Calling the Video Walas

Tracking the best video freeware.

By definition, video is the fine tech of capturing, recording, processing, transmitting, and reconstructing moving pictures, usually deploying celluloid film, electronic signals, or digital media. It’s a swampy realm swarming with buzzwords like frames per second, interlacing, resolution, aspect ratios, color space, bits per pixel, compression methodologies, stereoscopics, bit rates, and a blather of blah-blah… But we’re not here to bother with that. In the last few months I have received a slew of mail asking for video freebie utes. Here’s a pick of the best:

VirtualDub
The tape has rolled. The shot is canned. And its edit table-wards ho… OK, for this try a freeware called VirtualDub. It is a wonderful little video capture/processing tool available under Open Source. The GNU General Public License (GPL) program may not bristle with the raw power of a Adobe Premiere, but it does a great job with fast linear ops. And handling AVI files is its forte. It offers batch-processing capabilities, cohabits with third-party video filters, reads MPEG-1, leverages BMP file sets, but doesn’t do DVD or MPEG-4. And as with all video editing work, you need a fast PC--nothing to compensate that Mr. Wannabe Editor!

Acha sunno, for filters go to the Milafat site mentioned below. Hit the “Telecharger ICI” button here to download a complete set. Install these filters and then kill the “PCVideo Image Processor” filter.
OS: Windows XP, 2000, NT, Me, 98, 95
www.virtualdub.org
http://milafat.free.fr/vdfilters.htm

SUPER
SUPER, an acronym for Simplified Universal Player Encoder & Renderer is a splendid “one-click” video--or rather multimedia--conversion proggie. It can play and convert full length movies to any other format--with no time limitations. Its promise of doing “for free what other encoders can't do for money” is no idle boast actually.

This pretty easy-to-use 18 meg freeware can encode to and from 3gp/3g2 (Nokia, Siemens, Sony, Ericsson), asf, avi (DivX, H263, H263+, H264, Xvid, MPEG-4, MSMPEG4 etc.), swf, dat, fli, flc, flv (Flash), mkv, mpg (MPEG-1, MPEG-2), mov (H263, H263+, H264, MPEG-4 etc.), MP4 (H263, H263+, H264, MPEG-4), ogg, qt, rm, ram, rmvb, str (Play Station), ts (HDTV), viv, vob, and wmv video formats. Audio file format conversions include ac3, amr, mp2, mp3, mp4, ogg, ra, wav, and wma. iPod, DVD, MOV… you can throw virtually anything at it. If that’s not enough, SUPER can also play and save streaming media off the Internet (Multimedia Messaging Service (mms://), Real-Time Streaming Protocol (rtsp://) as well as http://. But hello, dheemi gati kae PC vahan vaalon, saavdhan!
OS: Windows XP, Me, 98
www.erightsoft.net

StreamBox VCR and SDP
Talking of capturing streaming video, frankly there is no truly superlative streaming media recording free software around. The best options I could unearth are StreamBox VCR and SDP.

StreamBox is software for recording and playing back "time-shifting" RealAudio streams. This underground 4.07 MB software is in danger of going extinct cos Real objects to its interoperation with its closed content delivery system. StreamBox can cope with Windows media, QuickTime and some newer formats as well. Max simultaneous streams: Five. It runs on Windows XP, 2000, NT, Me, 98, and 95.

The 2.77 MB SDP lets you to save most Microsoft video streaming protocols (except RTSP, which should be operational with the next update). It works on all versions of Windows 98 and beyond. Apart from MMS, SDP can also catch http v1.0, http progressive (simple http download), mmst and mmsu over both TCP and UDP transport protocols.
http://p082.ezboard.com/fstreemeboxvcrfrm7.showMessage?topicID=27.topic
http://sdp.ppona.com

VLC Media Player
VLC (dubbed VideoLAN Client once upon a time) is an awesome must-have multimedia player for a multitude of audio and video formats. From MPEG-1, MPEG-2, MPEG-4, DivX, mp3, ogg, DVDs, VCD codecs to various streaming protocols it plays just about anything you dump on it. You can also use it on a high-bandwidth network as a server for unicast or multicast streams in IPv4 or IPv6. This 7.9 MB one-stop playback solution also does a range of video filters ranging from image wall to magnify-gradient-bluescreen. Audio codecs supported encompass MPEG Layer 1 and 2, mp3, AC3, DTS, LPCM, AAC, Vorbis, WMA, ADPCM, DV Audio, FLAC, QDM2/QDMC (QuickTime), MACE, AMR (3GPP), Real Audio and Speex.
OS: Windows XP, 2000, NT, Me, 98, 95
www.videolan.org