Boy have I got a GEM for you! I’ve just stumbled upon Free File Sync – a FREE file and folder sync program. It does everything that the programs you have to pay for do, and more, FOR FREE!
Free File Sync is available for Windows, Mac, and Linux. It can Mirror Sync (Left To Right) as well as Sync in Both Directions (Two Way), Can Compare before Sync, has lots of sync options such as Archiving/Versioning duplicates, Moving to trash and permanent deletion, and you can even make it shut down your machine once syncing is complete.
It will even do Live Real time syncing. Just select the folders you want it to watch and as soon as you add a file to that folder, Free File Sync will automatically sync the file to the your destination folder – How Cool Is That!
When synchronization is occurring, you get a nice informative window telling what is going on.
I am really blown away by this program. I have just deleted my copy of Chronosync (Which I payed $40 for) as well as my copy of Martian Slingshot (Real Time Sync which I payed $30 for) and now have Free File Sync on all my machines – FOR FREE!
If you have a camera capable of taking 3D photographs, and a Apple Computer, I have just found the simplest, quickest, easiest way to view your photos, It’s called ShowMe3D. Ever since I got my 3D camera I have been longing for a way to just unload my pics, and view them in 3D straight away, without having to jump through a million hoops, and this is it!
Open up App Store on your Mac and search for ShowMe3D, or click this link to Download ShowMe3D from the Mac App Store. It’s not free, but at just $4.99, it really is a bargain.
Once you have downloaded and installed ShowMe3D, open it up and you will see the main screen.
Now, open the folder that contains the .mpo files (Multiple Picture Object) from your camera, and drag the pics you want to view onto the open window and put on your 3D glasses.
Instantly, you can view your 3D photos in 3D, and scroll through them in the same way you would using the “Preview” app. A feature of this program that I really like, is it also allows you to Export your .mpo files as Anaglyph Jpegs, so you can quickly and easily convert your .mpo’s to regular jpegs – cool huh!
Here’s a Anaglyph 3D Jpeg I converted from an .mpo file using ShowMe3D – It’s my dog Benson.
So now you have created your 3D video file, its time to watch it back and see how it looks. If you try to open it using Quicktime or Windows Media Player, you will see your two camera feeds simultaneously in “Side by Side” format.
In order to see the 3D effect, and watch your video in 3D you will need to use a player that is capable of handling Stereoscopic Video files. There are quiet a few out there, but my Favorite is called BINO. I like it because it is really easy to use, can play your side by side video file back in lots of different flavors of 3D (like red/cyan, amber/blue, green magenta), there are versions for Windows, Mac and Linux/Unix, and the best part, its completely free!
You can download BINO from the bino3d.org web site HERE.
Once you have downloaded, extracted and installed BINO you can launch it, and from the file menu select your Side By Side video file, and the player will appear. You now need to set only two parameters, you need to tell BINO what kind of file it is you want to play, and how you want it played back.
In the “Input” drop down menu, select “Left/Right Half Width”, and in the “Output” drop down menu, select the display method that corresponds to the 3D Glasses you will be using to watch the video. I have the ones with the Red and Blue lenses, so I use Red/Cyan High Quality mode. Now, just push play and see how you did.
You can make your video go full screen by double clicking the playing video. Double clicking on it again takes you back to window mode.
Earlier this week one of my favorite movies “The Scorpion King” was on TV, and as I recently bought a new digital set top box with USB recording capabilities, I thought I would give it a try. I remember when I saw The Scorpion King at the movies it was in a very widescreen aspect ratio, and it looked great! But, as soon as it started on Sunday night, I could tell something was not right. Rock Johnson looked more like a character from Avatar than the WWF! He seemed over 10 feet tall and as skinny as a broom handle, which as we all know, isn’t the case!
My suspicion is that someone at the TV station got lazy, or maybe a setting in my set top box was wrong, but the bottom line is I have a 2+ gigabit video file of one of my favorite movies, and it is virtually unwatchable because the aspect ratio is way off.
Thankfully, there is a nice easy way to straighten things out. Now, If I intended to watch the video file on my computer, I would use VideoLAN’s VLC Player, because it’s free, it plays practically everything, and it has nice built in feature’s that amongst dozens of other tricks, will adjust your movies aspect ratio on the fly, so no re-encoding is required.
VLC Player falls into my “I can’t Believe it’s free” category. No matter what OS your running, they have a player for you that will knock your socks off. But if you want to watch that distorted video file on something like a WDTV, or plug a USB key into your flat screen TV, your gonna have to re-encode it and repair the problems.
Luckily, my set top box records in MP4 format, so my tall and skinny video file will drop straight into a really cool, and again FREE program, called MPEG Streamclip, which is what I am going to use to fix my aspect ratio problem in my video file.
Thankfully, MPEG Stream not only fixes tall and skinny video’s, but short fat ones too 🙂
To get started, if you don’t have it already, get your free copy of MPEG Stream clip right HERE! You can do a bunch of cool stuff with it, it’s free, so there is no reason not to have it in your video tool kit! Once your installed, FIRE IT UP!
Once the main window is open, drag your wonky video clip into it, and you will see a preview window.
To begin reshaping, open the file menu and select “Export to MPEG-4”, or if you want to cross encode to another format, you can choose it here instead.
Once you have selected your preferred export format, a new window will pop up where you can adjust your settings, and de-distort your movie.
As you can see from the above capture, my video was recorded in 720px wide by 400px high, so I am now thinking I really do need to go and take a look at the default settings on my set top box. To start repairing the problem, I clicked “Other”, left the width at 720px, and started to play with the vertical height. After I changed the setting, I clicked “Preview” to see if my changes made the aspect ratio better.
A new window popped up and the movie started to preview, and I noticed a secondary window which looked like it had already begun encoding, but this doesn’t appear to be the case. It seems to me that it is just encoding your preview while you are watching it, but its not the final pass.
If the preview looks good, or even if it doesn’t, click the stop button after you have assessed your changes. If you want to re-adjust your settings, you can go back and do so, or if you are happy with your changes, go ahead and click “Make MP4” in the bottom right hand corner, and give your FIXED video a new unique name.
Like most video encoding, it will take some time to process the file and apply your changes. But when it’s done, everything will look like it should again.
Almost all of us were, and are still using Windows based computers, even though we have locked ourselves firmly into the Apple world by buying iPhones and iPads. I am sure you have noticed (Like I Have) there are definitely some issues that arise by being “Multi Platform”. Slowly but surely, the software writers of the world are delivering apps that allow your iPhone and Windows 7 Laptop to co-exist a little more seamlessly.
For over a decade now, all of the home video I have, all of my DVD backups, TV programs I have recorded, in other words, my entire video collection is in AVI format. My movies are in DIVX format (I bought Dr DIVX years ago to rip my DVD’s and have stuck with it), and everything else is in XVID. That’s just the way it has ALWAYS been! And I sure as heck aren’t going to convert them all to Quicktime, I’ll be dead before it finishes re-encoding.
Enter Buzz Player, or in my case, Buzz Player HD for iPad. Buzz Player is an app for your iPhone/iPod Touch/iPad (Even iPhone 3GS) that will allow you to create folders, copy movie files to your device, and play them seamlessly without the need for jail breaking your device! And my favorite part, it will even stream from your network shares!
To get started watching AVI files on your iPad/iPod Touch/iPhone, download the correct version of Buzz Player for your device from the iTunes app store, and in my opinion, the nominal fee of $2.99 for this app is ridiculously low for the functionality it provides.
Once it is installed and open, you can start creating and organizing folders for your local media (media that is physically on your device), or if your like me, your gonna want to start watching stuff from Desktop and your Media Server. To watch stuff from other devices (In my case, my Western Digital WDTV Live Hub) click the icon that says “SMB/FTP”. This will query your home network and display a list of all devices that are set up to serve media on your home network. It also tells you the protocol they are using to serve.
I noticed that some devices appear more than once, and I expect that is because they broadcast different services that they are able to provide. I selected my WDTV’s Samba feed, and was asked to input credentials.
As my network shares are not password protected within my own home network, I used “Guest” as my username, and left the password blank, and was able to connect easily. I tried to click “Connect As Guest” but that didnt work. I guess my WDTV needed to have at least the username of Guest. If your shares are password protected, this is the place to enter them to gain access. Don’t worry, Buzz Player can remember your devices and logins if you want it to, so you only have to do it once. Just remember to add it to your source list before you disconnect.
Once you have connected, you can see a list of all of the available drives/folders/files being shared.
Now, Its just a matter of selecting the file you want to watch from the appropriate directory, and selecting it. What comes next is pretty cool! Buzz Player asks you if you want to copy the file to your device, or if you want to watch it from a stream! YEAH BABY!
In my case, Im happy to watch the stream, so when you click play, it spends a few seconds buffering the file, and then starts to play your video!
As you can see from the above screen cap, I’m streaming Family Guy “Death Has A Shadow.AVI” over Samba, and watching it flawlessly on my iPad!
Buzz Player supports: .mpv, .mov, .mp4, .m4v, .3gp .avi, .divx, .dat, .vcd, .wmv, .bin, .iso, .vob, .mkv, .rmvb, .ogg, .flv, .swf, .rm, .ts, .nsv, .ram, .vfw, .mpg, .mpeg, .m1v, .m2v, .dv3, .gp, .mqv, .ogm, .ogv, .asf, .dvr-ms, .m2t, .m2ts, .rec, .bik, .dv as well as many audio codecs.
**HINT** – If your playback is choppy and/or breaks during playback, CHECK YOUR NETWORK!!!!!! I’ve seen a lot of people slagging this app because they cant stream a 2GB 720HD video over their 802.11g networks! VIDEO FILES ARE HUGE! Your network might not be capable of streaming it in real time, so COPY it to your device, and then watch it uninterrupted.
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Boy have I got a GEM for you! I’ve just stumbled upon Free File Sync – a FREE file and folder sync program. It does everything that the programs you have to pay for do, and more, FOR FREE!
When synchronization is occurring, you get a nice informative window telling what is going on.
I am really blown away by this program. I have just deleted my copy of Chronosync (Which I payed $40 for) as well as my copy of Martian Slingshot (Real Time Sync which I payed $30 for) and now have Free File Sync on all my machines – FOR FREE!
