Free Stuff: Making Movies for Nothing

Quick & Fast: VDub is the most popular video “conveditor”. It’s purpose is trimming programs, recorded TV shows, basic editing, etc. I personally use it for video encoding, making AVIs into more useful AVIs by importing and then exporting or importing MJPEG sequences and exporting to AVI. I personally like Any Video Converter more for encoding/converting.

IMPORT FORMATS: AVI, MPEG-1, MJPEG (JPEG Sequence)
EXPORT FORMATS: AVI

Where you get it: www.virtualdub.org Only for Windows. 

VirtualDub was created by a guy named Avery Lee while he was in college, in order to trim and otherwise clean up anime cartoon shows he recorded. It’s fairly well known in the freeware crowd because the interface is very basic and the program is very useful. It’s an in-between program: more of an encoder than what we think of as a normal editor, but more of an editor than we think of as an encoder. It is possible to batch import clips and then mark, copy, delete and paste somewhere else. You cannot add titles, edit audio or add music, just trim, clean up recordings and export. It is also possible to superimpose a picture on top of your footage, so this would be a way to do titles. It is also limited format-wise (see above).

There are also some video and audio filters for VDub. One of the video filters is for superimposing a picture, as mentioned above. The audio filters are grayed out in the menu. Very strange. (Note: It’s been a while since I first wrote this. The grayed out audio filters may simply have been because the video I imported had no audio.)

VARIANTS: Since VDub is so basic, some people have built there own variants using the source code(this is perfectly legal under GNU GPL and people do it all the time with freeware, since the GNU GPL requires that the source code be available. This is more intense than I want to get into, so I mention it only in passing). The two major variants recognized by the VDub community are VirtualDub Mod and VirtualDub-MPEG2.

VirtualDub Mod is the basic VDub, with some more formats added, including export formats. Still, MPEG2 was not supported, so ripping from that sort of DVDs was impossible (You can import MPEG1 from DVDs, just like the original VDub). The program has quit being developed, but you can still download it at the website.  VDub Mod is also only for Windows.
IMPORT FORMATS: Pretty much anything but WMV, ASF and MPEG-2.
EXPORT FORMATS: AVI, MPEG-1, MJPEG

VirtualDub-MPEG2 is VDub with VOB and MPEG2 support. I haven’t been able to discover if it’s better than VDub Mod or not. As it’s name suggests, it can do MPEG2 – ripping DVDs. This makes the program more useful than either VDub or VDub Mod, in my opinion. However, I imported a DVD file into VDub-MPEG2 and it wouldn’t play, because a codec was missing for my specific VOB, so I could scrub the timeline, but not play. Get VDub MPEG2 Here. Only for Windows.

In summary, this is a pretty popular and nifty program. Kim Komando and others have had good things to say about it. With regards to variants, one guy on the VDub forums recommends VirtualDub Mod and MPEG2 for their specific functions if you need them, but it brings up a question why there isn’t one program that does it all?

TMPGEnc: Since VDub has problems with different formats, this encoder program is recommended for converting/encoding, etc. However, TMPGEnc is NOT a freeware! Figures. For more info, go to the Non-Freeware of Interest page. This is why I like Avidemux/MPEG Streamclip, because they can handle more formats, better than VDub.

Tutorials: The original VDub has internet documentation, FAQs and a forum on it’s website. VDub Mod has it’s own FAQs and extra help, but it’s forum link goes to the original VDub forum. VDub-MPEG2 is only a link off the main site, as far as I can tell.

I also found this tutorial that looks really good for the original VDub! Go to http://youtube.jimmyr.com/tutorials/JjWwlaE8kps.php

License and Use: VDub and it’s variants are all under GNU GPL.

No demo for this freeware. If you have a movie you made using VirtualDub, comment on the blog including your name and email address and I’ll get back to you. I will not post your contact info without your consent.