Mayayana wrote:
"Bill in Co" wrote

There don't seem to be any listings or reviews of their programs that
I've found (but I only looked briefly), nor have I found out much of
anything about this "videotool.net" company, or even where it is based.
If you want to be suspicious of something, I think this is a case in
point.


Yes. That's as I described in my own experience.
But I tried it. I monitored for any suspicious activity.
It's one of the few that never tried to call home at all.
And it works.

just that you (generally) get what you pay for.

?? Was anyone talking about being willing to
pay for this? The question was about "good free".

Actually, many of the items on his site have a suggested "Buy Now"
(donation) price, and there is a tab for Donations starting at $50, so go
figure. Yes, the question is about GOOD free, and I think that's still a
bit up in the air (as to how good it is - see my comment on codecs and
compression).

I also don't think that's necessarily true when it
comes to software. There are lots of factors. Many
good products are free because there's just no
market for selling them. Most of the software I use
is free. And I also use it because it's usually the best
I've found. I've paid for some that I think is worth it.
But with most things there's no need to pay.

For some things I'm with you.

At the other extreme are the corporate monopoly
products -- MS Office and Photoshop. In that case
you get less than you pay for, since equivalents can
be had far cheaper.

I'm not sure there really is an *equivalent* of Photoshop. Like I wouldn't
call GIMP an *equivalent*. For MS Office I'd say the same thing too,
although there are some pretty good clones. WPS Office or Softmaker Free
Office comes to mind. Or maybe LibreOffice. But, let's be honest - none
of these are *equivalent*.

Then there are things that are not the best but are
good enough. Example: PDF XChange Viewer free version
can edit PDFs. It's not as capable as Acrobat, but it does
what I need and Acrobat is ridiculously overpriced.

OK, but as you say, it's not equivalent.

snipped some for brevity


Also, from the posting Arlen gave, you'll notice it's using an old mp4
codec, and not the h.264 version.

I don't see Arlen's posts and I don't really
understand what that means. Smaller files? The
Videotool people seem to have written their own
stuff, but I don't know anything about video
programming, so I can't assess it. What's superior
about h.264 and what's the old version?

Yes, it means smaller files. A LOT smaller files due to *much* better
compression. Something similar applies to WMV files, too: WMV9 is vastly
superior to WMV7.

If these freebie programs are using the old codecs, then you're really not
getting much. But ok, I'll concede they're at least better than MPG
(mpeg2), for what that's worth. :-)

Maybe somebody can
investigate a few of their programs further.

Like you, perhaps? If everyone tries some
of them, we get a good sample.

I'll think about it - perhaps moreso with regards to the "mp4 video
converter", which I'd probably have more use for, since I'm not doing much
"screencasting" these days. :-)

It looks to me like Videotools is a small, non-US
shareware company. Probably non-English, as Paul
noted. But that doesn't make them suspicious.
The software works. I should note, though, that I'm
not picky in this case. I haven't looked into options
with any of this software in terms of resolution,
FPS, etc. If I use it, it will only be to do something
like send an instruction video to a friend trying to
set up email. Compression is probably the most
important factor to me.

If compression is the most important factor to you, I don't think this is
all that great. As I mentioned, it's not even using the h264 codec for its
mp4 files, from what was posted, so I feel it's a bit stuck in the stone
age. :-) But it also might be why it is free, too.