MakeUseOf Directory » media

Noow: Open-Source Video Player That Downloads Torrents & YouTube Videos [Windows]

Israel Nicolas — Wed, 19 Oct 2011 23:01:43 +0000

Finding, downloading, and playing videos have evolved in the past ten years. Before, getting videos from a DVD rental store was enough, but now we have torrents, video streaming services like YouTube, paid streaming like Netflix and Hulu, and RSS to keep us more than occupied. However, desktop apps have not caught up to these trends in terms of providing a seamless and integrated experience for sourcing and watching media.

Noow is an all-in-one desktop media player that hopes to become your one true solution for media management. This app does lots of things – it downloads torrents, download videos off YouTube, handle file conversions, manage podcasts, organize your playlists, and more.

This Windows-only app combines a sleek user interface with a tapestry of features. It has its own browser so you can browse and download videos from YouTube and Hulu with the videos going directly to your playlist. Likewise, you can search for and download torrents, which also feeds to the playlist once downloaded.

Podcast integration lets you do away with standalone podcast catchers, since Noow can index and feed the episodes to your playlist. If you have an Android or iOS device, you can perform file conversions for your devices straight from the app.

Noow’s strongest point is that it can replace the functions of 5-6 separate desktop apps. Whether its functionalities are better than using standalone apps is up for debate, but it is a welcome sight to see an app that keeps up with the times in terms of desktop media experience.

Features:

All in one video player.
Open source.
Combined playlist manager for videos and audio.
Other video sources that are included by default are Hulu, PBS, YouTorrent and ClearBits.
Podcast integration.
Preset conversion for iOS and Android.
Torrent search and client tool.

Check out Noow @ http://noow.com

iCollectMedia: Create, Manage & Share Your Video, Book & Music Collection

MOin — Fri, 27 May 2011 17:01:51 +0000

Creating a list of DVDs, games and books you own helps you manage your media. Additionally the lists make it easier to let your friends know what media you own. Here to help you create, manage, and share such lists is a web service called iCollectMedia.

iCollectMedia is a free to use web service that lets you create lists of the movies, games, and books you own. You can search for the name of a movie, game, or book; clicking on a search result reveals the item’s details. In the case of a movie these details include a summary, genre, etc. Clicking on the red “Add” button adds an item to your lists. Items in your list can be rated by you.

Your created lists can be easily shared using the forum code, embeddable code, and direct URL the site generates for them.

Features:

A user-friendly web service.
Lets you create, manage, and share lists of media you own.
Lets you create lists for movies, books, and games.
Lets you add media by searching for it.
Includes details about each media item.
Lets you rate the media in your list.
Generates direct URL, forum code, and embeddable code for your lists.
Similar tools: Listiki, Blist, urlist, Veedemus, Coollector, and Moovida.

Check out iCollectMedia @ www.icollectmedia.com (by MOin from ThumbPress)

Movie Monkey: Organize Movie Files On Your Desktop

Israel Nicolas — Fri, 06 May 2011 17:01:27 +0000

If you download movies every day, you will quickly find yourself stuck with so many unorganized files with no way of knowing which is which. While media centers like Boxxee do a good job of organizing movies, sometimes you just need a tool that is lightweight and gets the job done, such as Movie Monkey. This tool automagically checks for information online for the movie files in your hard drive.

Once you have Movie Monkey installed, all you need to do is import your movie files into the program, where the tool organizes them by genre. You can now click on each entry to read more about the movie. In addition it sorts movies into watched and not watched lists, so that you can quickly pull up movies that have been sitting in your hard drive waiting to be watched. Finally, you can use the movie information to search for titles in your hard drive.

Movie Monkey is a cool movie sorter for those who cannot be bothered to download a media center. The program is currently in free beta – just type “makeuseof” in the invite code to download the app.

Features:

Currently in free beta.
Easily organize your movie files.
Click on each movie for more information.
Sort watched and not watched list.
Search movie titles.
Similar Tools: Veedemus, Coollector, and Moovida.

Check out Movie Monkey @ download.cnet.com/Movie-Monkey

Sweet Home!: Transfer Data Wirelessly From Android To A Home Network

abhijeet — Sun, 20 Mar 2011 01:01:41 +0000

Sweet Home! is an Android app that lets users transfer data wirelessly from their Android phone to a local area network. That means whatever photos you took from your Android phone’s camera while you were out can now be quickly synchronized to your home computer over Wi-Fi. The file transfer starts automatically as soon as your phone detects and connects to the network, or you can manually upload.

It also keeps the files in sync when you are charging the phone, and the app can transfer files to any shared network device that can run the media. Overall, a pretty nifty app for Android users at the right price – $0.

Features

Transfer photos and videos from Android device to a shared network.
Transfer starts automatically when the phone connects to the network.
File transfer can be also done when the phone is charging.
Free to use.

Check out Sweet Home! @ market.android.com/details?id=sweesoft.sweethome (by Abhijeet from Guiding Tech)

Lifextender: Remove TV Commercials In Windows Media Center

abhijeet — Thu, 05 Aug 2010 03:01:26 +0000

If you usually watch recorded TV shows on your Windows computer using the Windows Media Center application then you might want to check out Lifextender. It is a software (could be also used as a media center add-in) that can automatically remove ads from recorded TV shows/videos.

When you run it for the first time, it scans your Media center for TV shows and once the process is completed, it begins the removal of commercials.

Lifextender uses Comskip, a free commercial detector, to detect commercials in a video. It also provides a lot of options like the ability to remove duplicate TV shows, auto-scanning the library, excluding certain videos and many more. It works with Windows Media Center in Vista and Windows 7.

Features

Tool to remove ads from recorded TV shows in Windows Media Center.
Uses Comskip to detect the commercials.
Easy to use. Scans the video and removes ads automatically.
Works wherever Windows Media Center does.

Check out Lifextender @ www.lifextender.com (via Ghacks By Abhijeet from Guiding Tech)

Dazzboard: Sync Your Files Across Multiple Devices

abhijeet — Sun, 20 Jun 2010 17:01:35 +0000

With so many devices to capture media like pictures, videos and music, the issue that arises inevitably is how to keep them in sync. While there are various data sync solutions available, Dazzboard looks unique and promising. It aims to provide a simple, drag and drop browser based media synchronization solution that supports all the popular browsers, mobile phones, mp3 players, personal media players like iTunes and certain other devices too.

Although Dazzboard’s interface is browser based, it works locally on your PC. You would need to download the corresponding plugins for different browsers to make it work. Once the interface is up and running, you can connect devices and drag and drop media. It also integrates with your social media library on Facebook, Flickr, YouTube etc once you log into them.

Features

Multi-device media sync solution.
Interface is browser based but the process happens locally.
Drag and drop functionality.
Install dazzboard browser plugins to get it working.
Supports many devices – device compatibility list.
Similar tools: TubeMyStuff, NomaDesk, Dropbox, Sugarsync and Syncplicity.

Check out Dazzboard @ www.dazzboard.com (via Lifehacker By Abhijeet from Guiding Tech)

EasyPrompter: Web Based & Free Teleprompter Software

TehseenBaweja — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 01:01:25 +0000

If you have ever been curious about how news readers remember so much, you must have stumbled upon the fact that they use a teleprompter. A teleprompter allows you to read stuff off it so you don’t have to memorize anything. With the help of an online and free teleprompter software called EasyPrompter, you can create one right in your browser window.

To start, click on Start a prompter and add the text you want. You can adjust the font size, the starting speed, highlight or capitalize text and even display time elapsed. Once you are done typing, launch the prompter and read like a news reader does. While reading, you can pause the prompter, forward or rewind it, slow it down, make it faster or change the font size.

Features:

Create a teleprompter in your browser window.
Customize by setting font size and times.
Control your script completely while reading.
Use in any browser or even on iPhone.
No registration required.
Similar tool: CuePrompter.

Visit EasyPrompter @ www.easyprompter.com (Contributed by Tehseen from Ijaar.com)

Legistalker: Track Activity of US Congressmen & Senators

azim — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 04:53:15 +0000

Nowadays, more and more politicians are embracing the Internet as a way to communicate with their voters and the rest of the world. Legistalker lets you track the latest online activity of US legislators (congressmen, senators) in one place.

You can view what they have voted on (motions, amendments, resolutions etc.), browse news mentions in online media sources (newspapers, blogs, magazines, YouTube videos) and follow their Twitter updates. Moreover, you may browse representatives for different US states and add them to a Watch List to track their latest online activity in one place. No registration needed.

Features:

Track online activity (news mentions, twitter updates, videos etc.) of US congressmen and senators in one place.
Search for a legislator from a search bar or browse representative from each state on a map.
Add politicians to your Watch List.

Check out Legistalker @ www.legistalker.org

CometDocs: Performs Over 50 Different File & Data Conversions

Kaly — Fri, 17 Apr 2009 00:33:57 +0000

CometDocs is a new and comprehensive file & data conversion tool which lets you do over 50 different conversions online. The site has a user-friendly interface and the process of converting files is easy and quick, simply select the file, pick a conversion method, enter your email address and then click on the “Send” button. Few seconds later you should receive an email with the download link to the converted file.

You can convert 3 pages at a time without registration, signing up for an account will lift all the limitations and won’t require you to enter the email address every time.

Here is a list of online conversions CometDocs can do:

Convert from PDF: (some conversion support OCR conversion for scanned PDF)

Convert to PDF:

Convert from XPS:

Other File Conversions:

Features:

Comprehensive file and data converter app.
Performs over 50 different file conversions, see list above.
Non registered users can convert only 3 pages at a time.
Registering on the site lifts all the limitations.
Free and simple to use.
Similar web tools: MediaPirate, YouConvertIt, Zamzar and several others.

Check out CometDocs @ www.cometdocs.com

MediaCloud: Visualize News Coverage On Internet

azim — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 04:43:45 +0000

Media Cloud lets you analyze news coverage across the Internet for different media organizations (ex. New York Times, BBC, CNN, Aljazeera etc.) and visualize this information as graph charts to compare who covers what.

From the page:

Media Cloud is a system that lets you see the flow of the media. The Internet is fundamentally altering the way that news is produced and distributed, but there are few comprehensive approaches to understanding the nature of these changes. Media Cloud automatically builds an archive of news stories and blog posts from the web, applies language processing, and gives you ways to analyze and visualize the data.

You can view 3 types of charts for each media source:

Most mentioned terms in each source.
Top 10 most used keywords in stories that contain a particular keyword (i.e. Obama).
Geographical areas with less and more coverage.

To view a chart, first select chart type, enter up to 3 media sources (start typing and select from suggestions) and press “Submit Query”.

Below is the visualization of news trends for two mainstream media organizations: New York Times and CNN.

Most mentioned news terms

Most covered geographical areas. Darker areas receive the most attention

Features:

Helps you analyze the flow of Internet news for different media organizations.
Visualize information as charts for each media source.
Check out most mentioned terms in each media source.
View top 10 most used keywords in stories that contain a particular keyword (eg. bailout).
See most covered geographical areas.
Free, no sign up.

Visit Media Cloud @ www.mediacloud.org