Online video accounts for an astounding percentage of the internet’s traffic. YouTube, alone, sees about 48 hours of new video uploaded every minute and about three billion video views per day. Still, we find ourselves often looking to third party applications to handle video tasks our base operating systems don’t do – or at least not well enough. A good example of this is downloading video from sources such as YouTube.
Today, I spent some time with the Elmedia Player software and tried many of the features offered in the free version as well as the PRO.
Notable Elmedia Player Features
The free version of the Elmedia Player leaves out most of my favorite features, but that’s to be expected. I found, however, that even the free version is very well polished with a lot of options and advantages over most of the free video tools I see. Here’s a list of most of what you find in the free version:
- Support for many video types (FLV, SWF, XAP (Silverlight), RM and RV (Real), AVI, MOV, MP4, WMV, DIVX)
- HTML5 video support
- Zoom in and zoom out options for SWF and EXE (or APP) files
- Growl and browsers integration
- iTunes-like playlists and star ratings
The PRO version, offered for only $19.95 on Eltima Software’s web site, hones in on a few key features that the product is really designed for and delivers in those areas. While this software isn’t littered with too much fluff, there are a few extras that don’t seem entirely necessary (like video ratings). Regardless, they’re not in the way and, more importantly, they didn’t distract Eltima from doing a good job with the core features. Some of the PRO features include:
- Download Video – even RTMP streams
- Full-screen mode
- “Always on top” mode
- Make a screenshot of the current frame
- Convert file into series of images
Of course, downloading video from a wide variety of sources is the feature I’d pay for, but the screen shot and “Always on top” features will also come in pretty handy. Less needed, but great on occasion, will be the option that lets you take a series of images – I’m thinking animated GIFs here.
Hands On Testing
After installing the software, my first test (as seen in the image at the beginning of this review) was to head to YouTube and try to download one of my review videos. In the past, I’ve used plug-ins to download a video, but Elmedia Player takes a different approach. You paste the URL to a web page into the software and it loads the page like a browser. When it does this, it looks for any videos or links to them in the page’s content and makes a list for you to select from. I first downloaded just the video that I was after, but then I tried the “Download all” option which grabbed everything in site.
Tip: You may need to start playing the video in the preview page before it will appear in the list to download.
Once a video is grabbed, it’s listed under the Downloaded section, where you can pull up everything from just today or broaden the listing. The organization extends in a different way to the file folder structure behind the scenes as well. Here, a folder is created that is named after the page you downloaded from.
While this software’s core features are not that unlike some free browser plugins on the surface, the extra video formats it supports can be invaluable. Additionally, some of the browser plugins I’ve used in the past can be sporadic in their reliability. I haven’t used this software long enough to be certain it will stand up to the many challenges I have in store for it, but so far, everything indicates that it likely will. Finally, one thing that Elmedia Player will not do that the browser plugins do all too often is cease to become useful after I upgrade to the latest browser version or switch from one to another. Being browser-independent has its advantages.
Conclusions
Cons: The only con it that it’s not free – well, it is free, but the best and really useful features are in the PRO version. Pros: This is well-built software with some thoughtful extras, the price is low enough to barely be a factor, and it doesn’t care what browser you have or version. Want 15% off? No problem. Just use the coupon code JOE-TECH-PROMO when you purchase.
Don’t Have 20 Bucks? Win It Here!
That’s right. Even if you’re just a little interested, I have been given not one, but two PRO upgrade codes to give out to lucky winners. Just follow the entry instructions below and come back here next week to see if you’ve won! Entering is as simple as clicking the “Do it” link, following any instructions, and then clicking the “I did this” button. If you’re already subscribed to JoeTech.com via email or you already follow me on Twitter, you can skip right to the “I did this” button for those entries. Good luck!
Last Halloween, a friend’s kids wandered off in search of candy before the younger children and adults were ready. Their mom knew they were going, but finding them later had me a little worried. On top of that, it’s a lot less fun finding kids in a crowded mess of people in the dark than just taking the little ones door to door for candy. This is where Trick or Tracker would have come in handy.
Trick or Tracker’s main objective is to allow the parent to know where the child is when that child is old enough to go out door to door on his or her own. That may be the core focus of the program, but it has some pretty cool features to round the whole thing out.
- Locate a trick-or-treater with the touch of a single button on the parent’s smartphone.
- Messages can be sent to the child’s phone using a special code that is picked up and responded to via pre-set coordinates.
- The child’s phone will have a special “Where Am I?” button, and the parent’s phone will have a corresponding “Where’s My Kid?” button.
- Parents can program their phone to receive messages at regular intervals revealing exactly where their child is.
I imagine most parents would want the peace of mind that the instant location checking can offer, but the feature that intrigues me even more is the notifications based on pre-set coordinates. From the sound of it, you can be alerted if the child wanders off too far or into an area you don’t want them in. This is a great feature that I can see my sister using with her kids.
Only the child’s phone must be an Android OS phone. For the parent, any Google maps-loaded phone (including iPhone, Blackberry, or Windows Phone 7) will work using a simple manual process that the developer identifies in the FAQs on their web site. I’d love to see the child app available for the iPhone, too, but I’m guessing hurdles exist with regards to a developer’s ability to access certain data on the phone.
Priced at $4.99, it’s not exactly necessary if you’ll be walking with your child every step this Halloween, but if they’ll be out on their own this year, Trick or Tracker seems like a pretty good way to give your child a little freedom without being completely in the dark.
Apple has been teasing us for a long time with IOS5 and they’re just about to release it, but if you’re like me, you want to get your hands on it early. Everyone wants to try the latest and greatest first, but there’s another advantage to diving in early. If you’ve ever tried to update your IOS on the release day, you’ve surely realized the painful wait for the software to download as millions of other people try at the same time. Grabbing this early release should eliminate that problem as well. Warning: Back up before you begin! This kind of update can be riddled with unexpected problems, so be prepared for anything.
Here’s all you have to do to update early:
(edit 1: I added a new first step, to first install iTunes 10.5 Beta 7 or higher) (edit 2: Plug directly into the computer – don’t use a USB extension cable as this can slow the backup/restore down a LOT) (edit 3: Want the official release now? Download the latest iPhone ISPW and repeat steps 2 and then 5-7 below – 8 id needed)
4. Extract the file you downloaded. I suggest using 7Zip if you’re on a PC. Find it at Download.com
5. Hold down SHIFT (or “Option” on a MAC) and click “Restore” in iTunes
6. A file selection box should open up. Choose the ISPW file that you extracted from the DMG file you downloaded.
7. iTunes will wipe your device and install IOS5. That’s OK.
8. After the install, it should ask if you want to restore from a backup. Say YES and choose your backup from Step 1.
Most people have heard of Napster and perhaps you’ve even heard of Limewire and other peer-to-peer file sharing networks. What doesn’t get as much press is the fact that peer-to-peer networks were and are used for perfectly legal file sharing as well. And file transfers can be pretty fast. The problem with sharing files on these networks is that someone on the other end has to be online and sharing that file, and if they decide to shut down for the night, you’re just out of luck. The alternative is Usenet and software like Binverse.com.
With software from Binverse, anyone can connect easily to newsgroups on Usenet and download files from servers. You know, the computers that stay on all night, even if John in Massachusetts has a big test tomorrow and needs to go to bed. Perhaps, I should take a step back, though, and introduce Usenet to the uninitiated.
What Is Usenet?
Because it hasn’t had the same media attention as some of the peer-to-peer networks, you may be wondering, “What is Usenet?” Usenet doesn’t have a hip name like Limewire or Napster because it’s been around far longer, like 15+ years longer. Binverse has a pretty decent explanation of Usenet.
Usenet is a global network of servers hosting discussion groups called “newsgroups”. Each discussion group is dedicated to a specific topic. Members post and download messages to newsgroups just like many other forms of Internet discussion groups.
Unlike traditional Internet discussion groups, newsgroups allow members to post and download messages containing discussions or messages with attached files such as pictures, videos, or any other type of file.
About Binverse
If you’re not exploring Usenet newsgroups already, you’ll want to get up and running quickly. Sadly, that’s easier said than done with newsgroups. There’s way too many to sift through and once you’ve found a file you’d like to download, it’s split across sometimes hundreds of messages. If you wanted to download a 3GB file, for example, you would need to download each part from all of the 200 or more messages, put them all back together, unzip the files, etc. This is where Binverse comes in. The software dumbs down the process while offering some pretty handy tools. In the previous example, Binverse would download, rebuild, unzip, and organize everything for me. I’ve spent about a week downloading files with Binverse and I’ve come up with a some of my favorite features.
Power Search
Earlier, I mentioned that there are far too many news groups to be able to sift through them all. With Binverse, you can search through all of their news groups for what you seek. Better still, if you have found better results in certain news groups, you can limit to just those. In the screen shot I used for this post, you can see some adult files that were a result of my search. With the search customization, I can filter those out to more quickly get to the content I’m looking for. To make it even faster, you can sort the search results, too.
File Genius
File Genius is pretty awesome. There are newsreaders that are designed to help you read newsgroups and do a fair job of putting attachments back together for you and downloading. When I downloaded the first few files, without File Genius, it felt familiar. Then I tried with File Genius and I found that it did a much better job. On top of showing me all the included files, it gave me a single download button and when it was done, it extracted my files neatly into a folder named after the archive. I never sat around wishing for File Genius, but now that I’ve used it, I wouldn’t want to download from Usenet without it. It’s just plain convenient. On the other side of the coin, I had a hard time dealing with how Binverse stored files that I downloaded without File Genius. They were sorted based on the news group name. For some people, that might be convenient, but for my downloads, it just made things hard to find.
Previews
With Binverse, you can preview photo, audio, or video files directly in the newsreader. Photos don’t take all that long to download, but videos can be another story. With the preview feature, you can get a sneak peek at part of the video long before downloading the whole thing. Anything that saves me time is a blessing.
Speed
It can be pretty frustrating to recognize the need for a file, find it online, and then spend three days downloading it. I’ve used BitComet pretty regularly in the past to download torrents and would often find that I had to wait days for the last 5% of a file or it would just download slow through the whole file. With Usenet, download speeds are only limited by the server and your own connection speed. Unlike other newsgroup services, Binverse doesn’t seem to throttle the speed at all.
Privacy
You don’t always want people to know your business and what you’re downloading. Binverse protects your privacy by offering free SSL encryption with every account. It’s more secure from prying eyes, and even though ISPs say they don’t throttle your account for heavy downloading, a lot of them do. Let them guess if you’re downloading files or just watching Hulu.
For all that’s offered, the pricing is pretty decent and the service and software are bundled, making this the easiest Usenet solution I’ve found.
Win A Binverse Account
I mentioned pricing, but you have a pretty good chance of winning a Premium Binverse account right here in a couple easy steps. To try the service, Binverse gave me an account with unlimited features and a 50 GB cap. I can take as long as I want to eat up that 50GB and the three additional accounts they’re letting me give away are the same as mine. I’ve downloaded a lot in the last week and I still have 37 GB left for high speed downloads.
All you have to do to enter is share this post on Facebook. To let me know about your entry, you can add me on Facebook and tag me in your post or you can just send me a link to your post. As long as I can see it, it’ll count. I’ll pick three winners via a random draw on Friday, October 14, 2011 at 8:00 AM MST.
Here’s the fine print we all know and love: I must be aware of your entry for it to count. Only one entry per person for this contest. Nobody in my immediate family can enter (sorry Dad). Winners will be contacted via Facebook and will have to provide an email address to get an account set up. I reserve the right to disqualify any entries from Facebook accounts I deem to be fake.
Enter now and with any luck, you’ll be oohing and aahing at File Genius next weekend.
