VirtualDub is a

free and open-source Free and open-source software (FOSS) is a term used to refer to groups of software consisting of both free software and open-source software where anyone is freely licensed to use, copy, study, and change the software in any way, and the source ...

video capture and

video processing In electronics engineering, video processing is a particular case of signal processing, in particular image processing, which often employs video filters and where the input and output signals are video files or video streams. Video processing ...

utility for

Microsoft Windows Windows is a group of several proprietary graphical operating system families developed and marketed by Microsoft. Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry. For example, Windows NT for consumers, Windows Server for ...

written by Avery Lee. It is designed to process linear video streams, including filtering and recompression. It uses

AVI Avi is a given name, usually masculine, often a diminutive of Avram, Avraham, etc. It is sometimes feminine and a diminutive of the Hebrew spelling of Abigail. People with the given name include: * Avi (born 1937), Newbery award-winning Americ ...

container format A container format (informally, sometimes called a wrapper) or metafile is a file format that allows multiple data streams to be embedded into a single file, usually along with metadata for identifying and further detailing those streams. No ...

to store captured video. The first version of VirtualDub, written for

Windows 95 Windows 95 is a consumer-oriented operating system developed by Microsoft as part of its Windows 9x family of operating systems. The first operating system in the 9x family, it is the successor to Windows 3.1x, and was released to manufacturi ...

, to be released on

SourceForge SourceForge is a web service that offers software consumers a centralized online location to control and manage open-source software projects and research business software. It provides source code repository hosting, bug tracking, mirroring ...

was uploaded on August 20, 2000. In 2009, the third-party software print guide ''Learning VirtualDub'' referred to VirtualDub as "the leading free Open Source video capture and processing tool". Due to its "powerful" versatility and usefulness especially in the field of video processing (see below), ''

PC World ''PC World'' (stylized as PCWorld) is a global computer magazine published monthly by IDG. Since 2013, it has been an online only publication. It offers advice on various aspects of PCs and related items, the Internet, and other personal tech ...

'' has referred to VirtualDub as "something of a '

Photoshop Adobe Photoshop is a raster graphics editor developed and published by Adobe Inc. for Windows and macOS. It was originally created in 1988 by Thomas and John Knoll. Since then, the software has become the industry standard not only in raster ...

' for video files", ''PC Perspective'' recommends it for its low overhead, and

nextmedia nextmedia Pty Limited (styled as nextmedia) is an Australian media company which publishes special interest magazines in the sport, humor, and hobby (among others). The company is headquartered in Sydney and owned by The Forum Media Group, ...

's ''PC & Tech Authority'' particularly praises it for its ''Direct stream copy'' feature to avoid generational degradation of video quality when performing simple editing and trimming tasks and the fact that VirtualDub "offers several valuable features that other packages lack, and helps you get quick results without any fuss or patronising wizards". VirtualDub is recommended for use by professional computer and tech magazines, guides, and reviewers such as ''PC World'',Gralla, Preston (2009)
''Capsule review: VirtualDub (32-bit version)''
''PC World'', Mar 13, 2009 ''PC & Tech Authority'',Fearon, David (2011)
''How to: convert video footage with VirtualDub''
''PC & Tech Authority'', 18 February 2011 ''PC Perspective'',Shrout, Ryan (2017)
''NVIDIA FCAT VR - Preview of a New Performance Tool''
''PC Perspective'', March 1, 2017 technologies guide website ''MakeTechEasier'', freeware and open source software review site Ghacks, Speed Demos Archive,Entr
''VirtualDub''
on Speed Demos Archive as well as third-party professional video production companies, and the creators of

Wine (software) Wine (formerly a recursive backronym for ''Wine Is Not an Emulator'', now just "Wine") is a free and open-source compatibility layer that aims to allow application software and computer games developed for Microsoft Windows to run on Unix-l ...

. Several hundred third-party plug-ins for VirtualDub exist, including by professional software companies. Furthermore, Debugmode Wax allows use of VirtualDub plug-ins in professional video editing software such as

Adobe Premiere Pro Adobe Premiere Pro is a timeline-based and non-linear video editing software application (NLE) developed by Adobe Inc. and published as part of the Adobe Creative Cloud licensing program. First launched in 2003, Adobe Premiere Pro is a successo ...

and Vegas Pro.

Features

VirtualDub is designed for

but may run on

Linux Linux ( or ) is a family of open-source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged as a Linux distribution, whi ...

and

Mac OS X macOS (; previously OS X and originally Mac OS X) is a Unix operating system developed and marketed by Apple Inc. since 2001. It is the primary operating system for Apple's Mac computers. Within the market of desktop and lap ...

using

Wine Wine is an alcoholic drink typically made from Fermentation in winemaking, fermented grapes. Yeast in winemaking, Yeast consumes the sugar in the grapes and converts it to ethanol and carbon dioxide, releasing heat in the process. Different ...

. (For example, to use it with the popular Deshaker plugin.) However, native support for these systems is not available. VirtualDub was made to operate exclusively on

files; however, a plugin API was added from version 1.7.2 which allows the import of other formats. Appropriate video and audio

codec A codec is a device or computer program that encodes or decodes a data stream or signal. ''Codec'' is a portmanteau of coder/decoder. In electronic communications, an endec is a device that acts as both an encoder and a decoder on a signal or ...

s need to be installed.

Video capture

VirtualDub supports both DirectShow and

Video for Windows Video for Windows was a suite of video playing and editing software introduced by Microsoft in 1992. A runtime version for viewing videos only was made available as a free add-on to Windows 3.1, which then became an integral component of Windows ...

for video capture. Capture features include capture to any AVI variant, audio

VU meter A volume unit (VU) meter or standard volume indicator (SVI) is a device displaying a representation of the signal level in audio equipment. The original design was proposed in the 1940 IRE paper, ''A New Standard Volume Indicator and Reference Lev ...

overlay Overlay may refer to: Computers *Overlay network, a computer network which is built on top of another network *Hardware overlay, one type of video overlay that uses memory dedicated to the application *Another term for exec, replacing one process ...

and preview modes,

histogram A histogram is an approximate representation of the frequency distribution, distribution of numerical data. The term was first introduced by Karl Pearson. To construct a histogram, the first step is to "Data binning, bin" (or "Data binning, buck ...

, selectable

crop A crop is a plant that can be grown and harvested extensively for profit or subsistence. When the plants of the same kind are cultivated at one place on a large scale, it is called a crop. Most crops are cultivated in agriculture or hydropon ...

area, video

noise reduction Noise reduction is the process of removing noise from a signal. Noise reduction techniques exist for audio and images. Noise reduction algorithms may distort the signal to some degree. Noise rejection is the ability of a circuit to isolate an u ...

, auto stop settings (based on capture time, file size, free space, and/or dropped frames), and designate alternate drive(s) for capture overflow. VirtualDub can help overcome problems with

digital camera A digital camera is a camera that captures photographs in digital memory. Most cameras produced today are digital, largely replacing those that capture images on photographic film. Digital cameras are now widely incorporated into mobile devices ...

s that also record video. Many models, especially Canon, record in an M-JPEG format incompatible with Sony Vegas 6.0 and 7.0. Saving AVI files as "old-style AVI" files allows them to appear in Vegas. VirtualDub supports DV capture from Type 2 (VfW)

FireWire IEEE 1394 is an interface standard for a serial bus for high-speed communications and isochronous real-time data transfer. It was developed in the late 1980s and early 1990s by Apple in cooperation with a number of companies, primarily Sony an ...

controllers only. (It cannot work with Type 1). There is no DV batch capture, still image capture, or DV device control capability.

Video assembly

VirtualDub can create a video file from a series of image files in

Truevision TGA Truevision TGA, often referred to as TARGA, is a raster graphics file format created by Truevision Inc. (now part of Avid Technology). It was the native format of TARGA and VISTA boards, which were the first graphic cards for IBM-compatib ...

or Windows Bitmap file formats. Individual frames must be given file names numbered in sequential order without any gaps (e.g. 001.bmp, 002.bmp, 003.bmp...). From those, the frame rate can be adjusted, and other modifications such as the addition of a

soundtrack A soundtrack is recorded music accompanying and synchronised to the images of a motion picture, drama, book, television program, radio program, or video game; a commercially released soundtrack album of music as featured in the soundtrac ...

can be made. VirtualDub can also disassemble a video by extracting its soundtracks saving its frames into Truevision TGA or Windows Bitmap files.

Editing

VirtualDub can delete segments of a video file, append new segments, or reorder existing segments. Appended segments must have similar audio and

video format Video is an electronic medium for the recording, copying, playback, broadcasting, and display of moving visual media. Video was first developed for mechanical television systems, which were quickly replaced by cathode-ray tube (CRT) systems ...

s, dimensions, number of

audio channel An audio signal is a representation of sound, typically using either a changing level of electrical voltage for analog signals, or a series of binary numbers for digital signals. Audio signals have frequencies in the audio frequency range of roug ...

frame rate Frame rate (expressed in or FPS) is the frequency (rate) at which consecutive images ( frames) are captured or displayed. The term applies equally to film and video cameras, computer graphics, and motion capture systems. Frame rate may also be ...

s and

sampling rate In signal processing, sampling is the reduction of a continuous-time signal In mathematical dynamics, discrete time and continuous time are two alternative frameworks within which variables that evolve over time are modeled. Discrete time ...

s. Otherwise, VirtualDub is incapable of mixing dissimilar video files or adding transition effects between segments.

Video processing

VirtualDub comes with a number of video editing components known as "filters". They can perform basic tasks as arbitrary resize, converting the video to

grayscale In digital photography, computer-generated imagery, and colorimetry, a grayscale image is one in which the value of each pixel is a single sample representing only an ''amount'' of light; that is, it carries only intensity information. Graysc ...

, arbitrary rotation, crop, or changing simple values like brightness and contrast. Filters may be used during the video assembly as well. Filter plug-ins further extend VirtualDub's capabilities. A plug-in SDK is available for developers to create their own video and audio filters.VirtualDub SDK
/ref> Besides those basic features, its many third-party plug-ins make VirtualDub a "powerful" open-source tool when it comes to linear video processing, and in fact most of the hundreds of third-party plug-ins available for VirtualDub are filters related to either aesthetic effects or cleaning, fixing, and restoring image quality, such as various denoising and sharpening methods targeted especially at analogue and digital video signal and film defects (be they related to VHS, faulty cables, a distorted analogue terrestrial or

satellite A satellite or artificial satellite is an object intentionally placed into orbit in outer space. Except for passive satellites, most satellites have an electricity generation system for equipment on board, such as solar panels or radioiso ...

TV reception, or digital compression), deinterlacing and fields manipulation,

colorspace A color space is a specific organization of colors. In combination with color profiling supported by various physical devices, it supports reproducible representations of colorwhether such representation entails an analog or a digital represen ...

conversion and manipulation, reverse telecine aka IVTC, deflickering, deshaking, adding and removing logos and subtitles, analysis of video content, etc. All of these processing features are fully batchable to apply the same effects on a large number of files.

Development

VirtualDub is

free software Free software or libre software is computer software distributed under terms that allow users to run the software for any purpose as well as to study, change, and distribute it and any adapted versions. Free software is a matter of liberty, n ...

, released under the GNU GPL-2.0-or-later and hosted on SourceForge.net. VirtualDub2-screen-filter1

VirtualDub was originally created by the author, when a college student, for the purpose of compressing

anime is Traditional animation, hand-drawn and computer animation, computer-generated animation originating from Japan. Outside of Japan and in English, ''anime'' refers specifically to animation produced in Japan. However, in Japan and in Japane ...

videos of ''

Sailor Moon is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Naoko Takeuchi. It was originally serialized in Kodansha's ''shōjo'' manga magazine ''Nakayoshi'' from 1991 to 1997; the 52 individual chapters were published in 18 volumes. The se ...

''.VirtualDub history - virtualdub.org
/ref> It was written to read and write

videos, but support for input plug-ins was added, enabling it to read additional formats including

MPEG-2 MPEG-2 (a.k.a. H.222/H.262 as was defined by the ITU) is a standard for "the generic coding of moving pictures and associated audio information". It describes a combination of lossy video compression and lossy audio data compression methods, ...

, Matroska,

Flash Video Flash Video is a container file format used to deliver digital video content (e.g., TV shows, movies, etc.) over the Internet using Adobe Flash Player version 6 and newer. Flash Video content may also be embedded within SWF files. There ar ...

Windows Media Windows Media is a discontinued multimedia framework for media creation and distribution for Microsoft Windows. It consists of a software development kit (SDK) with several application programming interfaces (API) and a number of prebuilt techn ...

QuickTime QuickTime is an extensible multimedia framework developed by Apple Inc., capable of handling various formats of digital video, picture, sound, panoramic images, and interactivity. Created in 1991, the latest Mac version, QuickTime X, is a ...

, MP4 and others. Development stopped as of 2013 and the site's forums closed down in 2015. VirtualDub has spawned several

forks In cutlery or kitchenware, a fork (from la, furca 'pitchfork') is a utensil, now usually made of metal, whose long handle terminates in a head that branches into several narrow and often slightly curved tines with which one can spear foods eit ...

, including VirtualDubMod and ''Nandub''. The latest fork is called VirtualDub2 (formerly VirtualDub FilterMod). It has all the features of the original VirtualDub, plus support for high bit-depth (i.e.,

deep color Color depth or colour depth (see spelling differences), also known as bit depth, is either the number of bits used to indicate the color of a single pixel, or the number of bits used for each color component of a single pixel. When referring to ...

). It is no longer limited to

(Video Compression Manager) codecs, and AVI format limitations (such as limited VBR support, H.264/HEVC minor incompatibilities etc.). The VirtualDub2 fork has built-in encode/decode of any container and video and audio compression formats supported by

FFmpeg FFmpeg is a free and open-source software project consisting of a suite of libraries and programs for handling video, audio, and other multimedia files and streams. At its core is the command-line ffmpeg tool itself, designed for processing of vid ...

( H.264, HEVC, VP9, AAC, Opus and other formats); and can open and save QuickTime File Format (MOV), MP4, Matroska,

WebM WebM is an audiovisual media file format. It is primarily intended to offer a royalty-free alternative to use in the HTML5 video and the HTML5 audio elements. It has a sister project, WebP, for images. The development of the format is sponso ...

, AVI based on FFmpeg or only the audio from a video in M4A, Opus in Matroska, Ogg Opus, Vorbis, AAC or MP3 formats. It also has improved navigation, display and user interface (e.g. pan display when zoomed in, color format selection), improved performance, and support for high bit-depth color formats.

Past legal issues

Early versions of VirtualDub supported importing of

Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational technology corporation producing computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services headquartered at the Microsoft Redmond campus located in Redmond, Washi ...

Advanced Systems Format Advanced Systems Format (formerly Advanced Streaming Format, Active Streaming Format) is Microsoft's proprietary digital audio/digital video container format, especially meant for streaming media. ASF is part of the Media Foundation framework. ...

, but this was removed in version 1.3d following an informal phone call from a Microsoft employee in 2000 claiming that it infringed one of Microsoft's

patent A patent is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the legal right to exclude others from making, using, or selling an invention for a limited period of time in exchange for publishing an enabling disclosure of the invention."A ...

s. Microsoft never identified any specific patent numbers that it believed to have been infringed, but speculation by others is that (expired in 2017) might be relevant. In August 2006, VirtualDub's German users who hosted copies of VirtualDub, or even linked to them on their web pages, began receiving cease and desist letters from a private individual that claimed to have German word mark on "VirtualDub". However this issue has been resolved: the word mark in Germany has been deleted and an injunction has been granted against the former owner of said word mark."Preliminary injunction granted in regard to German word mark VIRTUALDUB"
/ref>

VirtualDub2

See Development section.

References

External links

* * *
VirtualDub2
on SourceForge {{Video editors Video editing software Free video software Free software primarily written in assembly language Free software programmed in C++ Windows-only free software Portable software Software that uses FFmpeg