Stuff We Love: Convert videos quickly with VisualHub
As a followup to Aaron’s nice introduction yesterday, I want to invite you to join in my love affair with VisualHub. In my opinion, this software is one of the coolest things to happen to video in a long time. Professional Developers may also find this software useful for Powerpoint presentations.
VisualHub allows you to convert many popular video formats (think .flv, .mov, Quicktime) into the specific format you need. Sorry PC users, but as of now this is only available for Macs. I probably use VisualHub at least once a week to convert a video from Quicktime format into a raw Flash file in order to upload it to our Learning Labs site. You can take VisualHub for a test drive here and download a free trial version. The website also contains very reasonable pricing options and an awesome help manual.
I’ll tell you a story about a real life situation where VisualHub came in very handy.
Once upon a time a very nice lady, we’ll call her Patty Graner, came to us with a problem. Patty needed to insert a few video clips into her Powerpoint slides but the video we had was already in .flv (Flash) format.
So I…
1. Opened VisualHub
2. Dragged my .flv clip into the window
3. Selected MP4 (Quicktime) as my conversion choice
4. Clicked the Start button.
Check out the one-minute video below to see just how simple the whole process is.
VisualHub Demo from Stratepedia on Vimeo.
A few minutes later I had the same video in a format better suited for Powerpoint slides and Patty lived happily ever after.
The End.
*A note from Amber: Ironically, in the hour that it took me to create this post, Techspansion (the creators of VisualHub) have decided to close down their website. Visualhub.org is still available but I’m not sure how long it will stay up. I will post more information about the future of VisualHub as soon as possible.
Tags: powerpoint, video, VisualHub
October 3rd, 2008 at 11:27 am
This blog entry provides a small explanation and a few other options you can try.
http://www.tuaw.com/2008/10/03/techspansion-closes-visualhub-discontinued/
October 3rd, 2008 at 11:27 am
That really is too bad he discontinued the product out of the blue like that, but I suppose he has his reasons. Maybe he’ll release the source code or sell it to another developer–VisualHub had a pretty loyal fan base.
October 3rd, 2008 at 12:21 pm
I just saw someone point out that the forthcoming version of HandBrake, the software I wrote about the other day, will essentially do what VisualHub does–just not quite as elegantly.
October 6th, 2008 at 2:27 pm
Potentially good news: MacWorld says Visual Hub’s source code may be released so other developers can keep working on it.
October 20th, 2008 at 8:02 am
[...] few weeks ago Amber waxed rhapsodic about VisualHub, our go-to choice for quick and easy video conversion on the Mac. In a classic case of really [...]
November 17th, 2008 at 9:17 am
[...] love to talk up the dearly-departed VisualHub and its new, open source progeny Transcoder Redux around here. I’ve never seen a way to [...]