VirtualDub, a first approach

If just by hearing the name of the software, you automatically refer it, to a certain degree, with anything related to video and video processing. Well, I have to say, your intuition is pretty much lubricated. VirtualDub is, as defined on its webpage, “a video capture/processing utility for 32-bit and 64-bit Windows platforms, streamlined for fast linear operations over video”. Anyhow, VirtualDub is mainly geared toward originally processing AVI files, although it can read MPEG-1 and handle sets of BMP images. But, as time passed and the program became more popular among users, a plugin API was designed and added from version 1.7.2, allowing the import of other formats.

VirtualDub, translation

So, basically, we have a program that allows you to capture and process videos with this one. Id est, cleaning, trimming, cutting, converting scenes, and merging videos, among many other cool and useful features.

You might indeed read on the internet that it lacks the editing power of a general-purpose editor, but that was not VirtualDub's goal in the first place. This open-source software does not want to be popular on the fully-featured programs rankings, it is just a helpful tool designed to be just that, plus it is capable of accomplishing multiple tasks that would usually call for other separate applications.

VirtualDub and its users

Even though “user-friendly” became an overused concept for any program and application, here we are in front of a reasonable use of the word. Designed not to be something convoluted, the application does not present setbacks in learning how to use and operate it. The user's interface featured might not be comfortable at the beginning, but, just like with everything else in life, one can easily get used to it and quickly realize that it is not hard to understand with just a bit of practice. Also, you will notice that the one putting this software together was a simple man, placing all the functions logically on accessible menus and allowing the user to depend on keyboard shortcuts to make it easy to perform the basic operations.

VirtualDub: Classic Features

Among the basic features of the open-source program, we can count on the following ones:

• Fractional frame rates

• Optimized disk access

• Create openDML files

• Integrate volume meter

• Real-time downsizing

• Field swapping

• Noise reduction

• Verbose monitoring

VirtualDub: Advanced Features

Yeah, the basic features say a lot about the usefulness of VirtualDub, but, in truth, what makes it to be truly unique when it comes to linear video processing, is the fact that there are a lot of third-party plug-ins out there for the software as it is open-source, most of them related to either aesthetic effects or cleaning, fixing, and restoring image quality.

VirtualDub, a word from the creator

I basically started VirtualDub in college to do some quick capture-and-encoding that I wanted done; from there it's basically grown into a more general utility that can trim and clean up video before exporting to tape or processing with another program. I released it on the web and others found it useful, so I've been tinkering around with its code ever since. If you have the time, please download and enjoy.

Yes, that is correct. We are not talking here about some big corporation or somebody asking you to pay money for a product. This is just a nice and smart guy being a good dude and giving everyone free powerful encoding, trimming, editing, and more.

VirtualDub, in the flesh

It is easy to realize that when you decide to work with a specific Video Editing Software, it’s crucial to see how real people and companies feel about it and how the experts evaluate it in their reviews. To summarize that item, VirtualDub has more features than one would have expected from freeware.

Just a couple of years ago, the experts on the subject considered VirtualDub to be one of the leading free Open-Source video capture and processing tools of the market, based upon its powerful versatility and usefulness in the field of video processing, and it was even considered as something of a 'Photoshop' for video files. If the experts recommend it, is there anything else to add?