That's a tall order, right?  VLC from VideoLAN.org has become the go-to media player for most, as it can play so many things that Windows Media Player won't, and it's free.  Well, how does it do that, play more than other players?  The Libavformat and Libavcodec libraries, the same ones created by and for the FFmpeg project (and so many other multimedia applications). 

VLC & DirectShow Filters

DirectShow is one of Microsoft's multimedia frameworks, formerly known as ActiveMovie, which replaced Microsoft's earlier Video for Windows framework.  VLC supports DirectShow-based input sources through a module (not very well, IMO, though), but the default Windows version downloaded from VideoLAN cannot reference 32-bit DirectShow filters installed on your Windows PC for audio/video decoding (i.e. filters/codecs registered in your Windows Registry), as the default version downloaded is x64.

As an example, a DCCTV video file exported from a GeoVision system to an AVI file may be using the proprietary GMP4 video codec. In order to play the video, you must install the GeoVision GMP4 codec necessary to decode the primary video stream; this is a DirectShow filter.  DirectShow filters can only be referenced by applications that can leverage DirectShow, which we've established, VLC x64 cannot. 

"Blender is the free and open source 3D creation suite. It supports the entirety of the 3D pipeline—modeling, rigging, animation, simulation, rendering, compositing and motion tracking, video editing and 2D animation pipeline." - https://blender.org

This is a project I've known about for some time, but hadn't looked at in quite awhile.  Wow.  VFX & compositing geeks are going to love Blender 2.92.

Let's make it another great week my friends, be safe out there! 

A brief video discussing the basics of multimedia metadata analysis & some of the Open Source and/or Freeware solutions that can help. Solutions discussed include:

• Exiftools, by Phil Harvey - https://exiftool.org/
• MediaInfo & MediaInfoOnline - https://mediaarea.net/en/MediaInfo​
• FFprobe & FFmpeg - https://www.ffmpeg.org

You may have read recently about how Audacity®was purchased by the Muse Group, and that the entire world may be coming to an end as a result.  Some podcasters, audiophiles and down-right cheapskates alike are beside themselves, due to the flurry of news stories flooding the Interwebs claiming Audacity® is now spyware.

Stumbled on a blog post today about this topic, which is worth the read IMHO - "Why I moved away from FOSS as my main toolset". The author, whom I first met when he was a student in a LEVA Level 1 and/or 2 class I was teaching the better part of 10 years ago, raises some valid points about leveraging FOSS in DME workflows; training, support and documenting FOSS tools being the points I agree with. To that end, keep your eyes & ears open for news about professional training & support for FOSS solutions related to DME.

With that said, I'm going to make a few comments and pose a few questions to the community based on the above post, so if you haven't read it...the rest of this post is probably moot.

Who doesn't love free stuff? Even better, who doesn't love free stuff that actually works? Here's my Fab 5 list of Freeware programs, in no particular order. The quotes are from the respective Web site for each program. While I've found all of these programs helpful in one way or another, make sure you've read and understand my Web site Terms of Use before visiting any of these links.