Something I forgot in the Webtools Media section: VLC Media Player

A colleague just asked what application would be good for converting certain types of video files (without using an on-line tool) and my first thought was to have a look at the web tools site to check out VLC.

For some reason I had forgotten to include this excellent bit of software from the VideoLan organisation when I transferred links from the previous site! So I've added this back in now and am here giving it a bit of extra promotion because it is very simple and very good. Admittedly, you don't get all the bells and whistles and lovely graphics of Windows Media Player but it does what it says on the bollard, I mean, tin.

Whilst it's not really a 'web tool' it is a tool and you do get it from the web and you may well find it pretty damn useful so it should be included in the Media section which is where I shall now add it.

slides with a difference

Splashcast

Here's a new application that is worth a look and I'm sure you'll think of some way to use it. Splashcast provides a nice way to construct a web show that can contain video, images, text, narration or a soundtrack. The end result can be displayed on a web page via a little bit of code. Visitors got a neat frame with a rather obvious start button and your show will be streamed on your page. It looks as though all the heavyweight files are stored on the Splashcast servers too (so I don't know how long this will stay free or ad free!)

It's a very neat and smooth product and I can see it at one extreme as being a nice change from PowerPoint and, being web based, looks easier to make available anywhere than PhotoStory and certainly has better text addition features.

So far I've only played with a folder of images but I'll try doing something a bit more challenging in other traditional applications and see what happens when I get a spare moment.