A List of Handy Free Software

Members – Please feel free to add to this list if you have come across some free software that’s been particularly helpful

7-Zip

7-zip is a freeware file zipping and compression program for Windows.
Download from: http://www.7-zip.org

SyncBack

Useful software for backing up documents onto another drive or synchronize 2 folders in destination. Effective for keeping a memory stick and documents on a computer up to date.
Download from: http://www.2brightsparks.com/downloads.html#freeware

iGoogle

iGoogle is your own customisable google interface with the ability to manage RSS feeds, calendars, widgets, online documents and much, much more…
Create your own iGoogle account at: http://www.igoogle.com or http://www.google.com/ig

Acid XPress

It’s easy to create original music-even if you’re new to loop-based music software. This is the freeware “XPress” version of the powerful and popular Sony Acid. Other Sony freeware and 30 day trials can be found at the Sony Media Software site.
Download from: http://www.sonycreativesoftware.com/download/step1.asp?catid=1

Audacity

Freeware audio recording – record, mix, process and export to wav or mp3
Download from: http://audacity.sourceforge.net/

Celtx

Celtx is effective software for film and play preproduction. It includes sections writing scenes, character descriptions, schedules, storyboarding and much, much more.
Download from: http://www.celtx.com/download.html

Monkey Jam

All you need is a web cam and Monkey Jam and you’re ready to start producing your own stopmotion animations.
Download from: http://www.giantscreamingrobotmonkeys.com/monkeyjam/download.html

HJ Split

Having trouble moving LARGE video or audio files around your computer. Did you know that one if the biggest problems that occurs with files over the 4GB size is that they can’t be copied on file system that is not NTFS. A lot of protable hard drives come set to FAT32 for cross platform compatibility and won’t take the copy, giving an error message that the disk is full (although it obviously isn’t). HJ Split is software that split or breaks apart large files and re-join them to a new location later without destroying the original. Great for HD and large video files. A warning – the interface is pretty ugly…
Download from: http://hjsplit.en.softonic.com/

EyesWeb

A complex yet powerful development tool for creating interactivity with video, video cameras and video output systems. Drag and drop structures to create signal manipulation algorithms. (A bit like MAX DSP for video…kinda cool, and nerdy)
Download from: http://www.infomus.org/ and go to the EyesWeb link on the left

Wax Video Editing Tool

Wax is a high performance and flexible video compositing and special effects software. The idea for Wax is to be very general purpose and flexible in video compositing and effects, so that you can compose your dream video sequence with ease everytime.
Wax can create 2D & 3D special effects and can work in two modes – as a standalone application which would appeal for home users/beginners, and as a “plug-in” to video editors/NLEs which would be more useful for professional editors. Currently Wax can work as a plug-in with Sony Vegas®, Pure Motion EditStudio and Adobe Premiere® and work for integrating with various other NLEs is in progress.
Download from: http://www.debugmode.com/wax/

WinMorph

WinMorph is a high performance morphing and warping software. With over 400,000 downloads and much more distributed through PC magazines and their CDROMs, WinMorph enjoys a very wide userbase, have been used in movies such as Dreamcatcher and real life projects such as roadshows for promoting products. Distributed as freeware for business or personal use. Currently only available for Windows, but will be ported soon to linux. Works standalone, and also as a plug-in for Adobe Premiere, Vegas Video and Wax.
Download from: http://www.debugmode.com/winmorph/download.php

UniDream PowerBatch

Power Batch freeware does batch convert, resize, rename, crop, rotate, and enhance. Conversion is performed among JPEG, TIFF, GIF, BITMAP, PNG and JPEG2000. Resizing can use one of the 11 resampling filters. Renaming template uses a combination of EXIF date/time, auto number and any custom string. A built-in FTP client lets you upload and download your photos directly to and from your server.
Download from: http://www.unidreamtech.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=8&Itemid=55

Video LAN VLC Media Player

VLC media player is a highly portable multimedia player and multimedia framework capable of reading most audio and video formats (MPEG-2, MPEG-4, H.264, DivX, MPEG-1, mp3, ogg, aac …) as well as DVDs, Audio CDs VCDs, and various streaming protocols. Also, if you film in EXCAM or use *.mxf files and want to view them on MAC without the need for a heavy duty NLE like Final Cut Pro, the VLC Mac version will do the job for previewing very nicely, thankyou…
Download from: http://www.videolan.org/vlc/

Perian – “The Swiss Army Knife for Quicktime”

Perian enables QuickTime application support for additional media:

• File formats: AVI, DIVX, FLV, MKV, GVI, VP6, and VFW
• Video types: MS-MPEG4 v1 & v2, DivX, 3ivx, H.264, Sorenson H.263, FLV/Sorenson Spark, FSV1, VP6, H263i, VP3, HuffYUV, FFVHuff, MPEG1 & MPEG2 Video, Fraps, Snow, NuppelVideo, Techsmith Screen Capture, DosBox Capture
• Audio types: Windows Media Audio v1 & v2, Flash ADPCM, Xiph Vorbis (in Matroska), and MPEG Layer I & II Audio, True Audio, DTS Coherent Acoustics, Nellymoser ASAO
• AVI support for: AAC, AC3 Audio, H.264, MPEG4, and VBR MP3
• Subtitle support for SSA/ASS and SRT

Download from: http://perian.org/#download