The Freeware Sharing Thread

[zuludelta]

anyone got anything to recommend for taking the audio off of videos. so that you have it on a separate file for audio clips etc

Virtualdub.  You can open the video, resample the audio in whatever range you want, and then save it as a .wav file.

cheers guys, i'll give it a try, does it also allow you to rip off dvds, i can say now with my hand on my heart its not for illegal use's.

VirtualDub won't allow you to back-up your DVDs, most people I know use it as a low-resource frameserver and linear video editor. The best (albeit borderline-illegal) freeware app that I know of that allows you to get data off of DVD-9 media (most commercial DVDs) is SmartRipper, but linking to/distributing SmartRipper has been against the law in most countries, particularly in the EU, since 2006 (after the guy who wrote the program lost a landmark case in Finland). The great thing about SmartRipper is that it allows you to extract the media data in vob format, so you've got greater flexibility in how you want to manipulate them.

However, if all you want to do is back-up a copy of the movie in a form that you can watch on your PC or for re-authoring into a VCD or (S)VCD, and don't really care about creating a 1:1 copy of the DVD, you can use DVDx. It's legal (for now), and most people use it so that they can watch their DVD movies on their iPods or other portable video player of choice.

There are paid programs that allow you to legally back-up your DVDs, premiere among them 1Click DVD Copy and DVDNextCopy. I've never used them myself but from what I hear, they're almost as good as SmartRipper in file extraction. You can also browse used software shops and look for DVDXCopy, which was pretty much a pay version of SmartRipper that was taken off the shelves in 2004 (be wary, though... lots of sites allegedly sell DVDXCopy but they aren't... and if they are, it's illegal and you could find yourself in trouble).

[the_ultimate_evil]

i'm after one as i promised my sister i would get her a copy of the dance groups she's in lasts performance the instructor videoed it and burned it to a dvd but the still bugger no longer has the original file so i'm trying to get her a copy

[zuludelta]

What you can do is copy the contents of the DVD using DVDx into MPEG format. Any commercial DVD burning software (Nero, Roxio) that usually comes bundled-in with Windows XP can then create a copy of that MPEG file onto DVD+R/W or even a VCD (video CD) that should be viewable on DVD players.

My recommendation is, if the video is less than 80 minutes long, to just create a VCD or (S)VCD (Super Video CD... a VCD with a menu). My experience is that older DVD players have less compatibility issues with VCDs than they do with writable DVDs.

[Protomorph]

If you want a copy of a homemade DVD, there are a lot of programs that will do that. The best thing would be to either do a direct disc-copy in Nero (or other suitable burning software) or just copy and paste the VIDEO_TS folder to your hard drive and burn a dvd from that.

The sticky wicket of DVD copying is, of course, breaking the encription/protection of commercially marketed discs. But, if your original isn't protected, there isn't much to prevent the copy. I can think of at least 6 programs just off the top of my head that will extract unprotected video.

Breaking the protected discs' encription isn't a subject that we ought to be discussing on these forums.

[the_ultimate_evil]

thanks guys, i and just want to stress that we shouldnt be talking about copy protected dvds. so well just leave it at that. again thanks for the info

[zuludelta]

Ah... I glossed over the part where you said it was a homemade DVD on writeable media (the instructions I gave you were for getting video data off of commercial DVDs you own without actually copying the DVD - which is in the gray area in terms of legality)... in that case, you can just do a straight-up DVD to DVD copy using Nero or whatever your DVD-burning software of choice is. 

[BentonGrey]

Man, y'all have already plugged all the good stuff I use, but let me add my voice to the chorus in praising: VLC Media Player (so incredibly awesome), Audacity (without it, I wouldn't have ever made my voicepacks), Spybot, and Ad-Aware.

[BlueBard]

Up until the DCMA, Fair Use was generally the accepted rule.  If you owned a copy of whatever, you were entitled to make a 'working' copy and save the master in case the working copy was destroyed.  Making copies for the purpose of distributing commercial media has always been a no-no.

The grey area, which also involves Fair Use, is when you have multiple 'working' copies for the purpose of playing media in different formats or on different machines.  It was never really much of an issue for non-software until MP3's came along.  Nobody seemed to mind when you uploaded music from a CD for playback on your computer as wav files.  MP3 players and downloading music off the Internet changed all that.

Which is why we have a DCMA and the like tromping all over the common sense of Fair Use.  Now you don't 'own' your copy of music... you just license it, subject to any restriction the manufacturers care to impose.  And thus why I don't buy a lot of music anymore.

TUE, reproducing even a dance performance your sister was in is problematical unless you got express permission to do it from the instructor... and even then if the performance featured copyrighted music you may not have permission of the owners of those copyrights to do so.

Which when you think about it is pretty nutty.  Nobody should give a rip if you make a copy for private use.

[zuludelta]

TUE, reproducing even a dance performance your sister was in is problematical unless you got express permission to do it from the instructor... and even then if the performance featured copyrighted music you may not have permission of the owners of those copyrights to do so.

[rant mode]
Yeah, the music and film industry's interpretation of "protecting" their IP rights is bordering on the ridiculous these days. There have been cases where small outfits that do video recordings of weddings/birthday parties/small sporting events and such have been forced to go back and record over the copyrighted music played at these venues with generic, royalty-free music under threat of litigation (the fact that they're being paid to record these events and are making multiple copies of the recording apparently excludes them from the whole "fair use" bit). How is that video then supposed to be an accurate record of the events?
[/rant mode]

[ow_tiobe_sb]

I forgot to post a link to a very useful programme for map makers:

Spiral Graphics' Wood Workshop: 100% freeware texture generator specialising in cut and uncut wood patterns.  One can make 1000s of different seamless, resolution independent textures for use with flat surfaces on FF level maps! Export to jpeg, png, bmp, or tiff and convert to tga with your favourite 2D graphic editor/converter.  :)  Download your free copy here.

ow_tiobe_sb
Phantom Bunburyist and [THIS SPACE AVAILABLE FOR LEASE TO NEW DUAL TITLE TENANT]

[the_ultimate_evil]

the instructor has said if anyone wants a copy they can do so, so there is no problems there. just wondering do any of the programmes you guys recommended have the ability to do menus for the dvds. i want to learn how to do this its a nice way of sending out my photos for jobs along with a cv.

thanks again guys i know i have hogged the thread and if a mod thinks these should go then go for it. i've been here long enough that i dont want to start going into unwanted territory

[randyripoff]

You might want to check VideoHelp.  There's tons of information there, and you should be able to find the information you need to complete your project.

[GGiant]

Where can I find a software that gets music from FLVs?

[ow_tiobe_sb]

Where can I find a software that gets music from FLVs?

Try Orbit Rich Media Downloader.  It works very well for me.

ow_tiobe_sb
Phantom Bunburyist and Fop o' th' Morning

[GGiant]

Thank you. :D

[Podmark]

I'm trying out Open Office, and it seems pretty good so far, but the spell check doesn't seem to do anything, guys got any ideas on that?

[zuludelta]

I'm trying out Open Office, and it seems pretty good so far, but the spell check doesn't seem to do anything, guys got any ideas on that?

That's probably because you don't have any dictionaries installed (the dictionaries aren't installed by default to keep the size of the installer smaller).

Here's how you do it in OpenOffice 2.x:

Go to File --> Wizards --> Install New Dictionaries

That should bring you to a mini-app that will walk you through the process of selecting and installing dictionaries of different languages (in my experience, you're better off just installing just the spell-check dictionary... the hyphenation dictionaries aren't all that useful and the thesaurus is a large download, it's better to just use Dictionary.com for your thesaurus). Choose the languages you want your spell-checker in (any more than 10 might affect OpenOffice's performance, though) and it will install them automatically (you need to be on-line for this to happen).

If you want the spellcheck to be automatic or if you want to tweak the spellcheck and other language features, go to Tools --> Options --> Language Settings
In there, you'll be able to customize OpenOffice Writer's writing and formatting aid features to fit your needs.

Hope that helps.

[Podmark]

Ah ok. Thanks. I figured it was something like that, but I wasn't sure which menu to look in.

[Podmark]

ok this is annoying, I went through the mini app and downloaded them but it didn't seem to do anything. I'm probably just missing some step

[zuludelta]

Here are my settings, see if they match up with yours... assuming you downloaded and installed the dictionaries correctly, following these should make the spellchecker work (note that I'm using the Canadian English dictionary... you might have an American English one installed):

Make sure the squiggly thing is active if you want the mis-spellings pointed out to you as you type (if it isn't you'll only be able to spellcheck your document by pressing F7)



Here's what my language settings look like (go to Tools --> Options --> Language Settings)

[Outcast]

I usually use Excel files.  Does openoffice have any problems opening Excel files?

I also read this article while I was trying to look for an answer.
http://www.computeractive.co.uk/computeractive/news/2154626/microsoft-dismisses-openoffice

Is it true that openoffice can override passwords in Excel files?

[zuludelta]

I usually use Excel files.  Does openoffice have any problems opening Excel files?

In my experience, it has complete compatibility with Excel files (you'll want to double-check with the developer forums just to be sure, though), Powerpoint files, and basically most any other file MS Office produces.

I also read this article while I was trying to look for an answer.
http://www.computeractive.co.uk/computeractive/news/2154626/microsoft-dismisses-openoffice

Is it true that openoffice can override passwords in Excel files?

Not sure about that one but I do know that it can open certain corrupted Word and Excel files. You know when you're typing something in Word and sometimes you get a process interruption that renders the file corrupt and unusable? I've been able to use OpenOffice to recover the text from corrupted .doc files.

[Outcast]

I see. Thanks Zulu.

I also usually use some passwords to protect some of my excel files. But if open office could override those passwords....  :o....

[Midnight]

Off the MS Office replacement topic but;

Songbird is intended to be an iTunes killer. It's still in pre-beta, but has some amazing functionality. If you're willing to deal with random crashes, it does really neat stuff, like parsing mp3s out of HTML (good for mp3 blogs), autodownloads podcasts via RSS feeds, and interacts with most mp3 players seamlessly.

[zuludelta]

Time to show Linux some love!

Knoppix is a free Linux distro that can be run off of a CD/DVD drive as a bootable system (just make sure that you've set one of your CD drives as a bootable device). This makes it an excellent tool for accessing computers with failing Windows/Mac OS installations. Can't access your files because your OS is sick? Boot from your CD drive and back-up your files using Knoppix before nuking your Windows install. It's also a good way to try out/familiarize yourself with the Linux OS without having a dual-boot PC.

Get it at http://www.knoppix.org/

[stumpy]

I was just reminded of IrfanView, which I use to view graphics files of many formats, create thumbnails and contact sheets, watch image slide shows, do very basic editing, etc. It is fast, easy to use, and has a nice interface. I have it set as the default program for opening an image file on my system.

[zuludelta]

Western Digital Data Lifeguard Tools: It's a general hard drive utility program specifically designed for EIDE (Fast ATA) Western Digital hard drives. It allows you to migrate data (including boot partition info) seamlessly from your old hard drive, set up partitions using a simple interface, and do basic diagnostics and maintenance. Available for Windows and DOS systems.

Warning: the following advice is provided as-is, and I make no assurances that following it will not result in data loss, hard drive failure, erectile dysfunction, or any other undesirable side-effects

In my experience though, I've found that it can also be used to migrate data and do basic operations on hard drives other than Western Digital-branded EIDE drives. I've used it on Seagate and Toshiba branded EIDE drives as well as Ultra ATA and SATA Western Digital drives with no apparent ill effects. If you're looking to migrate your boot partition, installed programs, and data to a new hard drive but don't want to go through the tedious process of re-installing your OS, apps, and software updates, give this a try (if you like living a little dangerously) before going out and buying a commercial data migration program. 

[catwhowalksbyhimself]

Let's put something fun on this list, shall we?

The Battle for Wesnoth

Arguable the best freeware game on the internet.  If you haven't already played it, or haven't recently, it's a TB Fantasy tactical strategy game with constantly improving artwork and campaigns, a large library of user-made mods, and a very large online multiplayer comunity with people in the lobby 24/7.

In fact, if anyone feel like challenging me, I'm fairly poor at this game, and wouldn't mind meeting some of my FR friends in this fashion.

[Podmark]

Hmm I think I'll take a look at that Cat.

EDIT: Ok thanks Zulu, I got the spell checker working. The problem was the western language setting.

[zuludelta]

More free stuff:

CPU-Z: a small freeware utility for identifying your PC's components. Not sure what RAM your store-bought box needs? No idea what model motherboard you have? This thing will tell you.

RASPPPOE: This nifty little bit of code has grown more obscure over the past couple of years, but it's an interesting tool for the hobbyist and the professional network administrator. It's PPP over Ethernet Protocol, which should allow older, non-broadband-ready Windows OSes like Windows 95, 98, and ME to access broadband modems the same way they would access dial-up modems. It's also compatible with Windows 2000 and XP, but for my money, whatever slim performance gains you might derive from it may not be worth the installation effort and any possible network compatibility issues.

Jetico Personal Firewall v.1: I've yet to find a better free firewall program than Comodo Firewall Pro but Jetico Personal Firewall v.1 is designed for older PCs using legacy Windows OSes such as Windows 98, Windows 98SE, Windows ME, and Windows NT. It may not provide as much comprehensive protection as Comodo or ZoneAlarm, but if you want to go safely online with your old 600 Mhz Pentium III without it choking on the firewall's system requirements, this is probably your best option.