Showing posts with label Debut. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Debut. Show all posts

Wednesday

Debut Top Video Capture Software

Debut Video Capture Software Award TopTenReviewsDebut Video Capture Software makes it possible for you to record or capture video from virtually any recording source. Rather than specializing in capturing video from a single source, Debut combines the recording capabilities of several programs, so whether you want to record streaming video, record from a networked IP camera, or connect your VHS player to your computer to digitize an old home movie, Debut is the only program you need.

The reviewers at TopTenReviews have agreed, awarding Debut the Silver award in their video capture software category, saying that they "were very impressed with how easy it was to use the interface and the tools available within Debut," going on to say:

"We were very impressed with the usability of Debut Video Capture Software and the well designed interface they created for their users, which is why it ranks as one of the top two products available. It also offers a number of recording tools and capturing abilities, and we found each tool easy to access and easy to use. We were pleased with the high quality results of the video captures as well as with the captured audio."

TopTenReviews

You can read the complete review of Debut Video Capture Software on the TopTenReviews website. Or, see how easy it is to use firsthand by downloading this both powerful and easy video recording program to your PC or Mac today.
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Friday

Video-Sharing from Software to Site

Where do you share videos?

Upload videos to video-sharing sites from your softwareIt should come as no surprise to anyone that the use of video-sharing sites is on the rise, which is why we are working on making it as easy as possible to share your finished video projects from our video software, including VideoPad video editor and PhotoStage. Most recently we added direct uploading to Facebook and Flickr in addition to YouTube to the export options in VideoPad. All you have to do is set up your account information the first time, and VideoPad will do the rest. By automating the uploading process, we allow you to post more videos online.

But are there any other video-sharing sites that should be added? You tell us. We want to make sure that our software is as easy to use as possible. Post a comment to this post and we’ll take your suggestions to the developers. Thanks for the feedback!
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Monday

Record Video from Anywhere

Debut Video Capture Software records and captures video from webcams, recording devices, and from your computer screen. It’s great for recording tutorials you can post to online sites such as YouTube, for making company messages, for recording streaming video, and more. See for yourself how easy it is to get started capturing and recording videos in this Debut video tutorial:

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Mac Video Capture Software

I am thrilled to announce that Debut video capture software is now available for Mac as well as for Windows. I have long appreciated the features of Debut for recording video from a webcam or video screen capture, even capturing video from an external video capture device. We use Debut in our office on a regular basis to record video clips for the developers to show them bugs when testing products and recording video clips for our tutorial videos.

While I have used the Windows version of Debut numerous time, and even turned several friends and family members on to Debut (Ask Dad: Debut is a Simple Solution ), since I have a Mac at home I too have anxiously awaiting the release of the Mac version for those numerous occasions when it would be the perfect solution for grabbing a video clip. Now that my wait is finally over I hope that other Mac users out there will be as excited as I am about this addition to our Mac software line-up. Download Debut video capture software today and let us know what you think.
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Sunday

7 Programs You Can't Live Without

Prism Video Converter
If you've ever had trouble opening a video file, you need Prism. Prism will let you quickly convert any troublesome video files into a more manageable format. With more formats supported than any other video converter, you'll be hard pressed to come across a video file that Prism can't handle.
Prism Video Converter

Switch Audio ConverterSwitch Audio Converter
There are a lot of different audio file formats out there, and a lot of places you might want to keep your favorite music, from CDs and iPods to your computer or online, just to name a few. Make sure you always have the right format for every song and every application with the Switch Audio Converter.

FastFox Typing Expander
Ever find yourself typing the same things over and over? FastFox can be a huge helping hand at home or at work. Use keyboard shortcuts to expand to anything you commonly write, and save time inserting signatures in email, filling out online forms, and writing long responses to customer questions.
FastFox Typing Expander

Debut Video CaptureDebut Video Capture
Whether you want to transfer the video from a camcorder to your computer, are trying to record a video from your webcam, or even recording your screen, Debut is your single software solution for capturing video.

Express Burn Disc Burning Software
Burn pictures, home movies, resumes, portfolios, or back up your files to CDs, DVDs and even Blue-Ray discs in a variety of file formats with Express Burn. Simply drag, drop and burn.
Express Burn Disc Burning Software

PhotoStage Slideshow CreatorPhotoStage Slideshow Creator
Bring your digital photos to life and share your favorite memories with family and friends. Tell a compelling story, display your best images, or show off your proudest moments. PhotoStage lets you combine images, video clips, music and narration in a fun and dynamic fashion.

WavePad Audio Editor
No list would be complete without one of our all-time favorites: WavePad. WavePad is the perfect application for any audio project in the sound studio or at home. The easy-to-use interface will have you up and running quickly with all the powerful tools you need at your fingertips.
WavePad Audio Editor
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Monday

Assistive Technology

Recently I stumbled across an article by Luke Hsieh, an assistive technology advocate, about building a low cost electronic magnifier with a webcam and Debut video capture software. This was not only a nice example of how versatile our video recording software is, but it got me thinking a bit about assistive technology, which doesn't always get its due.

A lot of technology is designed with a somewhat constrained image of the typical user, and as a result can sometimes be very difficult or even impossible for people with various disabilities to use. Assistive Technology, on the other hand, makes it easier for individuals with disabilities to access information technology, which is extremely important in the high tech world we live in.

I have heard from customers in the past complementing our software applications because they have found them to be very accessible. While I am thrilled that they have found our software accessible, I have to admit this is more the result of our efforts to make our products as intuitive and user-friendly across the board than anything else. It makes sense that software that it easy to use is also more accessible, and as a result, we hope everyone will find our software easy and accessible.

Some examples of how our software can be used as assistive technology include Verbose text-to-speech software to convert a document to an mp3 file to listen to latter, or as a screen reader; and as Hsieh pointed out you can use Debut video capture software to make a custom electronic magnifier, or when you're making your next YouTube video. We will continue striving to make all our software easy to use for everyone, and hope that everyone finds our software accessible along the way.
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Tuesday

Webcam Without Software? No Problem

webcam softwareThere are a lot of people out there who have webcams and have either lost the software that came with them, or their webcams didn't even come with any software. Fortunately even if you don't have a cd of resources to go with your webcam that doesn't mean that you chave to run out and buy a new one, or be limited to only its most basic features. Check out our webcam software, which can really help you take full advantage of your webcam. Our webcam software includes Debut video capture software which you can use to record and save videos from your webcam for video editing projects, or save them for yourself or optimize to share online. So if you have a webcam that is getting little use take a look at some of the fun things things you can do with our software for webcams.
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Wednesday

Let's (re)Make Parisian Love How to reproduce Google's 2010 Super Bowl Ad

How to remake the Google Super Bowl ad with video tools from NCH Software

If you were one the millions of people who tuned in to watch the Super Bowl this past year, there’s a good chance you saw the Google ad, “Parisian Love”. If you haven’t, well, now’s your chance…

Google Parisian Love Super Bowl Ad

The simple concept set it apart from other Super Bowl ads, making it one of the more memorable commercials to play that night. Equally simple is the execution – with the right tools, anyone can make a similar ad. Here’s how:

Video Recording Your Google Search
The first thing you need is Debut for video screen recording. Once Debut is installed, click the aptly named “Screen” icon in the toolbar, and you’ll notice the stage on the program switches over to a mirror image of your computer screen. You’ll also notice a variety of options along the bottom, which let you choose which file type you want to save your video as, the size in which to capture, as well as the option to add video effects, adjust the color, cropping options and more. These options may come in handy later, but for now we can ignore them.

Set a selection area for video screen recording in DebutNow that we have our screen capture software ready, open your web browser and head over to www.google.com, and make sure to maximize your browser window. Now, head back into Debut and click the “Selections” icon in the toolbar to specify the portion of your screen to be recorded. Click the “Add Window” button at the top and select the Google browser window from the list of options. (Note: Make sure the browser window is visible on the screen or Debut won’t record it). Once we’ve squared that away, head into “Options” (in the toolbar) and on the “Devices” tab, click the box that disables recording the Debut window (eliminating the hall of mirrors effect). After that, click on the “Output” tab to choose where these recordings are going to be saved. You may want to make a dummy recording just to make sure things are functioning properly. Now you’re ready to record!

Back on the stage and with our browser window open, hit record, head back into the browser and start searching! Take your time; we’ll cut out any unnecessary parts later. The process of searching through Google may take awhile. Just keep at it with the end result in mind… All done? If so, head back into Debut and hit the stop button. This will (obviously) stop our recording.

With that out of the way, let’s head to our output folder and view our recorded movie. Watching this, you may be wondering how we’re going to separate the parts we need from the parts we don’t. To achieve the end result we want, we’re going to have to incorporate some light video editing. Enter VideoPad. Even if you’ve never edited video before, there’s no need to be scared - VideoPad is very user-friendly and is designed with the beginner in mind.

Cutting Your Recorded Video Down to Size
With VideoPad installed and opened, the first thing we’re going to do is import our recording by clicking the “Add Media” icon in the toolbar and navigating to where the file is saved. Click “Open” to import the footage and you’ll see that the file now appears in your Media List. Click on the file, and it will immediately appear in the Clip window (the bigger of the two windows on the left). This window acts as a preview window – here you can set in/out points, view the timeline and save files. For now, let’s select the footage from the Media List and drag it onto the first empty area under the windows; this is the Video Track timeline and is where we’ll be doing our editing to remove any unwanted sections.

VideoPad main screen editing navigationYou should now see a thumbnail preview of your video in the timeline. Underneath the video, you’ll see audio waveforms in the Audio Track section. When you import any video media that has audio attached, they’ll be linked (meaning you can’t edit them separately) until you tell the program otherwise. You can do this by right-clicking on the waveform and selecting “Unlink Sound Clip(s)”. Now that the audio is separated, select just the audio and hit “Delete,” removing the audio from the video. Don’t worry; we’ll be replacing it with our own audio later.

We now have one long video track that needs to be cut down to size. Before we begin cutting, it’s important that we familiarize ourselves with the timeline marker. You’ll notice when you move the timeline marker, a preview of the final product appears in the right window (the Sequence Window). This is an important reference tool in which we can use to make smarter, more accurate editing decisions.

We’re going to again reference the Google ad to get a feel for what we want to keep. This way, we can start trimming the video down to size. Drag the marker to the beginning of an area that we want to omit and click “Split Clip,” located to the left of the Video Track. Now, navigate the marker to the end of the undesired area and click “Split Clip” again. Our timeline will now be segmented into three. Select the undesired clip section, and hit “Delete” to remove it. Congratulations, you have just made your very first cut and are well on your way to recreating the Google ad! This might be a good time to save your project, which you should keep doing periodically from here on out. It’d be a shame to lose all that hard work…

After making a few more cuts, hopefully you’re getting close to the look of the Google ad. When you’re done trimming the fat and are happy with your final product, the last step is adding the audio. It works very much the same as adding video. Click on the “Add Media” button once more and select a piece of music; click “Open” and the audio will be added to your Media List. Select it and, similar to the video track, drag it to the empty area in Audio Track section labeled “Soundtrack 1.” Waveforms will now be visible on the timeline, just as before. If need be, you can also move and cut the track at your leisure in the same way we cut the video. Now when you preview the final product in the Sequence Window, you’ll have audio too. Horray for progress!

Save and Share your Masterpiece
Now that your masterpiece is done, the last step is to save the movie; Click ”Save Movie” in the toolbar, and an output window will appear. From here, you can export for DVD, YouTube, portable media, etc. Select your desired format using the tabs at the top and the drop-down menus below them and click “OK” to begin the export process. It may take several minutes depending on the format and length, but once completed, your video will be ready to share with the world! Pat yourself on the back!

Congratulations, you’ve now successfully (re)made Parisian Love!
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Monday

Ask Dad: Debut is a Simple Solution

My dad works for a major computer manufacturer as an electrical engineer, and even in that large corporate environment there are times when getting a simple software solution from outside the company is preferable to reinventing the wheel and creating something in house.

When I was using a little vacation time to visit my dad, he happened to mention not being really happy with the video capture program that he had been using for an experiment. He had been using a product called FreezeScreen that he said didn't seem as stable as he might like, and the recorded video wasn't always as clear as the original. Naturally, I recommended he try our program, Debut Video Capture Software, to see if he had better results with NCH's solution.

For a little bit of background I asked him if he could tell me more about what he was using the screen recording software for. He is using a collection of extremely high speed strobe lights and high magnification optics to image the operation of MEMS devices in motion with near nanosecond time resolution. There are no off-the-shelf systems that can do this type of analysis, so he put together the equipment himself. And, since there isn't a software front end, the only results he gets are on the on-screen display. So, if he wants to save any of the images to send to a colleague or to analyze further later, he needs a screen recording software like Debut.

I am happy to report that he has been very pleased with results that he has been able to get using Debut. To quote him, "The Debut software does exactly what I need. I even use the sound capture to annotate my observations in real time so I do not forget any of the things I changed during each test. When I play the video back I get a video recording of what happened, along with any measurements that were being taken, and my annotation is all synchronized in time in one video."

This is just one example of how a simple software solution like Debut can be a useful tool for research and industrial testing. Someone like my dad can put together a custom test environment with a number of individual software packages such as a digital camera interface, a timer program, a program that reads and displays the voltage, temperature, or some other information that is relevant to the test. By positioning the windows from each of the separate programs on screen before recording, Debut can capture a video record of all of the pieces in a single video. So even a piecemeal custom test can produce results that look like they were generated by a single, highly integrated system.
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Wednesday

New Year's Resolutions

It's that time of year again, when everyone makes their new year's resolutions. And as we all look forward to the new year and start planning for how we would like to see things go there is a surprisingly consolidated list of resolutions that the majority of people make. While searching on-line here is one Top Ten List of New Year's Resolutions that many of you may find yourself on:
  1. Spend More Time with Family and Friends
  2. Fit in Fitness
  3. Tame the Bulge
  4. Quit Smoking
  5. Enjoy Life More
  6. Quit Drinking
  7. Get Out of Debt
  8. Learn Something New
  9. Help Others
  10. Get Organized
My personal resolution is getting to the gym more which fits right in there with number two on that list, and I'm sure that plenty of you are with me on that. Sadly none of our software will help me make that particular goal happen, but we do have software that can help with some of the items on the list. Take a look at some the software programs that you might enjoy whether or not they are related to your resolution: Get Organized Sort through all of your photos and home movies and turn them in to memorable presentations with either PhotoStage Slideshow Software or VideoPad Video Editor. Your memories do deserve a life outside of a dusty shoebox, so turn them into something worth watching. Then use Disketch Label Maker to create CD and DVD labels and covers for all of your mixed CDs and home movies. Help Others Are you bursting with enough information to start your own podcast or tutorial series? Record yourself with RecordPad or capture video of yourself or your computer screen with Debut Video Recorder, and then share your knowledge with the world using BroadWave Audio Streamer or BroadCam Video Streamer. Enjoy Life More and Spend Time with Family and Friends One great idea would be to have more parities, and with Zulu DJ Software you can be the disc jockey for a guaranteed playlist with all your favorites. NCH Software 2010 Resolutions As always we have lots of things in the works but I would say the most exciting are plans to develop a healthy library of apps for the iPhone and Droid. Currently the top five programs that we are working on for Android and iPhone platforms are Express Dictate, WavePad Audio Editor, RecordPad Sound Recorder, PitchPerfect Guitar Tuner, and TempoPerfect Metronome Software.
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Do we use our own software?

In one word... yes. 

NCH Software has two office locations, one in Denver Colorado and the other in Canberra, Australia. Both locations are set up with the Axon Virtual PBx and the IVM Call Attendant. In some cases employees have extensions on both PBx systems. This allows us to call between the offices on IP Phones for no cost at all. 

Someone in the Australian office can just pick up their phone and dial and extension allocated to me in the Denver office, the same if we were only located on different floors of the same building. 

If I need to make a call to another business in Australia I can pick up my phone, press my Australian extension and dial a number in Australia and the call we be charged at local call rates instead of international call rates.

FastFox Text Expander is an application that nearly all staff have installed on their PCs and Macs. Our support and marketing teams use it for common responses, signitures, URLs, phone numbers and addresses. 

FlexiStation is installed on all computers and we can track our work hours, log leave requests and generally see how our time is spent at work.

Our finance department works with Express Accounts to keep track of incoming and outgoing cash flow for the companies and our sales department uses Express Invoice to create quotes and invoices.

I personally use Debut Video Capture to record webcasts and KeyBlaze Typing Tutor typing tutor because sometimes two fingers for a keyboard just dosn't quite cut it. In one way or another we all use some of the software at home and in the office. Even though we have a testing department sometimes the best way to find a hidden problem, or the best suggestion, when it comes to software is to use it on a day to day level.
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