Free Video Software - The best free video software for Windows and Mac for watching, editiing, downloading video.

The best free video software in the world. Unless specified, programs are available for both Windows and Mac.

Video Playback

Miro

Beautiful interface. Plays virtually any type of video file. Subscribe to video RSS, download, and watch all in one. Torrent support. Search and download from YouTube and others.
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VLC

Plays more video files than most players: Quicktime, AVI, DIVX, OGG, and more. Pretty good interface.
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MPlayer

The interface and buttons are not as nice, but it may play even more video files than VLC.
Download Page

Perian (Mac Only)

A plugin that allows quicktime to play additional video formats. (Included in Democracy Player.)
Download Page

Animation

Blender

Very powerful 3D animation and modeling software.
Download Page

DVD Importing

Handbrake

DVD ripper and MPEG-4 / H.264 encoding. Very simple to use.
Download Page

DVD / CD Burning

CDBurnerXP (Windows only)

Burn CDs and DVDs, including Blu-Ray and HD-DVDs, and burn and create ISOs. Despite the name, it does work on Vista.
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Burn (Mac only)

CD and DVD Burner. Burn any video to a disc that plays in your DVD player!
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Editing

Jahshaka

Full realtime editing and effects suite.
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Avidemux

Editing package.
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Converting

Squared 5

Converter and encoder, with cutting, trimming, and joining.
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Effects and Compositing

DebugMode Wax

Video composition and special effects software.
Download Page

About this Site

For more general software, see Free Software (bestfreesoftwarelist.com).

Free Video Software is a simple list of the best free video software we know of for Windows and Mac. We aren't trying to be a comprehensive listing of every app, instead we want to showcase the best, most important, and easiest to use. If you think we're missing any great apps, please let us know.

Note to software creators: first of all, thanks so much for making free, open-source software-- we love you.

Second, if we linked to a download page on download.com or macupdate.com, it's because we think your download page is too confusing for new users. It's usually very easy to improve-- just add a big 'Download Now' link towards the top of the page, without too much clutter around it (use mozilla.com or getmiro.com).

Here's some more unsolicited advice for getting more people to download your software:

a. if you have a nice icon, show it off prominently.

b. put a download link and a screenshot on your front page.

c. if you use mirrors, use a script to pick a random mirror and just give people one link that says 'download now'

d. if there's any way you can avoid sending people to the sourceforge download mirror page, you should (we know it's not your fault, but it baffles lots of folks).

e. if you really want to make things easy for people, and you have a cross-platform app, detect what OS they are on and give them the correct link.

f. test your page on a novice! See if they can understand what the software does and how to get it.

Questions? Comments? Suggestions? Email us: info@bestfreesoftwarelist.com

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