10 Free Apps for Working with Video

Video has become a must-have for every website or blog aiming to enhance its presence online. It’s a common practice that video-related orders are often assigned to freelancers, and these are not only simple video editing tasks, but the preparation of how-to’s, demos, screencasts, video embedding and distribution as well.

Freelancers need to be better equipped with all kind of software assisting with all those video tasks.

The reality is that most freelancers can’t afford the pricey Adobe suite of programs. Still there’s a great deal of similar desktop and online video tools available for free. Among them there are free video makers, editors, screen recorders, downloaders, and converters – in a word, everything that is needed to get your client’s video live on the web.

Here is a roundup of the most popular video software and services recommended for freelancers’ everyday use.

Windows Live Movie Maker

Windows Live Movie Maker

This renewed easy-to-use program is a real find for both amateur and savvy freelance video-makers. The program offers numerous opportunities for video production: it lets users turn photos, video clips and music into a polished movie or slideshow, add visual effects, and edit videos. The tool is also ideal for publishing video clips to YouTube, Facebook or Windows Live SkyDrive straight from the software interface. This is a Windows only app.

KeepVid

KeepVid

Very often freelancers need to download a video off the Internet – in order to modify it or insert some frames into a new video clip. Here KeepVid can be a huge help because this free online tool allows users to rip streaming videos from over 40 websites in record time. It’s completely browser-based, so there’s no software to download, still Java applet is indispensable for the service to work properly.

Freemake Video Converter

Freemake Video Converter

In addition to being a good video converter, this tool can be used by freelance webmasters to get HTML code for video embedding. All you have to do is to convert your video file into Flash FLV or SWF format, upload the resulted file to your server and paste the code into a webpage. The software is also helpful if you need to create fast photo slideshows or do basic video editing (cut, join, rotate). This is a Windows only app.

CamStudio

CamStudio

This is an open-source screen recording application that easily captures desktop activity and turns it into playable AVI or SWF files. The tool is ideal for creating quick demos and screencasts. There are also numerous cool features in this app, including the option to highlight the cursor path during a recording session, automatically pan, and append videos with comments, time stamp, or territorial watermark. This is a Windows only app.

Animoto

Animoto

Animoto is an awesome online tool used to design stunning video slideshows with photos, videos and music. Freelancers can use it to create bright presentations and portfolios, since there are a large variety of video styles to choose from. The free version produces videos up to 3 minute in length and lets you add text greetings to slides. In order to get a full-length film you should upgrade to a paid plan though.

Free Video Dub

Free Video Dub

This simple one-function utility is a great find for freelancers who just need to to cut off unnecessary video parts. The tool supports many video formats (MPEG1, MPEG2, MPEG4, AVI, MOV, MP4, M4V, MPG, FLV) and edits video without any re-encoding. You can delete as many video sections as you wish, just don’t forget to save the video. This is a Windows only app.

TubeMogul OneLoad

TubeMogul OneLoad

This is a good solution for freelance marketers. The tool does a huge job of video distribution to popular video portals like YouTube, Vimeo, Dailymotion, Metacafe, Photobucket, etc. It not only significantly saves time and effort on video uploading but also provides easy analytic tools showing the effectiveness of a video campaign. You can learn how viewers are finding your videos and see which sites are embedding your content.

VideoToolBox

VideoToolBox

For advanced freelance video producers, Video Toolbox is a handy all-in-one solution to edit, convert, download and record videos. The software deals with video files up to 600 MB and has a simple web interface. All you need is to upload a file from your PC, or download it from the Web, and choose the task from the list.

Zamzar

Zamzar

There’s are plenty of video formats and frequently freelancers have to deal with some exotic video extensions coming from camcorders, portables, TV recorders, etc. To turn a video into widely accepted AVI or MP4, use Zamzar – an online media converter with a large variety of supported formats. You can also output video to OGG container for further HTML5 video embedding. Keep in mind that the input file limit is only 100 MB.

3D Video Maker

3D Video Maker

Gaining popularity, the 3D video format is often found now among freelance video tasks. If you’ve just started working with 3D video, this tool provides the basics of 3D video production. It lets you create 3D videos out of one or two source files captured with a small horizontal shift. The interface is easy-to-use, so that any freelancer will experience no difficulties operating it. This is a Windows only app.