One thing I share with many other geeks is my love for audio, video and my numerous devices.  I like to watch movies on my PC, on my PSP, on my PS3, on various tv’s in the house and I like to be able to save video and audio that moves me.  I’ve found many things on YouTube worth keeping, and I love making funny ring tones out of YouTube viral videos.  I like having control over size and quality of my media files.  In all my downloading, grabbing, borrowing, copying and acquiring of media, I often need tools for editing or converting to the various formats I might need.  I’ve compiled a list of 20 absolutely free applications that will do this for you.  I even found a tool that will capture ALL audio produced by your sound card, as well as two tools that are useful for recording songs from Pandora (and others) Internet radio.  This is useful to me if I want to just save off a song for the purpose of finding the artist on iTunes or Amazon later.  So sit back, see the possibilities unfold before you and be sure to chime in below in the comments and let me know what YOU have found to be useful tools for Internet media. 

Audio, Video, Flash and YouTube Grabbers

• Free Video Downloader Browser Extension for FireFox by Sothink– for Windows, Linux and Mac, this app can be used to download embedded Flash videos and direct Flash video content in different formats including flv, wmv, asf, avi, mov, rm and rmvb. It also lets you download Flash SWF files like Flash games, Flash cards and presentation, etc from Internet at the same time.
• UnPlug – Another FireFox Extension, UnPlug scans web pages and tells you where media players are getting their data from, and allows you to easily save the media file.  UnPlug works for lots of sites including youtube.com, video.google.com, metacafe.com, vimeo.com, veoh.com and lots, lots more.
• aTube Catcher – Windows Only – This app will allow you to download videos from sites like YouTube, Google, etc.  They support over 100 streaming sites. It grabs and encodes into files for ipod, psp, etc – in formats like mpeg4 avi, 3gp, 3g2, avi, xvid, mp4, mp3, mp2, wma, wmv, gif, flac, wav, psp, mpg, vob, ogg, mov.
• YouTube Downloader - (from CNET) this simple freeware application works pretty well, given how basic the interface is. It has two main features: to download FLV files from YouTube, and to convert them to most major formats. If there's a YouTube URL in your clipboard, it will automatically paste it for you when you click on the dialog box. From there, just hit OK and the downloading will commence. One more left-click is all it takes to load the file in the converter, which supports iPhone, iPod, PSP, cell phone, AVI, MP3, WMV, and Xvid. Surprisingly, there's also a basic video editor for cropping videos by time stamp. You can also cut out the sound when converting.
• Leawo Free YouTube Download – this isn’t much different from the others.  it has a lighter footprint and seems a bit simpler to use.
• MP3myMP3 Recorder – This app is great for recording internet radio, or any other audio you can hear on the computer straight into mp3 or wav.  This application works with the sound card.  It supports cd ripping, batch renaming, silence detection and scheduled recordings. This is the neatest thing I’ve played with since I got that first cassette recorder when I was 8 and recorded America’s Top 40 with Casey Kasem.
• TubeMaster++ – This is a powerful java based tool can capture multimedia files you are watching or listening from your internet browser (FLV,MP3,MP4). Captured files can be saved directly on your computer or converted to other popular video or audio formats (AVI, MPEG, MP3, MP4, IPod, PSP ...).
• xVideoServiceThief – Thus guy runs on Mac, Linux and Windows.  Like many others, it allows you to download and convert videos from YouTube and any other sites that support HTTP and RTMP protocols.  It supports simultaneous downloads and custom JavaScript plugins.  I think this is probably my favorite in this genre.
• Orbit Downloader – Touted as a download manager, this app made the list due to its ability to download ALL streaming media.  According to Mashable, “Social site downloading is the main appeal of this program. It supports HTTP(S), FTP, Metalink, RTSP, "PNM, MMS, NSS, RTMP, embedded video from sites like YouTube, music from sites like Pandora , and files from sites like Rapidshare . It works with Internet Explorer, Firefox, Opera, Netscape, and Maxthon”.  This is the only app I’ve found to grab the Pandora Radio stream.

Audio/Video Format Conversion and Ripping

• MediaCoder – This is an app that converts video formats into many different other formats.  MediaCoder is a free audio and video batch transcoder which uses various open source audio and video codecs and tools to transcode different audio/video formats and has many extra features. Common uses for the program include compression, file type conversion and extraction of audio from video files. Many formats are supported, including MP3, Vorbis, AAC, Windows Media Audio, RealAudio, WAV, H.264, Xvid, DivX 4/5, MPEG-2, AVI, CD, and DVD.
• Handbrake – This one is my favorite.  It is an open-source video transcoder for Mac, Linux and Windows.  While originally designed to rip dvd’s to avi’s , current versions also deal with any video file and even audio files.
• Format Factory – You can also rip dvd with this software as well.  This is a Windows only app and it supports most file formats. They sell themselves as converting video for ipod, psp etc.
• Videora Converter – these guys have a video converter for you no matter what your device might be!  This includes, mp3 players, phones, game systems etc.  Tons of flavors to choose from!
• Avi2DVD- will convert AVI and others to DVD format.   There are some codecs needed, which you can read about on their website.
• Zamzar – If you don’t really want to install a tool to do file conversion, then give Zamzar a try.  Not just limited to video, this software converts from many different file types to others.  It is free for up to 100 MB, but if you want more, they have a reasonable pricing structure – and even include some online storage in the pricing plan.

Video Editing

• AVS Video Editor – A pretty powerful Windows editor that supports nearly all formats.  It performs conversions, captures video from external devices, allows for editing with effects and transitions, and more advanced editing tools. The free version puts a little log into the compilation, but you can upgrade to get rid of that for $30.00.
• Free DVD Ripper – This little guy not only rips dvd’s, but it also has some powerful editing features that allow you to crop, trim, cut, join, custom and add special effects to your video.
• Free Video Cutter – As the name suggests, this tool allows you to cut off chunks of your video (such as trailers, previews etc).  It supports most common formats.
• Aimersoft DVD Ripper – This is another ripper that made it to the free editing category due to its built-in editing features.  It does the expected ripping job and allows you to trim, adjust brightness, contrast, audio etc.
• Video Splitter – This is a lightweight and fast tool that will split up digital movie files without recompression or loss of quality (these guys have tons of other tools too).