Free speech for designers! Open source Design tools

Interactive media can be composed of many different types of media including images, graphics, audio, video, and HTML. Getting various audio and video formats to work with your project can be difficult. Fortunately, there are free open source solutions that help make this process easier. Open source software is not just free of cost (like "free beer"). It is free as in freedom (like "free speech"). Open source software gives you the freedom to use a program, study how it works, improve it and share it with others. I will briefly describe four of these free tools that can make your life a little easier

SUPER ©

The first is a media encoder called SUPER, which stands for Simplified Universal Player Encoder & Renderer. SUPER can convert virtually any format of image, audio, or video file to virtually any other format. As the website says, SUPER does for FREE what other encoders CAN'T do for money. SUPER also has built in support for the h264 codec, which is becoming increasingly popular. Super is truly the Swiss Army knife of video conversion tools. Windows only (Sorry Mac Users). Check out there website to find more information. http://www.erightsoft.com/SUPER.html

Ever have a video or audio file that won’t play in your default media player? Video and audio files are encoded using codecs. In order for your media player to play these files you must first install the appropriate codec. Codec packs are available but often slow down or conflict with your computer. VLC is a highly portable cross platform multimedia player that will play virtually any audio or video file, including corrupt, broken, or incomplete files without requiring you to install any annoying codecs. This player has more features than any player I have ever seen and is very easy to use As long as you don’t mind the simple user interface, you will likely never need another video player(real player files are the only ones I have found that are not supported. VLC can also be used as a server to stream in unicast or multicast in IPv4 or IPv6 on a high-bandwidth network. Check out there website to find more information.

http://www.videolan.org/vlc/

Since we were talking about codecs, I should mention GSpot. GSpot is a handy little program which will identify for you the codec of a particular audio or video file, and tell you whether or not it is currently installed on your computer. It will also display other information such as bit rates and aspect ratios. This is a very useful program when working with different types of a/v clips. (Windows Only)View a screen shot of the software here: http://www.headbands.com/gspot/v26x/ss_main.html

Check out there website to find more information. http://www.headbands.com/gspot/index.htm

Recording, editing, and adding effects to audio can be easy and free thanks to Audacity. Audacity is a free, easy-to-use audio editor and recorder for Windows, Mac OS X, GNU/Linux and other operating systems. You can use Audacity to: Record live audio, convert tapes and records into digital recordings or CDs. Edit Ogg Vorbis, MP3, WAV or AIFF sound files, Cut, copy, splice or mix sounds together, change the speed or pitch of a recording, and much more.

Check out there website to find more information. http://audacity.sourceforge.net/

I would also like to mention four other open source design solutions.

1. GIMPshop is a modification of the free/open source GNU Image Manipulation Program (GIMP), intended to replicate the feel of Ado

be Photoshop. Its primary purpose is to make users of Photoshop feel comfortable using GIMP.

2. NVU! Finally, a complete

Web Authoring System for Linux desktop users as well as Microsoft Windows and Macintosh users to rival programs like FrontPage and Dreamweaver. Nvu (which stands for "new view") makes managing a web site a snap. Now anyone can create web pages and manage a website with no technical expertise or knowledge of HTML.

3. Inkscape is an open-source vector graphics editor similar to Adobe Illustrator, Corel Draw, Freehand, or Xara X. What sets Inkscape apart is its use of Scalable Vector Graphics (SVG), an open XML-based W3C standard, as the native format.

4. Blender is a free open source 3D content creation suite, available for all major operating systems under the GNU General Public License.