I am always on the lookout for interesting animations to feature on this blog (click this link for a list). I was just sent this by reader and sometimes contributor Elioz Heffer who described it as follows (with some edits on my part):

"Zoomquilt II is just like a quilt blanket was made from about 20 artists contributions. The beauty of it is that the drawings are put into a never ending zoom motion (inwards or outwards) [as] you enter the microscopic world …

When opening the picture, it will take few moments to upload and then will present the pictures (interrelated) in a zoom motion. You can choose the direction (Zoom in or Zoom out) and the speed … If you look [closely] enough you’ll notice that it finally returns to the same starting point like a perpetuum mobile, but you are tricked to believe it is a fluid part of the Hellish world presented there.

The pictures remind [me of] some ideas of Hieronymus Bosch the famous painter, and there is also a [downloadable] screen saver".

The only thing I will add is that the screensaver is awesome and highly recommended. Check it out for yourself!

Go to the Zoomquilt II page, where you can download the screensaver (approx 5.66 megs).

[Editor's note: this post was written by Freewaregenius contributor Jason H. Check out his tech blog: 404techsupport.com].

Text 2 Mind Map

Text 2 Mind Map is listed as a work in progress, but it’s very complete in what it does. While it’s not as advanced as the other sites on the list, it is the most simple to use. You just make an outline of the text that you want in the left pane. Use Tab to indent and Shift+Tab to outdent to make the order of your thoughts. You can easily edit the list while you’re working on it or after the chart has been made.

The toolbox on the right is also straight forward and you can move it around to if it’s in your way. You can make the screen go full size in order to accommodate your chart if it’s too big. By default the chart will move around whenever you update it or drag nodes around so that everything is mostly equidistant. You can turn this off by checking the ‘Freeze map’ and then drag everything how you want it to look. You can change the size and the color of the text from the Toolbox and you change the color of each node level by clicking on the node and then the small arrow that appears. You can also change that coloring from the Toolbox under the Colors section. You can also choose to have each branch a separate color instead of each level if you’d prefer it that way under Coloring Method. Finally, you can change the line color and width as well.

You can save the Mind Map for working on later by just manually copy/pasting the outline to a file for yourself and you can save the image by hitting the ‘Save map…’ button in the toolbox to render a .jpg version of it.

Lovely Charts

Lovely Charts allows you to make flowcharts, sitemaps, wireframes, organization charts, network diagrams and pretty much anything else by allowing you to import .jpg, .jpeg, .gif, or .png images as symbols. Lovely Charts has a Basic, free version and a Premium version at $29 Euros a year. You can see what the version differences are on their FAQ page and judge for yourself if it’s worth the upgrade. The Basic version allows you to create diagrams with the full symbol library and the ability to export as .jpg or .png files. The diagrams will have a Lovely Charts logo with the free version. The free version allows you to have one editable document that can be collaborated upon with others.

To get started with Lovely Charts, just create account and enter the verification code that’s e-mailed to you. You’ll have to have Adobe Flash installed for your browser, but you can quickly start creating diagrams for whatever purpose you need. Some cool features of Lovely Charts includes opacity control for each symbol and the ability to quickly select a different symbol in the same library group from the right-click menu. You can also control the line width and arrow end of any pointing lines and align the symbols to a grid.

Lovely Charts uses a different type of control to create symbols that I didn’t quite find intuitive although I believe if I got accustomed to it, you could very quickly create charts if you had a specific purpose in mind. You start off by dragging a symbol from the toolbar onto the grid. You then drag that object to where you want the next object to be and a copy will be made with an arrow pointing back to the original object. You can then right-click the new object to change it to a different symbol if needed. While an interesting method that seemed very smooth, I think I would prefer a more static system where I could just drag an object, drag a different object, and then drag an arrow from one to another.

Creately

Creately is the full-blown experience and the best tool out of this list. It is a data driven, online diagramming & design suite all in one sharp web application. With Creately, you have a package that is much more comparable to the full-blown commercial suites like Microsoft Visio. You can sign up for an account to get started immediately. Creately gives you a lot for free: unlimited public diagrams, 5 people collaborating on a diagram at most, the ability to publish/export, 10 megabytes of storage, and SSL protected connections. With the basic account, all exported documents are watermarked with the Creately logo. You can upgrade to the Creately Plus! account at a ‘pay what you want’ price. But back to the features you get with the basic account (free):

You can collaborate with people over flowcharts, mockups, network diagrams, presentations, sitemaps, and a lot more. You can easily create your charts using the drag and drop interface, resize shapes, and easily undo any mistakes you make along the way. In your collaborating, revisions will be made and your co-workers can leave comments on the revisions. As far as the visual display is concerned, you can style your charts or even make graphics out of the tools available at hand including gradients, style, text size and font, and the alignment of nodes.

You can export your diagrams as an image, a PDF file, an XML data file, or send through e-mail. Your diagrams can all be saved under your account for easy access from any Flash-enabled browser. Creately also uses tabs to allow you to work on multiple files easily at the same time.

See their demo video for a tour and a display of its awesome ability to intelligently work with network diagrams and other features:

As your image collection grows you may have noticed that although it is taking more and more space on your hard drive, yet ironically you seldom get to actually look at your pictures. Wouldn’t it be great if you could integrate your images into your desktop and screensaver so you could actually get to see them? If this sounds like something you want then read on.

There are three types of toys that this program offers:

1. Dynamic wallpaper (”collages”): these consist of a backdrops with three “postcards” overlayed on top where PhotoJoy will randomly shuffle pictures from your collection.
2. Photo widgets (which it calls Photo Toys): reminiscent of other desktop widget engines (e.g. Klipfolio or Vista’s built in widgets). There are 5 variations on this in the version I tested that feature animation and interesting transitions (see screenshot to the right). The downside is that these seem to consume too much CPU power, so I would use sparingly and only on powerful PCs (see CONS section below).
3. Animated Screensavers: I’ve seen screensavers based on images before, but must admit that these are very interesting and the range of different screensavers on offer is impressive (screenshot on top left of this post).

Here’s a list of PROS and CONS:

PROS:

1. An excellent range of choices; many “toys” that you can download and use
2. The screensavers: very cool and smoothly animated
3. The dynamic wallpaper “collages” are generally very interesting

CONS:

1. Memory use is approx 40 megs, which is not insignificant. But the more important issue is that this program seems to be constantly using up CPU processing cycles on my PC (about 20%-30%). Upon further investigation I found that it was the widgets (Photo Toys) that were responsible. The other toys were ok in terms of CPU usage. See more on this subject in the “verdict” section below.
2. The backgrounds for the dynamic wallpaper tends to be somewhat, erm… cheesy.

Wish list (or how this program can be even better):

• The ability to create custom dynamic wallpaper would be great, such that you would use your favorite image as wallpaper and overlay it with the postcard style changing images.

The verdict: generally a very good, well made program. What’s interesting about PhotoJoy is the range of options that it has on offer; there are dozens of “collages” and screensavers to choose from and most of them are innovative and well done. On the flip side the high CPU usage for the widgets (Photo Toys) was a deal breaker for me, and I quickly removed these. Unless you have a powerful PC or really want the widgets on your desktop I would skip those and stick with just the wallpaper and screensaver options instead (which to me are the more interesting ones anyway).

Demo video:

Version Tested: build 200956

Compatibility: Windows XP or Vista, graphic card with 64 mb of memory

Go to the program home page to download the latest version (approx 621K for the installer, which will then download more files on installation).

If you’ve ever wanted to string a bunch of images together into an animation then PhotoFilmStrip is for you. Three things make this program notable:

1. It is extremely easy to use. I was able to create a fairly decent film literally within 10 minutes of installation.
2. It is very nicely laid out. The interface design is intuitive and simple.
3. The output videos are smoothly-animated and of excellent quality.

Decisions: part of why this is so easy to use is that the decisions that the user has to make are fairly straightforward, and there really aren’t too many of them. First off you have to add images to the movie, arrange them in the right order, rotate them if necessary, and choose whether you want to recolor them(b&w or sepia). Next, for each image you have to choose the beginning and end state of the camera; i.e. how the camera will zoom in or out. This is the most “creative” part and is done via two rectangles for the beginning and end states (see screenshot above), and is surprisingly simple to do. Lastly, you can type in a subtitle for each image (which is optional) and specify the duration in seconds that each image animation will occupy within the movie. You will need to make a couple more decisions once at the very end once you’re ready to render, including resolution, output format, and whether you would like to add a soundtrack. The program does not support any fancy transitions between one image and the next; all images simply fade in and out of each other.

More notes on this program:

• Subtitles: if you enter subtitles they will be rendered in .SRT format; they will not be “burned into” the final output movie. (Most decent media players, such as The KMPlayer, will be able to play this format of subtitles).
• Rendering the filmstrip: you can use pre-defined profiles in the settings, including DVD and other profiles for different resolutions (can go up to an impressive HD (1920×1080) resolution). I like that PhotoFilmStrip has the Xvid encoder built in and doesnt require the user to install codecs.
• Adding audio: once you’re ready to render, you can add an audio track. If you want to add narration you will need to do some post processing with external programs (e.g Audacity to record and something like VirtualDub or Avidemux to add the new audio track to the video.)

Wish list (or how this program can be even better)

• Support for custom, pre-built transitions: I just had to put this out there, even as I acknowledge that it will add a layer of complexity and that the default fade in/out transition works just fine.
• Burn-in subtitles: the option to burn subtitles in rather than output them in a sperate file.

The verdict: an excellent program that is both powerful and easy to use. You will be up and running creating animations out of your images in minutes. The program may lack some fancy bells and whistles, but the flip side but compensates for that in usability and good user experience. Recommended.

Version Tested: 1.1

Compatibility: Windows, Linux.

Go to the program home page to download the latest version (approx 14.9 megs).

Someone at work sent me this and I liked it so much I wanted to post it here. The animation is looped twice back-to-back; I’m not quite sure why this is the case, but my guess is that they did it this way to show how seamlessly the beginning and ending of this can mesh together (so much so that I know it would have taken me a while to figure out that the animation had re-started had I not been forewarned).

Anyway if you have other animations you like please let me know as I would love to see (and potentially post) them.

[Thanks to Simon S. and Matt A. for the tip]

Go to the COMBO (2 times loop) page on Vimeo.

There are a number of good freeware image viewers/taggers out there, but Viewer2 will immediately impress due to its stylish interface and innovative functions. I would suggest that you view the video at the bottom of this post to get a sense of how this program works and feels; meanwhile here are some notes on this program:

• The interface: there’s not much of it, until you mouse over to the edges of the screen, where you will find all the tools that you need to browse, view and tag your images. But note that in order to really take advantage of what this program can do you really have to become familiar with the different mouse manipulations (e.g. right-click and move to move selected sets of images around – see the video tutorials). You also might want to become familiar with the various keyboard shortcuts, esp. the ones that concern tagging images, as they will make the process super fast and easy. Note that when hovering over any command icon in the interface a text label will show at the bottom of the screen to explain it (although a tool-tip would have been better, I think).
• Grouping images: Viewer2 can automatically group images visually in various "piles". It can group by name, by path, by resolution, by number views, by time/date accessed, by color, and of course by tags.
• Automatic tag suggestions: for quick tagging, Viewer2 can suggest tags based on other tagging activity.
• Film Strip view: right clicking while viewing images displays thumbnail view of all other images in that folder that you can quickly browse through with horizontal mouse movements. A super cool effect (illustrated in the one of the two screenshots on the top of this review).
• Lasso-type tool: an innovative tool that can be used while tagging to select multiple images (alternately you can simply CTRL+click on several thumbnail to select them). In image view mode the lasso tool is there, but this time it serves to quickly zoom into the lassoed area (is that a word?).
• Searching: the search function is one of the most versatile and powerful that you could hope for, offering search by tags, by name, location, size, etc. It is able to field sophisticated queries such as give me the word "bla" with "2007" in the path excluding the tag "wallpaper" as an example (see the manual section for an overview).
• Navigating folders: double click on the viewed image to display the other images and folders in the same location.These will be represented visually in piles that can be hovered over (for more info) or clicked on to access. Alternately mouse over the left side of the screen to access a simple directory listing.
• Customization: most everything about this program can be customized in the settings, from the size of the thumbnails to the way various elements behave.
• Memory use: only 16 megs in memory, despite the nifty, visual pyrotechnics.
• Technical details: IPTC data editing, full Unicode support.

A video of the program in action:

The verdict: I am bowled over by this app. Its not just because of the high coolness factor, which would have been enough to win me over, but also because the innovative interface and process actually makes it super easy to work with tags quickly and effectively. The developer who thought out and built this (and kept it at such low memory usage) did a terrific job! Download and try it you will like it.

[Thanks go to reader Anjan for tipping me off about this program!]

Version Tested: 4044

Compatibility: Windows 2000, XP, Vista.

Go to the Program page to download the latest version (approx 1.59 megs).

This program is not the most feature-rich freeware screen capturing program out there, it isn’t the most powerful, and it doesn’t have the built-in editors/annotation tools that some other programs have; despite all of this, however, it manages to be an excellent screen capturing program, provides a very good range range of functions, and (most notably) delivers an excellent user experience.

If you’re wondering about “what could possibly be so stylish and cool about this program?”, the answer is in the way the interface is implemented, from the actual capturing process all the way to the (very pleasant) post-capture visual pyrotechnics where the captured image floats on screen and can be moved around and/or manipulated via right-click (check out the video below to see for yourself).

Here are more notes on this program:

• Capture modes: capture full screen (click “PrintScrn” twice), rectangular region, or freehand region of any shape. [Update Sep 14, 09] also supports capture topmost through Alt+PrntScrn hotkey.
• Hotkey: program is activated by clicking “PrintScrn”; you can optionally change it to any other hotkey combination.
• “Annotation”: will let you perform drawings with the mouse on screen right before you capture, which sounds like a great thing but in practice is of little use.
• Delays before capture: right click the PrtScr icon in the system tray to request delays of 5 or 30 seconds (not changeable).
• Editing: there is no internal editor; however, click “edit” and your captured image is opened using your PC’s default image editor. To find a good editing/annotation app and change the default image editor on your PC see this post.
• Multiple monitors: supported.
• Rescaling: (i.e.resizing the image) is possible before saving.
• Title and comment: you can add a title and/or a comment on-the-fly as you capture a screenshot

Wish list:

• More capture modes: specifically, (1) capture active window [supported], and (2) the ability to scroll through capture specific window elements, and (3) the ability to capture a fixed region.
• “Repeat last capture”: an option which I frequently use and need, which PtrScr does not currently offer.
• Magnifier glass: the kind that would pop-up when you’re capturing in order to help you select the area you want up to the exact pixel. Strangely absent.

The verdict: this is the kind of program that you might want to recommend to people who secretly want a Mac, or users who are not too technically savvy (not that I am equating these two groups in any way ). Or you may want to use it alongside a more powerful/sophisticated screen capture program (e.g. PicPick or Screenshot Captor) and set a different hotkey for each so they don’t conflict. Try it out for yourself you may like it!

Version Tested: 1.5

Compatibility: Windows XP ot Vista and a good graphic card.

Go to the program page to download the latest version (approx 2.35 megs).

Do you know what you spend the most time on when you’re using your computer? For example, you may want to know how much time you spend checking and responding to email vs. the amount of time you spend on doing “real work” (vs. the amount of time you spend randomly browsing the internet). Recently I’d been thinking about the amount of time that I spend doing research online (a lot) compared with the amount of time that I am actually working on creating something, whether its my deliverables at work or creating actual posts for this blog.

Which is why I am now running ManicTime. Here are more notes this program:

• The User Interface: is divided into a day view and a “statistics” view where you can view a range of dates together. Four timelines are simultaneously visible in the day view (Computer Usage, Applications, Browsing, and Tags). Clicking on any of these will change the type of information that is displayed on the bottom half of the screen. Not that you can (a) click on any colored chunk in any timeline to zoom into that information, and (b) you can select any range with the mouse to hone in on that. ManicTime uses color coding for similar items listed in the data section, which makes it easy to work with these.
• Tagging: is a great way to organize information in a way that makes sense to you. For example you can create tags such as “Project A”, “Project B”, “Work”, “Personal”, or even, say “Procrastination” or “Research” or whatever… anything that makes sense. You can right click on any colored chunk on any timeline to apply a tag to it. You can also check items within the data table on the lower half of the screen then click the “Add Tag” button on the top left. Kind of unintuitive at first, but works.
• Charts: in the “statistics” tab, you can add any element (from the Computer Usage, Applications, Browsing, or Tag timelines) and chart it against other elements. Very cool.
• Filtering: in the “Day” tab, type straight into the “Filter” box on the bottom of the screen to filter. Or otherwise check the boxes next to the individual entries, move the mouse to the “Summary (Selection)” section on the right hand side, and right click “filter by this group”. Click on the “Clear” (next to the filter box) to unfilter.
• Off the record: right click on the “ManicTime” icon in the system tray and select “off the record” to manually tell the program to stop recording.
• Exporting data: to CSV, is possible. Select a specific date range or “all”. Note that the “table” tab in the statistics section is what’s exported, so make sure to add as much (or as little) data detail to that as you want.

The verdict: This is the kind of program you simply let run in the background and only interact with once it has had the time to collect sufficient data, once a week or so. It can provide a great deal of information; however, whether this info is useful and/or insightful largely depends on you, the user, and what you want to get out of it.

What I like is that allows so much control over the data and collects data with such granularity as every single URL you have visited. I would say that interacting with the data can be somewhat confusing though, esp. filtering and tagging (which is why I describe them in detail above). The other drawback is the memory usage which, at approx 46-55 megs on my machine, may be a little too resource intensive on some machines.

Still, this is a very mature program and what it does ManicTime does an excellent job. The breadth and sophistication that this program has built into it is commendable and honestly quite surprising, and certainly is one of the best free programs of its kind. Recommended.

ManicTime Video Tutorial, Part 1:

For more tutorials, see the links below, or go to the Tutorials section on the program home page.

ManicTime Video Tutorial, Part 2
ManicTime Video Tutorial, Part 3

Version Tested: 1.2.1.0

Compatibility: WinAll.

Go to the program page to download the latest version (approx 4.81 megs).

If you, like me, think that there’s something.. um, magical … about right clicking on a file and being able to quickly perform the operations on it then you might want check this program out. Explore and Burn is a simple CD/DVD burning program that is launched from Windows’ right-click context menu. More notes below.

• How to use: select a file or group of files and right click the Explore and Burn context menu. This will launch the program’s wizard-style file burning process.
• Burning images: Explore&Burn can burn .ISO and .IMG files to CD/DVD; it can also optionally associate itself with these file extensions.
• Supported media: CD-R, CD-RW, DVD-R, DVD+R, DVD-RW, DVD+RW and DVD-RAM discs including Dual Layer discs.
• Bugs on XP: I encountered a problem in XP whereby the program did not burn ISO images to disk and I got a "Cannot Complete the Disc Writing Wizard" message (regular files burned just fine though). Someone posted this issue in the forum; and although the prescribed fix did not work for me, there’s the promise that this will be addressed in future versions.

Wish list: (or how this program can be even better)

• For non disk image files, this program installs two context menu entries which offer exactly the same functionality, making one of them absolutely redundant (see image to the right). It would be nice to be able to keep only one of them.
• Fixing the disk-burning problem with XP mentioned above.

The verdict: for what it tries to achieve (which is quick, on-the-fly file burning from the desktop), Explore&Burn works beautifully (assuming of course that bugs are eventually dealt with). For most users, however, Explore&Burn is no replacement for a full-fledged, full-featured CD/DVD burning program (such as CDBurnerXP), and it does not claim to be.

Many users will like the quick spontaneity of this. Moreover, this program is perfect for non tech-savvy users who just want to burn files quickly (a perfect thing to install for your grandmother for example).

Version Tested: 1.2

Compatibility: Windows XP, Server 2003, Vista and Windows 7, 32bit and 64bit. XP and Server 2000 may require installing the KB932716 update package from Microsoft.

Go to the program page to download the latest version (approx 2.7 megs)

This is a very fun and extremely original game that employs some innovative game dynamics. You move your character with the A/S/D/W buttons and use your chalk with the mouse. A chalk gesture has a small “half life”, if you will, in that it only lasts for a short time from beginning to end. There are 3 things you can do with a chalk gesture, as follows:

1. Connect the dots: most objects/hostiles have patterns of “dots” on them. If you are able to quickly draw a line that connects all of these you destroy the bad guy. Bonus points are granted for connecting multiple dots on multiple objects/bad guys in a single stroke.
2. Connect bullets to bad guys: some of the bad guys will shoot bullets at you; use your chalk to connect the flying bullet back to enemy ships and you will turn the tables and zap them instead.
3. Draw a shield: if it gets too hectic, use your chalk to draw shields or barriers that will trap some objects such as hostile ships behind them.

The verdict: the console-style graphics and sound serve to add to the atmosphere, and despite it’s “uniqueness” it is extremely easy to learn and get to grips with. Watch the video below, then download and play this very interesting game.

A video of this game in action:

Compatibility: WinAll.

Go to the game page to download the latest version (approx 3.86 megs).

Ever wanted to insert YouTube videos into your PowerPoint presentations? AuthorStream desktop makes it extremely easy to do so. Here are more notes on this program:

• What it does: embeds a YouTube video or images from the web into a PowerPoint presentation, allowing you to place and resize your media on the page as you would any image object. Does NOT download videos, and does NOT save the actual video inside your PowerPoint files.
• User interface: click on the authorStream ribbon (in PowerPoint 2007) to access its functionality. Very straightforward. Note that I did not test on PowerPoint 2003 and am not sure what the interface looks like there.
• Two ways to embed: you can either provide the URL for the YouTube video or image you would like to embed, or otherwise use the built in search functionality (will display search results from Google or Bing image search).
• Sharing your files: you can email or share your Presentations with other users and they will be able to view them without having to have AuthorStream Desktop installed (they will need an internet connection though).
• Uploading: AuthorStream Desktop provides 1-click PowerPoint presentation uploads to the AuthorStream online presentation sharing service, which could come in very handy if you use that service to share your presentations.

Wish list: (or how this program can be even better)

• The ability to embed private video uploaded to hosting services such as DivShare or even incorporating into Powerpoint any standard HTML code used for embedding video into sites/blogs .This would make this software EXTREMELY useful in some settings (conferences, business presentations) where the video content could not be uploaded publicly to YouTube for privacy concerns (note that private YouTube uploads are a headache that requires setting up YouTube contact lists, logging in with a YouTube user ID and other non-practical measures).

The verdict: a great idea that is implemented in a very simple, straightforward way. This software presents a very practical and easy way for many people to use video in PowerPoint presentations by their videos into YouTube and embedding them into their presentations (which has the added benefit of keeping the PowerPoint files small and compact for the purposes of email, etc.) Not to mention the useful opportunity it presents to PowerPoint spammers everywhere

On the other hand AuthorStream Desktop can be so much more useful if it supported embedding FLV videos that are uploaded privately to file hosting services where only the people you share the video link with have access to it (DivShare is the service I use). This would make it possible to use PowerPoint with private video content in professional and business settings where uploading this content publicly to YouTube is not an option.

Version Tested: 1.0.0.1

Compatibility: WinAll. Requires PowerPoint 2007.

Go to the the program page to download the latest version (approx 1.56 megs).

Battlefield Heroes is a third person, online only action game. It’s free-to-play, supported by optional micro transactions, and can only be launched through your web browser. It’s created by EA DICE, the developer behind the famous Battlefield series.

[Editor’s note: this review was written by Freewaregenius contributor Travis B. Check out his freeware games blog here].

War is an ugly, bloodstained affair. When two nations engage in it, lives are ruined, families forever destroyed, and generations of nationalistic tension are usually the most defining outcome. But reality is depressing, and very often completely lacking in bright colors and comical mishaps. For those of us who like our wars a little more cute and cuddly, Battlefield Heroes comes to the rescue. In this free-to-play 3rd person shooter, its all about the laughs. Set in a happier version of World War 2, this multiplayer, online only game breaks free of more than a few industry trends. With its cartoon graphics, rapid fire action, and generally upbeat presentation, it looks like a welcome relief from the surplus of grim action titles we’ve been seeing. So does Battlefield Heroes deliver the goods, or is it all flash and no bang?

• Graphics: The first thing any player will notice is the pleasing Saturday morning cartoon feel. The sky is a cheery blue, the buildings look like the work of Walt Disney’s contractor, and the vehicles like a child’s idea of their real world counterparts. Of course that’s a good thing in this context. All in all, the whole game world fits together well. The only real complaint is that the lack of rag doll death animations is painfully obvious, especially given the seamless fluidity of everything else here.
• Sound: The folks who did the audio did a good job. Weapon noises are well done, emotes are accompanied by recognizable gibberish, and the theme music is catchy. Point in fact, I can hear the music even now. Still, sound effects do repeat quite a bit, and more attention to ambient noise is definitely in order.
• Gameplay: Battlefield Heroes is an action arcade game through and through. Players choose from one side, three classes, then find a match, and jump into the action. It plays like a cross between team deathmatch and king of the hill, with various strategic hotspots up for grabs scattered around the map. The classes break down into: soldier, commando, and gunner. With the soldier being your utility grunt, the commando your sneaky sniper, and the gunner a slower moving heavy. Each class can use any vehicle, and has a unique set of upgradable abilities, all of which play to their strengths.
• Controls: have clearly been designed to be efficient and intuitive, and are never an issue. Even piloting planes is straightforward and newbie friendly. The game’s mandatory match finder is also worth a mention. It takes stock of your character level and recent performance, and drops you into a server it thinks will work with you. It does a decent job.
• Character Customization: You have the ability to customize your character’s appearance, gear, and skills, and most everybody takes advantage of this. It’s not all that unusual to see a parrot shouldered commando bedecked in an Admiralty uniform, ducking for cover. Gamers gain game money by playing, and can buy a more potent form of game cash from the item store using a credit/debit card. Cash can then be used to purchase new clothes, weapons, experience point bonuses, and even emotes. The better merchandise generally requires you to spend a little real world money. Fortunately for cheap gamers (like myself), the game is enjoyable without having to whip out your bank card. But you will occasionally be playing at a disadvantage.
• Replayability: I got addicted to Battlefield Heroes. Its joyously callous cartoon violence appeals to me (confirming that I’ve got the mind of a child). While the combat lacks the depth of most modern shooters, the upgrades for each class do a lot to make up for it. Unfortunately, those upgrade paths are fairly short. All in all, gamers should be able to get some good play time in before things become stale. Hopefully the near future will see the addition of more maps, vehicles, and weapons. As it stands, you’ll like this title, but there isn’t enough here to keep you playing forever.

The verdict: Battlefield Heroes does a good job. With its match finder, well balanced classes, and lack of friendly fire, its the sort of game that could appeal to a wide audience. While you can indirectly buy yourself into the higher levels, the game does a good job keeping the sharks out the of kiddie pool. For those who want a break from serious titles, Battlefield Heroes is a breath of fairly fresh air.

Compatibility: Windows XP or Vista. Requires a graphics card with 64mb of dedicated video memory, a broadband internet connection, and one of the major web browsers.

Go to the Battlefield Heroes page.

[Editor’s note: this review was written by Freewaregenius contributor Jason H. Check out his tech blog: 404techsupport.com].You can focus on a wall by double-clicking it. This will cause you to fly-in so you only look at that wall. You’ll be able to see the edges of the adjacent walls and the floor while you’re focused on one wall, so you can double click on the edge to move from one wall to the next. Don’t worry! The four walls and the floor makes your desktop seem more like diorama than another cubicle. You can throw icons on to the wall to hang them there or slide them across the floor and they’ll bump into other icons. You can use this to throw files to the recycle bin or into some of the desktop widgets that integrates E-mail, Facebook, or Twitter. These widgets will allow you to throw a file into them and then start a new message with the file attached. You can also pin sticky notes to the walls so you can write down notes to yourself. You’re limited to two (2) notes in the free version. Double click to edit a sticky note or right-click to add one.

Your normal right-click context menu is replaced with an easy to use circle menu where you can choose different features of BumpTop. You can still access the normal right-click menu (with some additions) under the More… selection. All of these selections, as you can see, also come with keyboard shortcuts so you can really work how you do.

One great feature of BumpTop is the ability to increase or decrease icon size. If you use something frequently, why not make it bigger so it’s an easier target to hit? You can increase the size of icons to make them easier to access. With the physics that are implemented by BumpTop, this also increases their weight and they won’t get bumped out of the way so easily. It could also make the Recycle Bin an easier target if you want to throw files away.

Some of the practical uses of BumpTop include searching and piling. You can search your desktop for a file just by typing and any matching icons will be highlighted. You can also access the search through the right-click menu. You can also pile icons together to tag them as related and to keep them physically together. To pile icons, you just highlight them and go to the pile icon. This will move all the icons on to a stack and you can then double-click on the pile to spread them out in a separated grid or right-click and fan them out.

Your mileage may vary, but BumpTop measured in as a 60-75 MB process for me and was a 10.7MB download for the installer. You can optionally configure BumpTop to start with Windows. Otherwise you can start it manually and close it with a system tray icon. It will remember your icon layout each time it starts up.

I used BB Flashback Express to record a video of going through the opening tutorial, so you can see some of the animations in action in the below video.

You can configure a number of settings: icons physics, photo frame cycling, and the desk widgets which allow integration to e-mail, Facebook, and Twitter. You can also change some of the visuals and graphic card usage. If you have multiple monitors, it looks like BumpTop can only be used on one desktop at a time. You can change the theme that BumpTop uses or just specify individual images for each wall/floor. You can have your current Windows background be the floor and then specify images for each wall or leave it with the theme defaults. You can see how to install a theme and browse the growing number of themes to really customize it to your liking. There are some really cool themes out there!

Another cool thing that BumpTop adds to your desktop comes in the form of Photoframes. Photoframes allow you to run a slide show from a local directory or an online source like a Flickr RSS feed. They can be configured with how frequently they update their source and how often they change images.

If you’re curious for more info you can watch a TED talk on the software.

Version tested: 1.0 build 3038

Compatibility: A 32-bit or 64-bit version of Windows XP, Windows Vista or Windows 7, with latest service packs. Intel 915 integrated graphics or Nvidia GeForce 6200 or ATI X300 or better with updated drivers. OpenGL 2.0 driver support required (may require additional drivers available at the bumptop drivers page).

Go to the program page to download the latest version (approx 10.73 megs).

If you’ve seen the previous incarnation of this program you’ll be happy to know that this new version is a complete departure from its predecessor, completely re-written in JAVA. It avoids or circumvents all of the problems/issues that afflicted the previous incarnation including false positives reported by some anti-malware programs, restrictions on some (adult) sites, memory issues, and issues with registry entries and drivers that the program installed and left on the system (in truth, by the time the last version of Tubemaster plus was released all of these were actually already remedied, but I wanted to make sure to mention that these issues were a thing of the past).

Improvements also include a better looking user interface (the built-in browser of the predecessor is done away with). In fact the only feature of TM+ that I liked that TM++ does not have is portability. Here are more notes on this program:

• How it works: once you launch TM++ (it will reside in the system tray), use your browser to navigate to the video or audio that you want to download. TM++ will display a notification and start downloading your media as soon as it starts playing in the browser. You will need to keep the browser window open for the duration of the download in order for TM++ to download your media properly.
• Media conversion: on-the-fly. Includes a couple dozen conversion presets, my favorite of which is the quick MP3 extraction.
• Audio/video search: the search functions are very impressive. For video search, you can specify which site you want to search from a rather expansive list of sites.
• Virus/malware free: a clean bill of health from Virustotal.

The verdict: I’ve seen the development trajectory of this program and I think that developer deserves a lot of credit for taking this software in the right direction and creating what is undoubtedly an excellent product. But what makes this product noteworthy compared to others in its category is its ability to download from almost any site, including ant-leech encrypted media. It can be independently launched when needed and does not install itself as an extension in your browser.

Although TM++ is no longer portable (like TM+ was), this is understandable given that it relies on a number of other apps/technologies (including JAVA, which it will install if absent). Overall I highly recommend this.

Version tested: 1.0 beta

Compatibility: WinAll. Requries JAVA. Will soon be available on Linux and Mac.

Go to the program page to download the latest version (approx 180K).

Imagine that you’re at work pulling reports from the database or working on spreadsheets, but that you also just absolutely need to follow developments in the Wimbeldon match that is going on at the same time, or a landmark speech by President Obama (that would be me in the latter case). Typically what I would do is use my headphones, minimize the browser or media player, and follow the audio alone. Except now multitaskers and bored workers everywhere can rejoice: with Double Vision you can do your work while having your video showing semi-transparently under your spreadsheet or whatever application you’re using.

studies have shown that worker’s productivity increases by 15% while they use Double Vision (yes I’m just making this up). The irony is that I was actually introduced to this software by a coworker (thanks DAK!). More notes below:

• Plays video from the internet: i.e. anything that you would use the browser to view; does not play local video files.
• Transparency: you can control the level of transparency you want through a slider.
• How to use: browse to or type in the URL of the website you want and navigate to your video. In some cases (e.g. for YouTube) Double Vision seems to automatically zoom onto the video and hide all other page contents; if not, resize Double Vision around the video such that only the video is showing. Finally press the “Go Double Vision” button on the top left, which will sort of “burn” the Double Vision semitransparent player onto your screen so it shows through all other windows.
• Hotkeys: Ctrl+Alt will bring the player back into focus, while Ctrl+Esc will exit the semitransparent state and allow you to use the controls. You can set it to mute the sound as well, although curiously it doesn’t automatically un-mute when you resume playing the video (for that you’ll have to go to your volume control dialog).
• Auto skins: an option where Double Vision automatically changes its skin to match that of the video service being used (for example Netflix, Hulu, and Youtube).

Wish list (or how this program can be even better)

• A redesign of the user interface: currently it looks somewhat … unprofessional; they could do a lot better.
• The ability to customize the hotkeys used.
• Hulu support: while both the website and the player purport Hulu support, I was not able to get Hulu videos playing on this (got page missing/404 errors). And yes I am in the US and can get it to play on other browsers.

The verdict: I would say this is a very innovative and interesting software that does exactly what it purports to do and does it quite well. I would be happier if they made it look better (as per my wish list above), but other than that I would recommend it to overworked people everywhere!

Compatibility: Windows XP, Vista. Requires an internet connection

Go to the program page to download the latest version (approx 2.15 megs).

Hulu desktop is a free desktop client for Windows and Mac that connects to the Hulu service and plays Hulu videos and programs within a sleek, feature-rich interface, without the need for an internet browser. It features a spectacular look-and-feel, high-definition video, and offers the ability to resume partially watched shows. It also supports standard Windows Media Center or Apple IR remote controls.

Hulu, if you’re unfamiliar with it, is a web site set up by a group of TV networks in order to publish their programming in high quality, as a means to keep their content under their control and as an alternative to video sharing sites like YouTube.

You might ask: why watch programs on the Hulu desktop client rather than in the browser? The answer simply is that Hulu desktop manages to offer a user experience that is simply excellent, and is far better than the desktop experience. Here’s a rundown of some of its features.

• Quality: unlike the web version, Hulu desktop displays high quality streaming video by default. Very nice indeed. For slow connection low-bandwidth situations you can lower the quality to “medium” or low.
• Control using IR Remote: for those who use their PC as a media center and/or like to use a physical remote control device, Hulu desktop offers full IR support support for both PC and Mac.
• Navigate: the player can display full video unencumbered by controls until you hover with the mouse. Can navigate using the keyboard, mouse, or remote (or combos). Navigation feels very sleek and professional: press Ctrl+F for fullscreen then use the keyboard arrows, mouse and mousewheel for zooming. Breadcrumb-style browsing history makes it easy to retrace your steps and find your way around.
• Ads: Hulu desktop will display some ads in the programming itself (much like watching TV), but it comes without the display ads that are featured on most websites (including the Hulu site).
• Resume shows: at the moment where you last left them. Very cool.
• Personalize: once your register an account and log in you save videos of interest in your queue, you can subscribe to certain channels or programs, rate programs, and look at your viewing history (note: you can do all of this in the website version as well).

Cons: issues that can be addressed to make this a better product

• Memory consumption: is very high at around 250 megs on my machine. It is actually less resrouce intesive to watch Hulu in Firefox3 (apprx 150); surely it should be the other way around? I am hoping that resource consumption is improved once this is out of beta.
• Bugs: this is beta software and in my testing of it had a couple of hiccups where it became strangely unresponsive, but went back to normal after a few seconds. I am assuming these will be eventually ironed out post-beta.

The verdict: a very impressive viewer that will surely become the preferred vehicle for accessing Hulu videos for all but the very casual Hulu users. If you’re an avid Hulu viewer you should check it out immediately; if you are an occasional Hulu user … you should also do the same .

Version tested: 0.9.3.1 BETA

Compatibility: Windows XP or later; Mac OSX10.4 or later. Requires Intel Pentium Core Duo 1.8GHz (Windows), at least 2.0 GB of RAM, a 2 Mbps Internet connection, and Flash 9.0.124

Go to the Hulu Desktop page to download the latestr version (approx 866K).

Volvo The Game is a free 3D driving simulator featuring the Volvo S60 Concept car. It also features virtual recreations of two racetracks, the “Eco Drive Arena” in Gothenburg, Sweden, and the Chayka race track in Kiew, Ukraine. Game modes include competing against computer controlled opponents as well as best lap-times against yourself or against players from around the world through internet multiplayer.

There’s been a surge in free video-game simulators for fancy car models. In the last year or so I tested two game tie-ins from BMW and Mercedes. What all of these games seem to have in common is top-notch, impressive graphics. Yet the reason I did not post any of these before on Freewaregenius was that they simply were super-difficult to play, and it seemed like the developers were too focused on impressive production qualities that they didn’t really think to craft the playability.

Therefore you might wonder whether “Volvo The Game”, which as you can see from the screenshots is obviously a beautiful game, has got good playability or whether it also is super hard. The answer is: both. That is, “Volvo The Game” is not an easy game to master and has a definitive learning curve; however, you do get the sense that it is “fair”, and that mastering it is possible and is just around the corner, so to speak. Here are more notes on this one:

• Controls: simple keyboard arrow controls, with options for joystick and even external steering wheel controls.
• Multiplayer over internet: you have to register for a free account using a valid email for this.
• Prodcution qualities: the graphics are super-cool, and the physics are very well crafted. There is a lot of attention to detail: for example, crashing into the side of the track will produce visible bursts of dust and smoke. Little things that make a huge difference. The audi is also very well done.
• Vantage point: press “Tab” to switch camera views.
• Replays: if you’ve had a particularly good race there’s nothing like going back and watching yourself burn rubber. You can play at being a video producer and have a lot of control over the type and placement of the camera throughout. (And no, so far I’ve not had a performance that was particularly worthy of re-viewing myself).’

The verdict: this game is very well put together. It is rather hard at tough to master but generally quite playable

Compatibility: WinAll. Requires a graphics card supporting OpenGL. Enable Asian language support in Windows for a better experience.

Go to the Volvocars site to download the latest version. Skip the intro then click on the box to the right (see image to the right). Download file is approx 588 megs.

Twingly, if you hadn’t hear of it, is a blog search engine similar to Technorati with some underlying technology to eliminate spammy or fake blogs. The Twingly screensaver is a screensaver that visually displays blog postings as they are being published all over the world, twisting and turning a representation of the globe to give you glimpses of the geographic location where the postings are coming from. More notes on this one:

• Browse blog posts: can function as a rather unusual browser for new blog entries (if gazing into a continuous ticker/scrolling list of blog postings can be characterized as ’browsing’, that is).
• ’I’ is for vendetta: no of course its not – silly… it’s for “interactive”; which means you can press “I” on your keyboard then swivel the globe around with your mouse or keyboard hotkeys and/or zoom in and out without shutting down the screensaver. Very cool.
• Clicking a blog entry: will produce a small “summary” window on the right hand side, so you can read it without exiting the screensaver. You can click on the summary to open inside a browser though.

The verdict: I don’t have too many screensaver reviews (I just made a quick check and found only one, MappedUp, which in fact turns out to be eerily similar to this one). My feeling is that if you have to have a screensaver it’d better do something interesting and I think this one is pretty darn cool!

The only negative with this one is that looking at it makes me feel a little embarrassed that I have trouble meeting my self-determined quota of four new postings per week on Freewaregenius (what with all the content being generated every second) .

Compatibility: WinAll. Requires a graphics card supporting OpenGL. Enable Asian language support in Windows for a better experience.

Go to the Twingly Screensaver page to download the latest version (approx 2.09 megs).

I must admit that I almost passed over this program for a number of reasons: the “Express” (i.e. free) version has two paid counterparts, and it requires registration with a valid email to get a free license key; plus there are a number of good, free, screencasting freeware (e.g. CamStudio, Debut Video Capture), as well as well known web services like Wink and Jing.

However let me tell you from the get go that this software is simply excellent, and is in fact one of the best free programs in it’s class. It provides some excellent options than most freeware programs I’ve used do not, and it is a well thought out, well designed software.

Top 10 12 things that I really like about BB Flashback Express:

1. Change resolution while recording: you can capture the whole screen or part of the screen and the software can automatically resize the output to a pre-set resolution. For example you can capture fullscreen and set the output size to, say 640×480 and not have to worry about resizing it later on.
2. Can record moving graphics: from the options, you can specify whether to use the normal capture driver (for regular screen activity) or GDI/DirectX, for moving graphics and animations. I successfully tested capturing full-screen games; the results for both 2D and 3D graphics were excellent (although I did witness some choppiness with the 3D graphics, but am unsure as to what degree the settings I used contributed into this).
3. Can capture fullscreen, a user-defined region, or a specific window: I particularly like the third one (locking on and capturing a specific window); very useful when demo-ing software and for some reason most free screen recording programs lack this option.
4. Can record videocam input: how cool is that? I don’t have one so I did not test this.
5. Can create AVI’s, FLV’s, but also SWF’s: The latter is notable in that BB Flashback Express provides the option to create an interactive video (see below).
6. Can create interactive events inside a video: specifically when outputing to SWF, you can define “mouse click” events to stop/continue the video
7. Autoscroll (keep mouse in or near center): if you decide to export only a smaller subset of your movie (for example export a movie captured at 640×480 at, say, 320×240), you can ask BB Flashback Express to track the mouse and export the area around it. Which is to say you can keep the mouse at or near the center.
8. Cursor highlighting: you can highlight the mouse and mouseclicks so that they are emphasized on the screen (very useful for demoes). You can even edit exactly what the highlighting will look like (see image to the right).
9. Export specific range/frames only: although this free version does not allow you to edit the video directly, you can make a note of your desired beginning and end frames and enter those into the “wizard” that pops up on the export process.
10. Automatically upload to Youtube/web page: with your YouTube username and password. Or it will provide HTML and embed code to easily insert videos into your webpage.
11. Hotkeys: allows you to define hotkeys for use
12. The interface: can reside in the system tray or, interestingly, as a cool-looking strip in the taskbar.

Differences between free and paid versions: paid versions allow you to add text to your videos, to edit them visually on the timeline, and to export in more formats. There are other differences listed here. A nice set of features, but you can find freeware programs to substitute for them if you need to.

The verdict: simply terrific. One of the best in its class.

Version Tested: 2.6.1.1122

Compatibility: Windows 2000, XP, Vista; 32 and 64 bit.

Go to the program page to download the latest version (approx 7.2 megs).

This article will describe an easy, straightforward way to convert DVD videos, including commercial/encrypted DVDs, into any of a handful of popular video formats; specifically iPhone/iPod/PSP (MP4 or M4V), as well as AVI. It will use two freeware titles in the conversion process: Handbrake and DVD43.

If you’re looking for an extremely easy and relatively fast method to convert your DVDs into video files for use on your computer or in your portable device then read on. The method described here is notable for the following reasons:

1. It is written in English (not geekese) for the layman and advanced users alike.
2. Unsure what decisions to make? Do not worry; I will suggest decisions for you based on my favorite configuration (see “important note” below”).
3. You will be able to convert commercial/encrypted DVDs (or at least 99% or them).
4. You will NOT need to rip (i.e. copy) your DVD to your hard drive first. Conversion will be done straight from your DVD, which means that (a) you will NOT need 5-8 gigs of free hard drive space to rip your DVD onto, and (b) you will save the time that otherwise would be spent waiting for the ripping process to finish.
5. Uses all freeware programs; Handbrake and DVD43. Both are excellent and have been around for a while. Handbrake now comes with all codecs/filters needed for the encoding process, so you will not need to install any codecs or filters separately.

Important note: this article will describe an example where I convert a DVD to iPhone MP4 format using a handful of settings that I like to use; however, I will also indicate what to do if converting to AVI as well. Also note that at any point you could customize the settings as they come along to something that may be more to your liking.

Download and install Handbrake and DVD43. Note, however, that if you do not intend to convert commercial DVDs (i.e. if you are converting DVDs that are copy protected) you will not need DVD43 and you can skip it altogether (and jump to step 3). Also note that both of these programs are 100% free. DVD43 will require a restart after installation. 

Step2

Run DVD43 (it automatically sets itself to start with Windows, so its probably already running; you can change that if you like using a program like Starter). You will see a yellow smiley in the system tray indicating that DVD43 is running. Insert your DVD into the drive; after some processing, the smiley icon will turn green, indicating that all is well and that DVD43 is successfully decrypting the DVD.

Troubleshooting step 2: if the green smiley doesn’t appear (or you get a message saying cannot decrypt), try the following

• Exit DVD43, take the DVD out of the drive; re-insert the DVD, run DVD43. Wait for it to re-process.
• If the above doesn’t work, try rebooting, then repeat the steps above.
• In some cases, DVD43 will simply not succeed because it cannot beat the protection (I haven’t ever come across this, though). If this happens, it would be for brand new blockbuster type movies whose encryption may be too new. If your DVD is not new and/or is some obscure title, the problem is likely not be the encryption; focus on troubleshooting other issues.

Run Hanbrake. Click “Source” in the top left and select the correct DVD source.

Go to the “Title” dropdown and select the title that you are interested in converting. Most DVDs will contain a handful of titles (these include the movie itself, previews, menus, interviews, behind-the-scenes extras, etc.) The DVD I am using for illustration contains no less than 28 different entries (see screenshot).You can convert any content you like; but you’ll have to figure out what’s what.

A really simple way to identify the title to select is through the displayed time duration. In my example here, it is obvious that the movie is “Title1″, since its time duration is 1:29:27, so that is the one I select.

For TV series or other DVDs that contain more than a single title of interest, your guiding principle would be the same: it will be fairly easy to identify the episodes because they will run 30-45 minutes or so each and they will have more or less the same duration.

Step5

In the “presets” area on the right hand side, select “iPhone & iPod Touch”. If that’s not the format you want, you can do one of two things; either (a) select that format for now; you will get to change specifics later, or; (b) find and select the format you want from the available options.

I strongly suggest (a), such that what you will see will correspond to the screenshots provided here.

Click “browse” next to the box labeled destination, find your desired destination folder, and type in your desired filename (and extension). Or use the file format dropdown to make sure you’ve got the correct output format.

A note on formats: MP4 and M4V are the same format (M4V simply denotes that this MP4 file is a video file, but is often not recognized by some media players). Note that iTunes will recognize both, but I personally prefer to use MP4.

AVI Format: if you want to get an .AVI format file, make sure to specify AVI in this step, using the dropdown.

Step7

Next, in the “Picture Settings” tab, move down to “Width/Height”. If you have an iPhone/iPod touch or a newer generation iPod type 640 in the left (width) box. Leave the “height” box blank. This will prompt Handbrake to calculate the height for your video based on the correct aspect ratio of the title, and your resulting video will look right and will not be lopsided or resized incorrectly.

This is the only input you will make in this tab. Leave everything else alone.

Important note on width=640: the reason I use this value is that the resulting video will play nicely and at an excellent quality both on most iPods/portable devices as well as on the computer (i.e. I like to create one file that will work everywhere, and will look decent on a computer screen).

Note, however, that although iPhone/iPod Touch and all newer generation iPods (5G onwards) can accept video sizes up to 640 pixels, iPhones/Ipod Touchs will only display this video at a resolution of 480 pixels wide, while older iPods will only display a resolution of 320 pixels wide. Pre-5G iPods cannot handle video files with 640 pixels resolution at all, therefore if you have an older device than a Fifth Generation iPod you must use “320″ as the width value rather than “640″.

Here you have to do 3 things:

1- Set the target size in megs (under quality). Here are some guidelines

• For a “normal” feature film use 700 megs. Your video will be of excellent quality and if you want to burn it to CD to get it off your hard drive it will fit on a single disk.
• For typical TV series episode use 230 megs (such that you could fit three on a single CD) or 350 megs for better quality (and you could fit two episodes on a single CD). I usually go with the former, and typically the quality is excellent.

2- Under “Advanced Encoding Settings” check two-pass encoding. This will make for a better quality video but at the expense of longer processing time. Do it!

3- Select video codec using the dropdown

• Select MPEG4-Xvid. Yes you could use Xvid to encode MP4s, which some people do not know; you do not need to use H264 (although yes H264 it is much much more common for MP4s – you can use H264 if you want to).
• For AVI files: use Xvid, plain and simple, if your intended output is an AVI file.

Leave all else as is.

1- Go to the Bitrate (Kbps) column and use the dropdown to select 160 Kbps. This is the maximum quality that the iPod can use and I always select it; I advise you to do the same as believe you me there is NOTHING more annoying than trying to watch a video on a portable device in a public place where the din of outside noises is more audible than the audio from the video that you are trying to watch.

2- Subtitles:

• If you do not need subtitles (i.e. the audio is in your language), do not select or check anything and skip to Step10 …. or
• If you think there may be scenes in a foreign language, but the video is mainly in the language you want, select your desired language from the dropdown and click on “Forced Subtitles Only”. This will result in burned-in subtitles only for those scenes that may require it.
• If you are converting a foreign film, and/or you want subtitles visible on-screen at all times, then select the language you want from the dropdown; in this case do NOT click on “Forced Subtitles Only”

Note on subtitles: any subtitles created with Hanbrake will be permantently “burned into” your video. Handrbake does not produce a seperate subtitles file.

This one is easy; uncheck the “Create Chapter markers” box.

Unless of course you want chapter markers displayed for some reason, inwhich case keep it checked. These markers will be displayed on-screen in the same way burned subtitles would. Moreover, if you want to you can edit/customize the “labels” that you want to display for each chapter marker under “Chapter Name”

You are now ready to start the conversion process. You can do one of two things

1. Start the process (go to step 13)
2. Add another title or titles for “batch encoding”; i.e. have Handbrake schedule another conversion or conversions to be executed back-to-back after this one.

Batch encoding allows you to schedule another conversion or string of conversions to be performed serially one and after the other.

In the process described here, for example, you could batch-convert multiple titles that exist on the DVD such as multiple episodes or extra materials that you are interested in.

How to do it: click “Add to Queue”, then select a new title to convert from the title dropdown, enter a new destination file, and customize the settings for the new title as per the steps above. Press “Show Queue” to review the list of conversions that you have scheduled.

Once you’re ready to start the process, go to Step13.

Note on multiple episodes/TV series: the beauty of scheduling multiple episodes/TV series in batch is that for each title that you add to the process you do not have to change any of the settings (assuming you want the same settings to apply to all episodes). All you would need to do is select title > enter a new destination filename > add to queue, and keep doing this until all episodes on the DVD are covered.

Step13

Click on “Start” in the upper left to start the conversion process.

A DOS window will appear which reveals what is going on under the hood. The time this will take to finish will vary depending on the titles you are converting and how powerful your system is. On average I would say it takes 2.5 hours per movie.

Happy Converting  .