots.

What's new in this version:

Version 6.3.8.820 may include unspecified updates, enhancements, or bug fixes.

Convert CDs to MP3, WMA, WAV, OGG, FLAC formats, convert aud... Download videos from YouTube and save them to your PC as AVI... Convert YouTube videos to MP3, extract audio from single vid... Mix digital music or video replacing your turntables and CD ... Play video and audio files, convert to other file formats, b... Create, edit, burn, mount, and encrypt CD, DVD, and BD image... Rip audio CDs, convert music, and burn discs. Get fast and flexible digital-media playback with access to ... Create drum or audio loops and play sample files and MIDI in... Convert text into a WAV, MP3, OGG, or WMA audio files. Convert M4A/AAC into MP3/WAV format. Convert text into a WAV, MP3, OGG, or WMA audio files. Cut desired parts from your MP3 files. Edit MP3 tags, find covers, and organize your music collecti... Create audio CDs from audio files like WAV, MP3, and WMA. Organize your MP3 collection, manage and edit tags, add lyri... Copy DVD to iPod, iPhone, 3GP, PSP, Zune, HD TV, AVI, Divx, ... Convert 3GP files into MP4 and AVI video formats. Convert RM/RAM/RMVB/AVI/WMV/ASF/MPG video to VCD/DVD/MPEG1/M... Track your DVD collection and keep up-to-date. All Versions:

3.7 out of 289 votes

5 star: 117 4 star: 86 3 star: 26 2 star: 13 1 star: 47 Current Version:

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Write review 1 stars

"Will hack all your browsers"

July 28, 2014   |   By jcece_pa

Version: Free Studio 6.3.6.716

Pros

None, This will hack your browsers.

Cons

This app will hack your browsers and good luck getting rig of it. Deleting the program which installed in addition to the youtube downloader did NOT remove Stovi as my default search engine. AND it has disabled Google. How I will change this I have yet to figure out. Thankfully it's worse on IE, and Firefox is working ok for now. That's why I downloaded through IE - I don't really use the browser anymore anyway.

Shame on CNET for recommending.

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1 stars

"No longer true"

April 27, 2014   |   By Laylong

Version: Free Studio 6.2.4.1230

Pros

If you can find an old enough version and not update it, you might be safe.

Cons

Ad bloated
Not as straight forward as it used to be
Spawns pop ups and suspicious download prompts
Freezes and crashes if you close said pop ups

Summary

About a year or so ago when dirpy.com first got taken down, this managed to be the best thing to replace it. Since then every update that has been put out for this software has either obfuscated the interface, added ads, or worse. The program in it's current version is no longer safe or even usable.

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1 stars

"Infested with Adware"

April 07, 2014   |   By EdwardG424

Version: Free Studio 6.2.4.1230

Pros

Has some useful functions

Cons

Completely infested with adware, spyware, and browser hijackers. Use at your own extreme risk.

Summary

Was good, now garbage.

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5 stars

"Excellent free utilities and all in the same package"

April 06, 2014   |   By tbreak

Version: Free Studio 6.2.4.1230

Pros

Such a handy toolkit to keep on the PC and for FREE!!

Cons

Have to update near every time I use an item (tho it's not really a con cos it means it's always got the latest stuff on it)!

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5 stars

"Simple and useful"

March 20, 2014   |   By missmaril

Version: Free Studio 6.2.4.1230

Pros

Lots of great applications in one place.

Cons

Adverting of malware products in installation box.

Summary

Make sure you uncheck extra software.

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5 stars

"Excellent and well designed"

February 22, 2014   |   By jj_anyway

Version: Free Studio 6.2.4.1230

Pros

Awesome package. I particularly liked DVD burning app. It handles all file types and burns much faster than Windows DVD maker. It's rare to see such design quality and performance in a freeware application.

Cons

I had no problems with Free Studio

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5 stars

"Efficient Simple Effective"

February 18, 2014   |   By coloradoheather

Version: Free Studio 6.2.4.1230

Pros

See my One-line summary above

Cons

Quite large

Summary

This software has far more uses and capabilities than I have taken the time to utilize.

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5 stars

"Really good!"

January 28, 2014   |   By davelaric

Version: Free Studio 6.2.4.1230

Pros

Lots of softwares that really works. I needed to split audio files for sony vegas projects and it worked perfectly well and it was free!

Cons

There are no cons right now.

Summary

Note when you're installing this software, use custom install and uncheck all the extra software boxes. You'll have no extra softwares then! Enjoy!

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3 stars

"Beware Geeks Bearing Gifts!!!"

January 21, 2014   |   By s0ckd0l8g3r

Version: Free Studio 6.2.4.1230

Pros

Excellent set of utilities.

Cons

Clutters up system with unwanted software. Also hijacks your browser.

Summary

Use with the above caution in mind or if you have the tools and skills to undo what this software does to your system

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3 stars

"Trojan for Adware"

January 07, 2014   |   By ShawnSeatte

Version: Free Studio 6.2.4.1230

Pros

Excellent utilities, work well

Cons

Despite unchecking unwanted adware, I found that FS slipped in an app called Mobilegenie. Can no longer trust it.

Summary

Good up but acts as a Trojan for unwanted adware and god knows what else.

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