Software developers have obviously cottoned onto the fact that video conversion is becoming increasingly important and CyberLink is the latest to offer a platform-centric solution in MediaShow Espresso.

This tidy application will convert any of a wide range of video formats for use on specific devices, with dedicated categories available for Apple, Sony and Microsoft, plus YouTube and additional and custom formats.

It's certainly a lot more polished than some alternatives we've seen, and the opening screen allows you to import specific clips or folders into a thumbnail view where videos can be previewed and queued for conversion. Selecting one or multiple clips highlights them, at which point it's possible to choose one of the above categories depending on the video's intended destination.

All of the relevant devices from these companies are included along with options to change the aspect ratio and resolution to a range of compatible sizes and, where relevant, the video and audio format can be adjusted. In the case of Apple devices, the software can add files directly to an iTunes library, so they are converted and queued to transfer in one fell swoop.

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A similar system is in place for YouTube and, provided you have an account, the software can upload to a personal library for you. While doing this manually in either scenario isn't exactly a hassle, Espresso integrates these tasks nicely and certainly makes life a bit easier.

It'd be disappointing if such software tied you to format types for portable devices and thankfully there are options here to customise conversion. Profiles can be set up to configure format, resolution and bitrate for video and audio, though we were a little let down by the fairly restrictive choice of WMV, MPEG-2, MPEG-4 and MPEG-4 AVC.

This list should be enough for most people, but a more generic AVI/DivX option would be welcomed here, and quite why the software doesn't offer the same compatibility with export formats as it does with import types we don't know.

As mentioned, MediaShow Espresso can batch-convert multiple files at once, but only to one chosen format. Once a file is converting it's not possible to add others to the batch list, either, which is the only real issue we have with usability. Conversion itself is pretty quick, though, and as the software supports Intel Core i7, Nvidia CUDA and ATI Stream CPU/GPU technologies, those with compatible hardware should see a serious boost to conversion speeds.

MediaShow Espresso is certainly the nicest looking dedicated video conversion tool we've seen to date, and for the most part it's fast and easy to use and delivers just about enough flexibility to cope with a range of conversion tasks. We do have a few minor issues with usability and export format support, though, so it may not quite be up to scratch for highly demanding users.

Those looking to quickly convert a media collection for YouTube or playback on a handheld will find MediaShow Espresso to be fast, easy to use and polished in its operation and execution. Minor issues mean it's not quite as flexible as we'd hoped, but if these aren't a problem for you then this package could save a lot of time and hassle.