Software

 

 

There are many useful software applications when it comes to working with digital video.  Some cost money, while others can be obtained for free.  Fortunately, every single piece of software used in my guide is freeware or shareware!  That's right, you can get ultra-high quality videos without spending a dime on software.  Now doesn't that feel good?

The usage of these programs will be explained in my guide.  You can download and install VirtualDub, AVI_IO, and Huffyuv now if you don't have them already.


Capturing/Editing Programs

1)  VirtualDub - This is a free program written by Avery Lee that can be used to capture and process video.  The program does not to be installed; simply unzip it to the directory of your choice and run VirtualDub.exe.  Once you have installed VirtualDub, go to the VirtualDub Plug-ins page to download the plug-ins you will need to process video.

2)  AVI_IO (trial version) - This is a video capturing program that (in my experience) works better than VirtualDub for video capture.  The program does not to be installed; simply unzip it to the directory of your choice and run avi_io_trial.exe.


Video Encoders

1)  RealProducer Basic (version 8.5) - This is the free version of RealNetworks' video encoder, which allows you to encode your video to RealMedia format.

2)  Windows Media 8 Encoding Utility - This is Microsoft's command-line encoder for creating Windows Media 7 and 8 files.  It lacks a graphical interface, but you can download the following front end for the Encoding Utility:

3)  Windows Media Encoder 7.1 - This is Microsoft's graphical interface encoder for creating constant bitrate Windows Media 7 and 8 files.

4)  TMPGEnc - This is an excellent free encoder with full support for MPEG-1 and a time-limited demo of MPEG-2 encoding.  It has many useful features, and it can encode video for VCDs and SVCDs.  If you want to use VFAPI with TMPGEnc, make sure you also install the VFAPI plug-in for TMPGEnc.


Video Players

1)  RealPlayer 8 Basic (select "RealPlayer 8 Basic" from the drop-down list) - This allows you to play RealMedia (RealAudio + RealVideo) files.  Alternatively, you can download the new RealOne Player, although I prefer version 8.

2)  Windows Media Player (version 6.4 or 7.1) - This allows you to play ASF, WMV, and WMA files, as well as a slew of other formats.  If you value your sanity, I highly recommend that you stick to version 6.4 instead of version 7.1.


Video Codecs

1)  Huffyuv (pre-built DLL version 2.1.1) - This is a video codec that allows you to compress video by approximately 2:1 without any quality loss.  To install the codec, simply unzip all the files to a folder on your hard disk, right-click the "huffyuv.inf" file, and select Install.

2)  PICVideo MJPEG codec (requires $18 (US) registration to remove watermark) - This is a lossy video codec, which means that it stores video data in less space at the expense of image quality.  I only recommend using this codec if you are low on hard drive space.  Using this codec will cause a degradation in the quality of your final output video.

3)  Morgan Multimedia MJPEG codec (trial version) - This is an MJPEG codec similar to the PICVideo codec.  Although I prefer the PICVideo codec, the trial version of the Morgan Multimedia codec doesn't place a watermark in your video.  The trial version does expire, but they periodically update the codec to a version with a new expiration date.


Video Utilities

1)  Avisynth (pre-built DLL version 0.3) - This is an incredibly useful utility that, among other things, allows you to use AVI files over 2 GB in many programs that do not natively support them.  To install Avisynth, unzip all the files to a folder on your hard disk, double-click the "install.reg" file, and then copy "avisynth.dll" to your \windows\system directory (for Windows 9x/ME), to your \winnt\system32 directory (for Windows NT/2000), or to your \windows\system32 directory (for Windows XP).

2)  VFAPI 1.04 English (go to the Download page and search for "VFAPI") - This is a utility that also allows you to open files of an unsupported format or greater than 2 GB in programs that don't natively support files of that type or size.  You must use this in conjunction with a program with VFAPI support.  VFAPI is more compatible than Avisynth, and it works with both Windows Media Encoder 7.1 and the Windows Media 8 Encoding Utility.  To install VFAPI, extract the contents of the .zip file to a folder on your hard drive, navigate to the newly created directory called "Codec", and run the file called "vifpset.bat".

3)  ReadAVS VFAPI plug-in (download the DLL under the "TMPGEnc 0.11e" section) - This plug-in enables you to use AVS (Avisynth) files as input for VFAPI.  (It also has some support for VDR files, but it appears to be broken.) To install the plug-in, first unzip all the files to a folder on your hard drive.  Next, open "ReadAVS.reg" in Notepad, edit the path to reflect the location of "ReadAVS.dll" (as instructed in the file), and save the file.  Finally, double-click "ReadAVS.reg" and choose Yes when asked if you want to merge the information into the registry.


Audio Editors

1)  Cool Edit 2000 (restricted shareware, version 1.1) - This program is used to eliminate annoying hisses in your audio or make other enhancements to the sound.