Three Free Must-Have Video Related Applications
Here’s a quick list of several great free Video applications. The best part about these is that they are cross platform so anyone can use them. I know they are all fairly common but I can’t help but continue to discuss these free products because they are just so very awesome. Check it out after the jump.
1. Handbrake – Handbrake is a free application which can convert video files from one form to another. This is nice, especially if you have a bunch of video files which aren’t playable by a device such as an iPod. Aside from that, it can compile Video-TS files into one video file, allowing one to copy burned DVDs into one single video file. This is especially nice if you want to take a bunch of DVDs and be able to play them through a media device of some kind. Keep in mind this does NOT remove encryption from the disc so many copyrighted DVDs will not work. But if you were to find a way around this encryption or to break it you could definitely get all those DVDs off the shelf and into your computer.
2. VLC – VLC is a video player that plays just about anything. Not only that, but it’s a small and efficient player with a good, straightforward interface. This is a must have for anyone who works with a wide variety of video files. It also comes with a pretty nice browser plug-in for Firefox which brings a lot of functionality from the VLC player into the browser. This is one of those applications that is very simple yet has tons of great functionality. Just about anything you want to be able to do while playing a video(short from editing it) VLC can do.
3. Video Download Helper - Okay, so this one is more of an add-on than a stand alone free application, but it works great. This is a add-on for Firefox which allows you to download flash video files, such as the ones used on You Tube. There is a list of supported sites on their webpage, but some of the major sites include You Tube, Pandora, Google Video, MySpace video, and Veoh. There are a lot of others also available but for specifics you better refer to the list. I’ve found that this works great and is really nice to be able to snag those videos you want to keep off of You Tube before they get lost due to ToS violations or user deletion or some other event. Oh also, Adobe has a great media player which can play the raw flash files or the Video Download Helper can also convert the files into a different video format.
All three of these applications are free and available for all platforms (OS X, Linux, Windows). I’ve had good luck with all of them working very well and have been using them for quite some time to help improve and enhance my own video viewing and storage. Hopefully these will be helpful to you as well, and if you have any other free applications you think should be added to the list, feel free to let us know in the comments!
Tags: applications, free, video
This entry was posted on Monday, February 9th, 2009 at 1:39 am and is filed under software. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.