How do I convert a .bin file to avi or any one of the more popular formats?

Answer 1

You can't convert a bin file to an AVI. the Bin format is aformat for saving data as a cd/dvd disk image. You have to option

1. You can mount the bin image on a virtual drive or
2. you can burn the image to a cd using software which knows how to interpret bin images.
http://download.videohelp.com/vitualis/burning_cuebin_images.html

I recommend that you mount the image on a virtual drive, as this will save you a disk if the data in the image is not what you want.

As far as virtual drive software goes there are a few applications but I prefer Alcohol 120%.

http://www.alcohol-soft.com/

Download and install the trial (buy if you want to use it forever). then open Alcohol. On the lift click virtual drive. set the number of virtual drives to 1 or as many as you like and then press OK. A new drive will be added to my computer.

Right click on the new drive and select the option to MOUNT image. Point the program to your bin file and it should then auto run the contents of the file.

In my experience movies distributed in bin format are usually VCD images. You might see folders on the disk like SEGMENT and MPEGAV. If you do it is definitely a VCD image. find the largest DAT file on the disk in one of the folders and play that in Windows Media player. the DAT file is actually a MPEG format file. Alternativly after you mounted the bin image go into windows media player and select play DVD, VCD or CD AUDIO from the PLAY menu, pointing to the virtual drive's letter.

There are many programs you can use to get a DAT/MPEG File to an AVI, but i prefer virtualdub-mpeg2 becasue it's free, although the mpeg2 part is illegal.
Virtual dub
http://www.virtualdub.org/

Virtualdub mpeg2 plugin
http://fcchandler.home.comcast.net/stable/