SUPER Video Encoder

SUPER is a video encoder software for Windows. It is developed and distributed for free by eRightsoft.

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SUPER is not an encoder by itself. It is just a GUI front-end for real encoders beneath. These encoders include FFmpeg, MEncoder, MPlayer, x264, ffmpeg2theora, musepack, Monkey's Audio, True Audio, WavPack, libavcodec, and the Theora/Vorbis RealProducer plugIn projects. SUPER is meant to replace the command line interface which are used by these back-end encoders.

While the encoders used underneath this software are mostly open-source, the case is different with SUPER where it is closed-source and solely developed by eRightsoft. Despite this, SUPER keeps up its reputation of having rapid development with almost having one new version each month. This development rate is usually only seen on open-source software.

Being a video encoder (it also features audio encoder as well), minimum system requirement by this software is quite high, although it may not as high as most of other commercially available encoders. For instance, it requires a CPU of minimum 1.8GHz clockspeed, 512MB RAM with 176MB free system memory and 20GB of free space in the partition where the OS is installed. This however should have been expected and should not be much an issue anymore in today's computing. In fact, this requirement is already low enough to make professional video encoding viable. Anyways, during the test on an old Pentium 3 1GHz machine (with 512MB SDRAM), the software face no problem at all encoding a full length movie, albeit took a few hours longer compared to on newer Intel Core 2 Duo machine.

eRightsoft so very confident of their software and claims that "SUPER does for free what other encoders can't do for money". This is quite true considering how many formats the software supported and the availability of presets for mobile device such as SONY PSP, Nintendo-DS, iPod and NOKIA phones adds more value to this software.

After all this, SUPER also comes with some flaws. It lacks of controls that might have been posible by using the command line interface. For example, 'intercoding/transcoding' (encoding from another encoded format) an anime movie with Matroska video format (*.mkv) to an *.avi (with x.264 video codec) are missing the option to resize the font for the subtitles (since subtitle comes as a separate layer in MKV), rendering the resulting movie with the default subtitle size covering more than 10% of the scree, which is pretty much annoying to watch. This option should have been made available in the first place for most MKV videos might have more than 1 embedded subtitles/audio.

Overall, SUPER is good for home use, and might be great to be used side by side with other free video encoding/editing software like VirtualDub and tMPEGenc.

Get SUPER for free here:
http://www.erightsoft.com/S6Kg1.html

Apple iTunes

Apple iTunes is a free media player for both Windows and Mac OS X. It was a media library made by Apple for Mac OS X only until a Windows-ported was launched since version 4. It was a hit since then.

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Initially as a proprietary digital music organizer for Mac computer and iPod, iTunes is now regarded as one of the best media player of all time. Despite the criticism it received for not having a Windows version from the beginning, today many Windows user who have tried iTunes are satisfied and decided to continue using it. It has evolved much, with the current version (ver. 8.2 at the time of writing) offers several features like movie player (though limited to mp4 video only, not even the Quicktime mov files), podcasting and many more.

As its name bears, the iTunes player is associated with the iTunes online music store in many ways. Registered user can purchase songs (DRM-enabled) via this service for less than US$1 per song, though user would need a credit card to make a purchase. This is quite cheap for most users, and also comparable to most of other online music stores.

On the surface, iTunes is very simple to use, especially the Library that is much more easier to manage than those found in Winamp or Windows Media Player. Just with a few clicks and drags&drops, you'll be just a step away to play your selection of songs a.k.a. playlist. Media library can't be easier than this.

iTunes also features built-in CD ripping, allowing you to convert CD musics to AAC (DRM or non-DRM), mp3 or Apple Lossless. It also plays non-DRM Windows Media Audio (WMA) files but it could have been better if it allows conversion to other format like FLAC. iTunes also supports 3rd party plugins but so far there is no plugin to extend the capabilities of handling the non-default audio format.

Even iTunes comes with its flaws too. It is BLOATED with many most likely unnecessary stuff like the Bonjour service and less than useful Quicktime player, though Bonjour may be uninstalled later. Quicktime is however compulsory or iTunes won't work, which may make people doubt is iTunes by itself really a media player when it has to rely on the presence of Quicktime where most of the time Quicktime is only used to watch downloaded movie trailers? There are ways to use iTunes without Quicktime but this is another story.

Users also have been nagging for a long time about iTunes support for portable media player other than iPod but Apple is just too stubborn (or stupid) to listen to these complaints. Thank God there is a software named Bad Apple that allows iTunes to work seamlessly with most major portable media player like Creative Zen and Microsoft Zune although there is no guarantee that the process would be fuss-free. Overall, iTunes still do a good job especially allowing each song to have its own equalizer setting (because different song need different equalization).

Get iTunes for free here:
http://www.apple.com/itunes/download/

Beo Player

Beo Player is a free mp3 player made by Bang & Olufsen for Windows. The program is currently in its 5th version, now with support for picture management since the 4th version. There is no video playing capability yet, and it is likely that Bang & Olufsen won’t include video playing at least in the near future.

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Despite in version 5, the program has not much changes since the very first one. It still retaining the same look, and as expected, there is no EQ control at all. This may be surprising for many but Bang & Olufsen claimed that this player produce “honest sound” so there is no need for an equalizer. This might be true considering that Bang & Olufsen is well known for producing premium-priced audio-video products as well as being one of the oldest consumer electronic company that still survive since the World War II (they made the communication radio for the war veterans on that time!). Perhaps even their physical products range don’t have EQ as well? Who knows, unless we buy them and have a try ourselves, but that is not likely since the price to pay may cost us both of our arms and legs. Even their 256 MB mp3 player costs more than the latest generation of iPod (which have tens more of gigabytes for your music at the same price)! Luxury, quality or stupidity? Anyways, just live it at that.

As mentioned earlier, Bang & Olufsen claimed the player to have the most honest sound (playing the music as it was recorded). Well, at least it is true at both theoretical and software level but not in practice. In the test, Beo Player was compared head to head with other 2 much-loved players, namely iTunes and Winamp. Since Beo Player does not come with any EQ, so to make the competition fair, both Winamp and iTunes EQ are disabled. During the test, there was no noticeable difference or perhaps no difference at all between those players when playing music. Therefore, Bang & Olufsen’s claim of the so-called “honest sound” is not necessarily true. If it is just about being minimalized player, even low profile players like Freeamp and Liteamp do much better, and both of the latter even comes with EQ. Bang & Olufsen seems to have bad karma with EQ and mysteriously keeps avoiding to incorporate that feature in their products range. Music may need to be listened as it was intended but it is a fact that different people have different hearings. Therefore some people may need enhanced bass or treble in order to enjoy the music. iTunes is better in providing this, by allowing different songs to have different EQ settings; perhaps because different music needs different adjustment? Winamp also can be enhanced to do the similar thing by using the RTEQ plugin (Realtime Equalizer), a kind of dynamic equalizer that adjusted automatically based on initial user settings. The reason of this one is, on the hand might be “because different parts of music need different sets of equalizer settings”? Again, just leave it at that for now.

Beo Player also is not really having small footprint. It occupies almost 80 MB of disk space upon installation and another 8 MB of system memory when running idle. Not to mention the 30 MB requirement of system resources when playing the music. 8 MB is maybe small enough for a media player but to run on, Beo Player needs a background program called Beotray that occupies 5 MB of system memory. That is ridiculous for being a background program, especially for something that only appear on system tray and only have the ‘Exit’ command. It should have occupied smaller resource or at least do more things than just closing the program.

The interface is prretty simple but may be confusing and not straight forward for first timer. Unlike any other existing media player out there, it has no application window at all. All there are only vertical autohiding player bar on the righthand side of the screen and the autohiding library bar on the other. The info and scan ‘window’ only appear between these bars, covering the entire screen when you click on the assosicated buttons. The available buttons are the resemblance of those found on BeoSound 2000 (mp3 player) and Beo remote control. You might not have the slightest idea to know what this and that button do unless you are ready to experimenting with them, and there is no tooltip to guide you. Luckily, just like the buttons on iPod, there are very few of them on Beo Player and you’ll master them in no time. There’s also a cool-looking and extensive help file should you need assistance, and the guide is also available in several European languages as well, if English is not for you (not surprising as Bang & Olufsen is based in Germany after all).

On functionality, the player also features speedy CD ripping, one of the feature should hae been found in any media player these days, although Winamp still shamefully offer restrictive function for that (the full speed ripping is locked until you purchase it! Damn!). Media is added to the library by scanning the hard drive and there is no way to selectively scan only certain folders so you will have to wait longer if you have your music scattered in your local disk. Songs are divided by Playlists, Albums, Genres, Artists, Folders and Titles. The library looks pleasing too, as if it is an AJAX website. It also features album art display, if you have any (you should have, if your mp3s are original!).

The most annying part of this player is the software keeps bugging you to register before you could run it, although this can be skipped by simply canceling the process. This is weird for a free software to do, and Bang & Olufsen should know there are many people who choose to stay completely in privacy by refusing to register any software at all. If you are lucky, you’ll see the window with the checkbox “Stop reminding me” after several times (usually when it detected active internet connection). Choose it and the bugging registration window will gone and you can continue using the software. However, some people may not lucky enough where the player refuses to run. This usually occur you refuse to register when the internet connection is present. In this case, those who are on older Windows will be out of luck but for Windows XP and Vista user, if you still despereately need to run this software, you can just create another user account and use it there (regardless the privileges).

Overall, this player may get 2.5 points out of 10 and is not really recommended for those who used to EQ-enhanced music.

Get Beo Player here:
https://www.bang-olufsen.com/beoplayer/software-downloads

Paint.NET

Paint.NET, as its name bears is a free digital painting software for Windows. It is built based on the existing Microsoft Paint by some college students in US. The development project itself is advised and assisted by Microsoft as a mean to be an extended version of Microsoft Paint. Again, as it name bears, the software is built on Microsoft .NET Framework, thus requires the .NET installed to use it. Windows Vista should come with .NET and Windows XP user may download it from Microsoft website.

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As an ‘extended version’ of Microsoft Paint, Paint.NET is a more polished software with a set of tools not available for the former, such as layering capability. The interface is clean and looks pleasing, especially those inactive floating windows that changes transparency/opacity on mouse hover. This is good to make sure the hidden part of the working document remains half-visible when covered by those floating windows, eliminating the need to constantly move/close those windows just to see how things are going beneath them.

Yes, this software DO have layering capabilities, but it only supported on the *.pdn file format since it can’t handle any Photoshop *.psd files or at least the VESA standard *.svg files that is used by Inkscape, the free-opensource illustration software. Anyway, it still handles the legacy Windows Bitmap (*.bmp) files well just like the original Microsoft Paint. The Tools, on the other hand only offers very slight or almost no enhancement over the original ones. For example, the Line and Curve tool is now shares the same button but the Curve can only be edited once as in the original Paint, except in this software it allows you to move the control point as much as you want, as long as the curve is still selected/active. Once you deselect it, there is no turning back. This is funny as it shows that the developer could make it similar to the Path/Pen tool but surprisingly or mysteriously, they didn’t and they choose to go the lame and annoying old-school way. Even the vertical scrollbar also works funny. You may scroll smoothly using the mouse scroll button but when you drag the scroll control button, the document remain static until you release the mouse button to see how much you have scrolled. This is the most unacceptable aspect of this software considering that we are no longer in the days of Windows 9x.

Truly, this software is more towards the fun compared to other free tools like Artweaver. Not really recommend but it’s worth a try.

Get Paint.NET here:
http://www.getpaint.net/download.html

Artweaver

Artweaver is a free digital painting software for Windows. It has been around for about a year and is currently in version 0.5.

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Artweaver is one of the best available alternative for Microsoft Paint, as it offers more brush control as well as layering capability, great for those who like to paint separate and manageable elements. The interface shares much similarities with Photoshop, especially the Tools, Preview, Layers and Color palette. The Brush control window somehow offers much more control compared to Photoshop. Even the layer blending mode also matches Photoshop capabilities, if not better.

Artweaver has its own layer-enabled file format, Artweaver Document (*.awd) and it also can handle Photoshop’s *.psd files well without a glitch. However, opening a large (1024×768) PSD file seem to take a long time as if opening it on Photoshop itself, despite this program’s small footprint (approx. 25 MB when installed). Upon creating 10 layers, it only occupies roughly 70 MB of system memory, compared to 150 MB required when opening the same file using Photoshop CS4. The software didn’t crash during the test although there seems to be some minor bugs that preventing the document window to be resized once in a while.

Artweaver is truly a painter tools since it offers nothing more but a full set of brushes to meddle with. There is no path/pen tool to be expected; a common disability often found in free graphic software or rather a mistake that should have not been committed by any free graphic software developer. It is quite a shame for such good graphic software does not have this tool but given the great effects achievable using the brushes alone, any artist have to bear with this unavailability.

Overall, Artweaver is good though it might be better if the developer could incorporate the path/pen tool. It works great for those who have graphic tablets like those of Cintiq or Wacom. For those who only have the mouse would find it hard though.

Get Artweaver here:
http://www.artweaver.de/index.php?downloads_en