How do I Convert Video Files?

As video producers in the web publishing, film, and broadcast industries look to maximize revenues for each video, it is imperative that they make their videos available in as many popular formats as possible across the various internet-connected devices.  To do this, they must convert, or transcode, video from its source recorded format to widely adopted consumer formats such as Flash, Quicktime and Silverlight.  Other controllable parameters during the video conversion process include codecs, container formats, bitrates, frame rates, and size.