Getting a video out has always been one of the best ways to while away an evening at home. However, these days few people choose to trudge down to the video store, preferring to download a movie, or plunder the near-infinite archives on popular video sharing sites such as YouTube and Google Video. Until recently it's been impossible to obtain movies from these sites without having to stream them online. However, Vdownloader is one of a number of programs changing that, allowing you to download these videos to your computer in AVI or MPEG format.

Essentially what this means is that you don't need to wait an age for popular videos to start streaming and can keep your favourites on your hard drive to watch at any time. This application does the job as simply as you could wish for. The executable makes a very small footprint and although the interface is very barren, it makes it easy to grab videos from YouTube, Google Video, Grinvi or DailyMotion very quickly. Basically all you need to do is copy and paste the link to the video into the box provided and hit ‘download'. Alternatively, you can browse the sites themselves by selecting the portal of your choice from the drop-down menu.

In one sense, the sparseness of the interface is an advantage, as it keeps things as clean and simple as possible. In another respect we were left wanting for extra features and options to help us peruse and download the videos we want. Practically the only setting you can tweak is the via the format dialog, allowing you to specify the format of the saved video (AVI or MPEG), the size of the video and the audio bitrate. We feel that the addition of a built-in video search tool or some video compression utilities would have lifted the program from being a good program to a great one.

Add to the fact that you can't download embedded movies like the ones you find on the front page of Google Video and you can't help feel frustrated that VDownloader doesn't do quite as much as it perhaps could. Having said this, the app is still in the early stages of development and the fact that it is so lightweight makes it prefect for those who want to grab video content with the minimum of fuss.

Download VDownloader 0.73 in Softonic

These days we've seen plenty of tools to save Youtube videos to your hard drive, but what if you're only interested in saving the soundtrack of those videos? Then the best choice is probably this little application.

Free Youtube to MP3 Converter clearly states its aim in its own name: it grabs a Youtube video of your choice and saves its soundtrack to your hard drive in MP3 format. Although you can only save files one by one, the process is quite fast.

The program enables you to choose between four possible quality presets but doesn't allow you to create new ones.

Download Free YouTube to MP3 Converter 3.1.1.1 in Softonic

Normally you can only connect one application to a single video capture source. SplitCamera is a freeware virtual video clone and split video capture driver for connecting several applications to a single video capture source.

Usually, if you have a web camera or video camera connected to your computer, you cannot use it in more than one application at the same time, and there are no standard Windows options that make it possible. Split Camera driver allows you to easily multiply your web-camera (any model), video cameras (analogue or digital including VHS, DV, TV-IN or TV-tuner).

These can be added to video chat or video conferencing software like ICQ, Yahoo Messenger, MSN Messenger, Skype Video, Camfrog, AOL AIM, Pal Talk and more. The maximum connection is for up to 64 clients in a single video source. You can also use splitcam to send your home videos at the same time to many video conference programs such as a friend using MSN Messenger that can see your home video while another friend uses Yahoo messenger can see it too.

This program is an excellent idea although in reality, coordinating between multiple messengers or video sources can become very confusing. The setup process is also tricky and you might find yourself spending more time trying to get simultaneous images than actually using it.

Download SplitCam 4.1 in Softonic

iTube is an easy to use Windows program that will enable you to transfer any YouTube video onto your iPod video. Simply enter in the YouTube page URL and iTube will download the file, convert it, and then import it directly into iTunes. The next time you plug in your iPod video it will automatically transfer. If you don't have an iPod video, you can still watch the movie in iTunes.

Download iTube 2.0 in Softonic

Today, technology brings the end of the boring, complicated, and "un-TVfriendly" PC interface. SesamTV has developed an interface that stands out for its clearness, its efficiency, its friendliness, and -- last but not least -- the fun it brings to the multimedia experience.

Home

Access to SesamTV™ Media Center players and to the playlist. It’s possibility to add external shortcuts to other PC software on Main Menu list, as well as to personalize all skins.

Television

Watch, record and pause Live TV(time-shifting). TV tuner card is needed (see the list of cards).

Audio player

Listen music files (MP3) from your PC, play if from CD or USB connected device. List files by artist, album or style. Automatically extracted ID3V2 tags to get information on artist, album and music style. Create music Playlist. Turn on a full screen visualisations, synchronized with the music.

Video player

View all the video file from your PC, play them from CD or USB connected device. List files by date or name. All the video file types are supported if the right codec is installed (DivX, Xvid, MPEG, WMF,…).

DVD player

Replace for classical DVD player. Full screen or adaptable window size display. Video controls - play, pause, stop, forward, rewind and navigate through the menu with the remote control.

Photo album

Create photo albums. Supported formats - jpg, bmp... List files by date or name. Make a full screen slideshow with background music.

My Programs

Add PC software shortcuts to SesamTV™ Media Center interface. Control them remotely with personalised remote control buttons (using IRAssistant).

Internet Radios

Free access to Internet radios from ComFM. You also can add manually your own radios.

Playlist

Creation of audio/video playlists. Management of the items in the playlist. Shuffle mode. Recording and loading of playlists.

Remote control

Optimised for a remote control use. Access all the features with only 5 buttons (arrows + OK). Quick access to main features (play, pause, rewind, full screen, TV out,...).

Download SesamTV Media Center 2.1 in Softonic

They say that if you really appreciate cinema you should watch only movies without dubbing, but if you don't master the original language you're probably going to miss a lot of the movie's plot. Now you can prevent this with SubEdit Player, a video player that includes a built-in text editor especially designed for subtitles.

This video editor can not only display subtitles along with the movie you're watching but also lets you meddle with the subtitles file in case there's a line that needs to be corrected. Other configuration options enable you to set the text font, size and color, change the way they're displayed or fine tune their synchronization with images.

SubEdit works with the most popular formats both for video and subtitles. It also includes a search tool to find and download subtitles from the Internet, although unfortunately we weren't able to make it work. The Help file wasn't very helpful either, as it's all in Polish.

Download SubEdit Player Build 4060 in Softonic

Open source video editors can very often be a mixed bag - there's a good reason why industry standard editing packages cost a lot of money. However, Jashaka bucks the trend with an excellent special effects editor that's surprisingly easy to use and best of all, doesn't cost a penny.

Once Jahshaka has started, you'll be presented with a blank desktop similar to a windows desktop where you manage all your media. You simply load some clips onto this desktop and they will appear as image thumbnails. All the editing done in Jahshaka is performed in real time because the program has been designed to get the best out of even the slowest processors. Probably the most impressive feature of the program is the morphing interface which allows you to create and pre-visualise effects in real time. You can literally drag and twist video images to your liking until you've got it right and are ready to render.

The program accepts video in almost any format including huge HDTV files. It's also been designed with collaboration in mind as you can run it directly from a server to share with other editors. The animator is considerably harder to use although with patience, you can achieve some very impressive results. To view your creations, there's also the Jahplayer media player. Just return to the desktop, right click on one of the clips and select "open in Jahplayer". It's pretty basic but it allows you to easily preview your videos as you go along.

This is still very much a work in progress but if you're looking for a cheap solution to video editing, you'll be really impressed by Jahshaka.

Download Jahshaka 2.0 RC4 in Softonic

Have you ever recorded a video with your mobile phone, only to find out later on that you were holding it upside down? The video has been already recorded and there's no way to fix it.

Well, now there is. It's called Free Video Flip and Rotate and it's a very simple tool with which you can easily rotate or flip all your videos. Simply select the video you want to work with, choose the preset you want you apply and click on Start.

The whole process is really easy and takes only a few minutes. On the downside, the program doesn't allow users to create new presets and can only save fixed videos in AVI format, no matter what the source format is.

Free Video Flip and Rotate enables you to fix videos that haven't been properly recorded, rotating or flipping the image in a very simple way.

Download Free Video Flip and Rotate 1.2.1.1 in Softonic

AoA Audio Extractor provides you a handy tool to extract audio/sound or background music from video files.

With AoA Audio Extractor, you can easily extract audio tracks from AVI/DivX/XviD, MPEG, MPG, DAT, WMV, MOV, MP4, 3GP video files and save them as MP3, WAV and AC3 formats.

It can also be used to save any portion of the audio of a video file. AoA Audio Extractor is free so you never need to pay for AoA Audio Extractor.

Download AoA Audio Extractor 1.1.8 in Softonic

DVdate features a multimedia player which can read the video (including in full screen) and browse easily in the video with CTRL+ array keys, and even browse from scene to scene. It displays in real time the datecode and timecode of the frame being played. DVdate displays also complete information about the AVI file. Like the utility Gspot, it indicates the codec, the image size, the number of frames per second, the duration of the video etc..., when dealing with DV files, it adds the type I or II and the TV standard Pal or NTSC or even the aspect ratio 4x3 or 16x9. It features also a function to display the RIFF header of an avi file, like riffwalk.exe from Microsoft used to do.

DVdate is able to load a great number of avi files into its "playlist", and process them individually or altogether. It displays automatically the video of each selected file.. With one keyboard hit (CTRL+F7) it may even load all avi files present on all your hard drives.

Download DVdate 6.4.1 in Softonic

VCam is a WDM-based software camera developed by e2eSoft, it can be used in most of the applications which support camera, such as MSN, Yahoo! Messenger, Skype, QQ, network video chatting, video conferencing, video editing applications, video monitoring applications and many others.

You can use it for sharing videos with your remote friends, using recorded movies, images and even your desktop as the content of video chatting. It can play DV, digital cameras as well, supports image alpha-overlay and many cool video effects.

Download VCam 1.2.1 in Softonic

Sharing video is becoming increasingly important with bandwidths and hard drives getting bigger.

It's about time then than someone harnessed the power of P2P technology to share video which is what the developers of SwarmPlayer have done. SwarmPlayer essentially combines three ways of video watching and sharing i.e. Downloading videos, streaming videos, and watching videos while they are being generated i.e. via webcam. Effectively, SwarmPlayer allows a single player to download movies, watch video-on-demand, and watch live video streams using one technology, while taking advantage of the popularity and maturity of existing BitTorrent clients.

At the moment SwarmPlayer is purely in testing mode and you can only watch two videos -
a BBC test program (a weather report) and something called the "Fabchannel" which is basically a webcam on a TV station rooftop in Amsterdam - not very interesting. However, the SwarmPlayer principle looks good - you can see how many people are watching a stream at one time via the stats page which is great for those that are learning to produce their own broadcasts and want to know how popular it is via SwarmPlayer.

SwarmPlayer is potentially a new and exciting way to share video over the net although it may be a while before the finished product is released.

Download SwarmPlayer 1.0.1 in Softonic

You can spend hours watching videos on Youtube and other similar websites and having lots of fun, but what if you want to recover those videos later on? Sure, you can always search through your browsing history, but that takes a lot of time and it doesn't always work.

It's much easier to use VideoCacheView and let it recover all the videos you've watched online for you. This program analyzes your web browser's cache (from both Internet Explorer and Firefox) and extracts all the video files stored in it. You can then watch them again, as long as you have the right player. What's more, the program also includes a link to download the file to your hard drive.

VideoCacheView is great to review videos you specially enjoyed, but it does have some limitations: for example, videos are not always stored in cache while you play them online, which means VideoCacheView won't be able to recover them. Also, if you want to access the latest videos you've watched, you'll have to close the web browser.

Download VideoCacheView 1.07 in Softonic

No matter how small and light your video camera is, holding it steady while you walk or keeping it still over long stretches of time is no simple task. And even though many of today's camcoders are equipped with an auto stabilization feature, they don't "get" it all. Thanks to ArcSoft Video Stabilizer, there’s now a quick, simple way to repair digital video shaking right on your computer.

Download ArcSoft Video Stabilizer 1.0.9.24 in Softonic

If you need to improve the quality of your videos or solve one of the most common problems with video files – noisy video, too dark image, insufficient brightness and contrast, wrong white balance, interlaced video, blurred or purple image and others, or you want to make home videos look like an old 30s movie or very futuristic, the EnhanceMovie program is a must for you!

EnhanceMovies is an extremely simple video enhancer. The entire idea behind the software is to make it possible for any person (yes, even your grandma) to improve the quality of digital video. Plus, EnhanceMovie has several artistic filters that will make home videos look very unusual. Drag-and-Drop interface, Auto Filters and useful Tutorials available in EnhanceMovie make the video restoration process extremely fast and easy.

Download EnhanceMovie 2.4.6 in Softonic

VideoInspector is a tool designed to provide you with as much information as possible about your video files. With VideoInspector you'll know why your video file has no sound or refuses to play correctly.

VideoInspector will help you install the required codec (coder/decoder software) for optimal performance. VideoInspector can also inspect your system to find which codecs are available, and it can also process multiple video files and export its result in HTML or plain text files.

Download VideoInspector 1.12.0.112 in Softonic

Riva VX is a professional Authoring-Solution to enrich Videos with Hyperlinks and Interactivity. „VX“ stands for this new kind of Video Experience. Give your viewers freedom and options to view your video-content. Let users decide on what they are going to see next and which way the story should run or which end it should take. Let them also decide on what additional information should be screened or what kind of action or event they want to start.

Download Riva Producer Lite 2.54 in Softonic

VCDEasy allows you to play/watch your videos (from DV camcorder, DivX, DVD,...), your pictures (from digital camera, scanner,...) and your audio files (music, audio comments,...) directly on most of the home DVD players, without having to buy a DVD Writer and DVD discs. How? VCDEasy allows you to build VideoCDs (VCD/SVCD)!

A VCD is a CD (CD-R or CD-RW, so cheap) that can contain up to 80 minutes video, up to 1980 pictures, up to 6 hours of audio (CD sound quality), or a mix of them. On a VCD, it is also possible to have menus and chapters, similiar to DVDs. You can also have simple photo album/slide shows. The same way most of the home DVD player and computers can play Audio CDs, a VCD can be played on almost all standalone DVD players (only a few persons know that!) and of course on all computers with a DVD-ROM or CD-ROM drive with the help of a software player.

Download VCDEasy 3.1.0 in Softonic

There's nothing more annoying that downloading a video file and realising that it won't play properly or it's corrupted in some way.

Usually you have no choice but to find an alternative download but not so with Digital Video Repair. It can repair AVI files in a number of incomplete download scenarios such as failure to completely copy from CD, DVD or other source and when an AVI file has not completely downloaded from the Internet on a P2P app such as eDonkey or BitTorrent. Alternatively, it can help when you find that video is freezed when playing, it won't rewind or fast forward properly or when the play button simply doesn't get you anywhere. Well that's the theory anyway. In practice, there are so many reasons why files won't play including codec issues and corrupted downloads that it's impossible that any one program can solve all of your problems. Then of course, there's the simple problem of CD's and DVD's that won't read properly which there's nothing much you can do about. More often than not, the program will process your AVI files but you'll notice no improvement afterwards.

A nice idea and probably useful for very superficial playback problems but if you're file is seriously corrupted or you've got codec problems, this won't be of much use.

Download Digital Video Repair 1.02 in Softonic

Do you want to add your company logo to any video? Use VidLogo to modify video files and add logos and video watermarks. Use animated logo or AVI logo for videos like a TV sign in one of the corners of screen. VidLogo supports AVI, BMP, JPEG graphic formats for logos. True Alpha in video is fuly supported.

Features:

• Add bitmap (bmp, jpeg, gif) logo to video
• Add video AVI logo to video
• Convert video to AVI with different codec (recodec AVI)
• Fast conversion speed
• Supports AVI, ASF, WMV, DivX, XVid, 3ivx, MP4
• Easy to use interface

Download VidLogo 3.5 in Softonic