It's time once again for our featured Movers and Shakers post. Each week, we take one software category and list the top ten most downloaded free apps. This week we will be looking at Video Software.
These are the applications that allow you to watch, convert or make videos on your Windows machine. Let's see who the top ten players are in CNet's most popular downloaded video applications.
1. FreeZ Online TV
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With over 11 million downloads Freez TV was pretty disappointing when I downloaded it. The channels are mediocre and some of them often freeze up. While we all would love free television on our computers over the Internet it probably will not appear any time soon. The application offers a bunch of channels with most of them not in English and there are no settings so you cannot tweak anything! |
2. VLC Media Player
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Now second place this week is VLC Media Player which has over 22 million downloads of all time. I personally love VLC and we have covered it before on MakeUseOf here. It can stream music and supports almost every file format you can think of. I also learned that it can play media files that are in zipped files! Thanks CNet! |
3. GOM Media Player
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GOM player is very similar to other media players with the addition of a awesome feature. It can play partially downloaded or corrupted video files without any user intervention. You start it up and it will play the video when it is finished working its magic. We have covered GOM before. |
4. FLV Player
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Even though Steve Jobs does not like it, Flash is a huge part of the internet as we know it. If you want to be able to download FLV files (Flash files) and play them locally then FLV Player is for you. Check it out for the low price of free. |
5. Windows Movie Maker (Windows XP)
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Using this free application for Windows XP you can edit, manipulate and share your own home movies. Using a drag and drop interface you can import your own videos. If you have large video files you want to manipulate, make sure your computer is up to snuff. There are options to add special effects and voice over's or music to your videos easily. |
- Media Player Codec Pack After installation of this codec pack your computer will now be able to play VCDs, SVCDs and DVDs for free. You will also be able to encode in Xvid, Divx, X264 and other popular formats. This is a dead simple way to make sure a video file will play on your parent's computer!
- Any Video Converter Any Video can convert almost any video type to any other type. It has presets for outputting to an iPod or PSP.
- Free YouTube to MP3 Converter Have you ever wanted to save the audio from a YouTube video as a MP3? Well, using this simple free application you can.
- SopCast Using this application, you can broadcast your own media or you can view media that is out there. This is very popular in Japan, China and Korea currently.
- KMPlayer This is the only free media player I know of that can capture a single frame or advance by a single frame. You can skin and customize this application to your heart's content if you don't mind an application without a manual!
Do you have a favorite application that you use to edit, convert, play or in any way touch media with? We would love to hear about your free solutions in the comments!