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The Video Diary Giveaway
$20
EXPIRED

Giveaway of the day — The Video Diary

The Video Diary: your very own video journal software. It is better than text journal and better than audio journal. Just because it is video. The only thing you need is a webcam.
$20 EXPIRED
User rating: 236 49 comments

The Video Diary was available as a giveaway on February 22, 2009!

Today Giveaway of the Day
$49.00
free today
Make animated videos in a snap!

The Video Diary: your very own video journal software. It is better than text journal and better than audio journal. Just because it is video. The only thing you need is a webcam.

You can treat it like a personal journal to record your thoughts and observations. You can use it to measure progress in a particular area. The possibilities are limited only by your whims…

The Video Diary has simple and intuitive user interface, various recording options and actually everything you need to keep a diary. You can easy capture, comment, save, watch videos and keep them organized by date.

System Requirements:

Windows XP/Vista; Windows Media codecs; a web-camera

Publisher:

Corner-A

Homepage:

http://www.thevideodiary.com/

File Size:

4.07 MB

Price:

$20

Comments on The Video Diary

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Please add a comment explaining the reason behind your vote.
#49

Do any one have any knowledge why one of the person n this world will feel a requiment of this software

Reply   |   Comment by Acai alive  –  15 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (0)
#48

#27, Ashraf, I'm not trying to discourage you from reviewing, my comments are to encourage you to do a little more research before posting. YUY2 isn't a codec, its a video data format, and those are specific to the webcam/driver being used. The codec will convert the raw data to the colorspace and format which its compression algorithm uses. Encrypting and decrypting the folder containing the videos is impractical. The total size of the folder will quickly grow quite large, which requires that much additional space to decrypt, re-encrypt (after adding new videos), an unreasonably long amount of time to do that (that's an understatement), and the time to secure-wipe the unencrypted files after they're re-encrypted. You could use an encrypted partition, such as via TrueCrypt, but The Video Diary doesn't let you select the folder location.

I generally don't remark on your reviews, and I generally don't remark on all the items which I could. For example, I don't see the relevance of your remarks about The Video Diary's resource usage. It's an application, you're only going to run it while you're interacting with it, and your reported results weren't unreasonable. In your Active Share Monitor review, you claimed that it didn't display shared file usage correctly. You should have compared its results to the identical displays in Computer Management, Shared Folders. Small files will be transferred instantly; the other activity was probably just due to Windows Explorer, so I suspect Active Share Monitor was working correctly (while my XP box is dead, I can't test it on my home network).

Reply   |   Comment by Fubar  –  15 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (+1)
#47

Okay, I got it now... must be too tired. Click "Clip, New Entry" then window with camera input shows up. It's not shown in the window you see on the main screen.

Reply   |   Comment by Sandra  –  15 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (+2)
#46

Installed good on Windows XP, however does not seem compatible with my brand new (less than a week old) $45 Logitech QuickCam E3500. :-/ Disappointing, since I wanted this for recording my dad's history onto video. Anyone care to share what cameras they have found that work with the software please? Thank you for any help here.

Reply   |   Comment by Sandra  –  15 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (+1)
#45

I would love to keep this software but I can't,all the above points mentioned are well said. my suggestion ...get "advanced diary"--a splendid digital diary,freeware too.then record ur video with any camera,then set a link from the diary to the folder where u put the recording....simple. JUST MY THOUGHT...What if ur whole life is recorded with this software and ur PC bomb out.then u will have to purchase the damn thing.

Reply   |   Comment by LOLEE  –  15 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (0)
#44

Ashraf is an important part of the Comments here, same like Fubar (I'm missing Mike and the good -old Funken). I do read his experience every day with every s/w offered and I take in account his verdict. Today however, he was a bit out of touch but still I wouldn't call him like #33 that is way too harsh and unnecessary. Really #26 is putting Ashraf's verdict very simply, why not call this s/w by its name? Thumb down, stay away, teach them a lesson so they know not unloading every garbage on GAOTD. After 20 hrs. is still showing 71% rejection and only 29% approval.

Reply   |   Comment by Purrete  –  15 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (-1)
#43

Im sold!

http://www.thevideodiary.com/screenshots/

Reply   |   Comment by HYrax  –  15 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (0)
#42

System Toshiba A210 AMD Duo core TK57~2Gig RAM~160Gig HDD: Hmmmm as usual Ashraf's view of today's software is on the money, for me its not a keeper, HOWEVER Mr Roj#33 get a freaking life man, if the software offered here is so lame go somewhere else, and slat something without actually understanding what this particular comment section is intended for and going off on some lame rant.

Reply   |   Comment by Argonaught  –  15 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (-2)
#41

to the people looking for "practical" or "no seen" uses , i can say you dont have family.
i have not test this product (yet) but i have instantly seen a couple of uses
This could be useful to mantain a simply diary, of my first weeks, months, etc as a new parent, so in the future my kids could see and hear how i feel when they born.

also i ask my parents , who doesnt live in the same country , to recorda some book reading for their grandchildren. and they are not computer skilled to manage more than a "simple" video recorder.

regarding this specific application, seems not to be the perfecto solution, as not flexible on setting folders, and choosing codecs, etc.

Please GAOTD, can you give us some kind of "time box machine" app , so you can record snapshots of your current life for your sons and grandchildren?

Reply   |   Comment by Viktor T  –  15 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (0)
#40

Installed on Vista and Windows 7 and works as advertised. Problem is, this program handles more like freeware than shareware, and I doubt anyone would want to pay 20.00 for it. As already mentioned, a few more options might justify the cost as well as boost usability.

Reply   |   Comment by gmon  –  15 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (+4)
#39

I feel the need to defend Ashraf, here. I think some well intentioned and some technical brilliant people here sometimes don't see the difference between a technical point of view and a user's point of view. Although the two go together and most of the technically sharp posts here do relate well to the user, I think there's still a place for the "common person" poster. Those whose posts try to look through the eyes of the average user, even if they're not the last word in technical precision. Of course, I'm glad when anybody tries to point out where a review might be misleading. However, I'm not sure Ashraf's reviews have been that misleading, just because they don't zero in on the issues that someone very technically inclined thinks is the most important point(s). After all, it's not like those people are in complete harmony what the most important points are, either.

Having said that, I do agree with one criticism of Ashraf and have emailed him concerning it. I am one of those that would urge him to grant himself a little more time to test before he posts. And to also make sure of what he's saying in a particular post to avoid 2 or 3 consecutive, "Oh I forgot" or "I should have said" posts. I, for one, am more than happy to wait for what I consider his quality reviews.

One specific comment to #33, Roj Blocoyevik. You make good points. Did you really have to be so insulting to just to make them? You could have said all those things without insulting anybody.

Reply   |   Comment by watcher13  –  15 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (+9)
#38

As they said in the blurb above, you are only limited by your imagination. Seems several have little of that. Oh well, not a judgement, just a wee observation.

Happy Dae.

Reply   |   Comment by Dae Powell  –  15 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (+5)
#37

It seems great and all but I think I will pass. I don't even have a webcam set up even if we have one.

Reply   |   Comment by DB 324  –  15 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (-14)
#36

# 33

Of course, but what I was referring to was the lack of correlation between the file name of what's recorded and the ability of the end user to retrieve that recording via a search function. The file name is fine if there was an internal storage facility to link titles and or descriptions to that file name.

As I said, we can only retrieve data in a sequential manner, and that is like opening a 15 MB word document and not being able to search for a given string, ie just page down and use your Mk 1 eyeball!

I'm only offering my thoughts as a programmer. The idea behind this software is great, and for this developer to implement simple file saving options and the search title / description function would not take too much in the way of time or code.

All the Best,
Andy

Reply   |   Comment by AndyPandy  –  15 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (+11)
#35

Works fine on my system. My webcam didn't come with video software, so I'll use this.
Has anybody tried e-mailing one of these recordings? What are the chances that the recipient could play the message?

Reply   |   Comment by Beth  –  15 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (+5)
#34

14...
20090222_110633_5984 is 2009=Year 02=Month 22=Date 11=Hours 06=Minutes 33=Seconds I would guess the 5984 is the length or something. Pretty standard date filename for all better software.

Reply   |   Comment by nonameonlything  –  15 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (+1)
#33

#3 Asschaff - Your "reviews" are laughable. Thanks for the comedic break. See #20- much nicer person than me... he/she is trying to hive you a subtle hint...as usual, you don't know what you're talking about and your review misses the main points why this software is in fact, JUNK.

- It saves files to an arbitrary location, in the systems folder, instead of letting you save where you want. You can't find them - Strike 1

- It gives you an arbitrary, non-searchable filename for each entry. You can't search them - Strike 2

- It uses an insane amount of disk space for the quality you end up with. Strike 3 - YERRRRR..OUT !

I'd seriously suggest going to a local community college or something and get some basic IT training before you go for a career as a software reviewer.

This software, like most of the titles offered here - is a laughable, amateurish effort. It duplicates what's already on most folks' computers, and does it more poorly using more resources. There are a dozen or more really well-coded open-source offerings that are better, or just use the utilities already on your computer. THUMBS DOWN.

Roj.

Reply   |   Comment by Roj Blocoyevik  –  15 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (-21)
#32

I was able to install this, and I can record videos but I can't play back the videos they are scrambled/grabbled tried different camera settings can't fix the problem. I uninstalled sftwr!

Reply   |   Comment by Ed  –  15 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (-2)
#31

Can anyone explain a "practical" use for this software, other then using it as a "toy" for a 14 year old? (see 25. ) Plus, I don't have a web cam.

Reply   |   Comment by Goober  –  15 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (-19)
#30

All, thanks for pointing the location the software saves the video journals.

By the way, as I am using Threatfire, it picks out the fact that everytime when we use the Video Diary software for a new clip, the software will automatically registers itself in the Startup menu.

So, if you do not allow it to start when windows startup, it will do so everytime you start a new clip.

I find this intrusive.

Reply   |   Comment by Lu Hulu  –  15 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (+10)
#29

What does "Uses up more then a decent amount of computer resources" mean?

I think it means that you rush to get some type of post out and did not take the time to find out details and post a single polished review. It is tiresome to see your name over and over again and demanded original post usually with single thought.

Your style of reporting is not bad. If you look at how some of the others fill out their post with comments containing details attached to individual thoughts and take some of the constructive criticism given you, your comments would be more interesting.

Reply   |   Comment by Flattop  –  15 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (-10)
#28

It wouldn't detect my integrated webcam/microphone. Decent program for those who can make it work, though

Reply   |   Comment by docj  –  15 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (+1)
#27

#3 Fubar,

You are a genius. It is not like I mentioned "be sure to decrypt the folder when you want to use The Video Journal". Also, you may not have noticed, but the database file is in the same folder as the movies, the folder I said to encrypt.

As for the codecs...I assumed The Video Diary used YUY2 as default, but you are saying that is camera specific? Fine by me; doesn't matter, the output will still be in WMV like I said. I don't see how I 'confused codecs and formats' as I did not even discuss YUY2's relation to WMV.

Reply   |   Comment by Ashraf  –  15 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (+3)
#26

Think I'll pass on this one. Webcams usually come with software (as stated before) and even if you lose the disk quite a few mfg. websites will have the download for free.

To publisher Corner-A: If you plan on improving this software I'd suggest 3 things.
1. Make it so users can title the recordings themselves.
2. Make it so users can deposit the files in their own location.
3. Write a better blurb with added suggestions for it's use.

Oh! and 4 would be add a user easy password protection that can be utilized (at users discretion) for saved files.

Reply   |   Comment by prying1  –  15 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (+25)
#25

Hi Guys,
Just because you write or type a journal means that it is the better or preferred way to go. My 14 yer old thought this was the coolest program he'd ever seen and started using it right off the go, no instructions needed. Very user friendly. Seems to function perfectly.
I may use it on my laptop to journal some of my bike builds as I have been using the webcam to make build notes for myself anyhow. I'm not good about writing things down and this may help me with a few of those bad habits!
Leaving negative votes because you can see any personal use for it doesn't make sense, that's not a review that's just an opinion of the concept!
Another good Freebie ~!

Reply   |   Comment by Jeffree  –  15 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (+10)
#24

I think (without testing) that this would be great for kids. To allow them to get a better presentation for entries on my space and the like

Reply   |   Comment by blitzgeist  –  15 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (-17)
#23

This is un-needed software as youtube does this for you.

Reply   |   Comment by Daniel Ray  –  15 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (-34)
#22

This is great!!! HERES WHY: I know most of you are wondering what the heck can this be good for. I guess it varies by person, but for me, I plan on using it to make daily or weekly recordings about my new baby. We just found out about it a few days ago and I wanted to record my thoughts and doctors visits for the baby to see when he/she gets grown up. That way they can see all the pain and misery, just kidding, but all the stuff we had to go through to get her/him born. Thanks GAOTD. This will come in handy. I hope everyone else can find some use of this also.

Reply   |   Comment by Stevieboy  –  15 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (+19)
#21

Don't see my Logitech camera.

Reply   |   Comment by Radu  –  15 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (+3)
#20

#3, Ashraf, there are problems with your review and your suggestions. Your review confuses formats and codecs. The available video data formats and resolutions depend upon your webcam and its drivers. WMV is a file format encompassing a class of video codecs and a class of audio codecs. My webcam application uses a different WMV codec than The Video Diary uses, and it uses a much more appropriate audio format and sampling rate. Encrypting and/or transcoding the video files completely negates whatever value The Video Diary provides, as it won't see or use the output files (and transcoding results in lower quality than directly encoding to the desired output format). Further, you would also have to encrypt the database containing the comments. The Video Diary uses its own player (or player UI), which is quite poor compared to even the standalone version of WMP.

Reply   |   Comment by Fubar  –  15 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (+31)
#19

#3 Ashraf, hasn't GOTD given away plenty of programs that convert WMV to other formats? Just how many resources used do you consider "More than a decent amount"? What kind of system are you using (Specs please)? Any file you convert to can usually be password protected. I don't know of too many people who keep a diary that wants it to be other than personal.

I keep a diary the old fashioned way, I type it. This way I can add to it with ease and password protect it with no problems. It seems to me that using a web cam is very restrictive as to when and where you can take movies. Why not just use a Video Camera and narrate as you shoot? This program not only falls short, but off of the cliff in its whole conception. I can think of many other ways to record one's thoughts and memories without using a Web Cam.

Reply   |   Comment by Phil  –  15 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (-1)
#18

Ashraf, you're 'right on the mark' about this one...

THUMBS BENT!

Reply   |   Comment by Norm  –  15 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (-17)
#17

Installed nice and easy. I don't think, I'll use it a lot, but it's a wonderfull surprice for my teenage daughter. Thanks GAOTD Team. Have a nice weekend :)

Reply   |   Comment by Allan Fibecker  –  15 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (-11)
#16

#12, Lu Hulu, see #5, carrot muncher; for Vista users the clips will typically be in C:\Users\your user name\AppData\Local\The Video Diary; you need to have Explorer set to display hidden folders.

Reply   |   Comment by Fubar  –  15 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (+15)
#15

Hello, I ran in some troble here, can someone help?? Every time I will start recording, it says ´unable to find my web cam if I want configure it`. I try to configure it, chance the usb place for the web cam, I try to uninstall the program and install it again, but no luck still the same. I use a normal web cam (Logitech web cam) and my system is: win xp pro sp3, computer compaq deskpro, usb: 1.1.
The program has a simple interface and enyone wil be able to use it.
Thanks anyway :o)

Reply   |   Comment by peter  –  15 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (-7)
#14

Hi,

Installed fine on XP pro sp3.

I couldn't think of a reason for downloading this software. So I thought I'd download it anyway and play around with it, and maybe I would get a feel for some of it's potential uses.

My initial impressions aren't good.

You have no choice where the save video entries, and at 4 MB per 10 seconds approx that could add up to a lot of space over time. I would normally save them to my 2nd HD D: where most of my videos are stored.

Finding the folder where they are saved is not intuitive, I had to click on Help, hardware info and I stumbled upon the location for the videos. They are here - C:\Documents and Settings\user\Local Settings\Application Data\The Video Diary\
I would want to be able to back these up so knowing where they are is pretty important.

On a more serious note, even though you are able to write a title and description for your videos, you have no means by which to search for a particular journal which may have recorded a very good idea or observation. Therefore the only way to retrieve your journal entries is to click through them sequentially via month and day until you physically see what you are looking for. With that in mind I thought that when I finally found the videos the file names would at least give me some indication as to it's content, ie the title. Unfortunately the program simply names entries 20090222_110633_5984 etc, which means absolutely nothing to me with regard to it's content.

I cannot find a use for this software, there is absolutely no point in recording anything if when at a later date you have no means to quickly search for and recover that recording.

I can easily achieve all this just using my webcam, and I can save the files with meaningful names and in a location of my choice.

Thumbs down I'm afraid.

Reply   |   Comment by AndyPandy  –  15 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (+46)
#13

If you don't have decent camera software, this works, but there are issues. The color theme is horrible, almost illegible. No selection of video codec and audio format, resulting in relatively huge files, which would be very undesirable for a diary. About the only thing this gives you is a convenient way to attach and view notes associated with the videos.

Decent camera software does a much better job of recording small files. As for notes, you have several options. You could use separate files, alternate data streams, or a PIM which allows attachments and attach the videos to notes. There's also software which can associate notes with files.

Reply   |   Comment by Fubar  –  15 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (+45)
#12

I installed the software successfully. Played with it and have the following question.

Where does the software save the clips? In which directory?
It never says and we cannot change the location. Anybody knows?

Reply   |   Comment by Lu Hulu  –  15 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (-22)
#11

Downloaded, installed but would not work. Could be my webcam I suppose.

Reply   |   Comment by Will  –  15 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (-27)
#10

Thanks for the program. Already I can think of a dozen uses, if it does what I think it does. I haven't used it yet of course, since it just finished downloading but I can't wait to try it out.

Reply   |   Comment by Gimme A Dream  –  15 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (-56)
#9

An entertainer or actor would find this software useful.

Reply   |   Comment by Lu Hulu  –  15 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (-51)
#8

Well, i dont really know what to say about this one.
If you have a webcam, you can easily record a diary yourself?
I even think it would be easier without this program??

Reply   |   Comment by Jens  –  15 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (-7)
#7

lol...explain why this is necessary again? A video diary is one thing, but why a separate space hogging program? Why not just use any other recording feature installed for free (windows movie maker, etc,)with most any computer today?
Sorry, I'll pass on this one.

Reply   |   Comment by BonesXXX  –  15 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (-28)
#6

I think this is a useful software say for recording your thoughts and ideas, it's a video journal maker which alot of people could use, this could become popular on "social networking" sites.

Reply   |   Comment by Scott  –  15 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (-25)
#5

Installed fine on Win XP SP3. Works fine with my Labtech webcam. The installation is minimal, with only a start menu and desktop shortcut to the application ...no help file or documentation of any form are included.

The settings are fairly limited and you're unable to choose where to store the videos or change the file format etc. Maybe a future release will include these options.

There is no help file with the application and the website is a little sketchy in it's help; I was not easily able to locate within the application where the video files are stored but a little searching soon found them in the user profile\local settings\application data\The Video Diary in WMV format.

Reply   |   Comment by carrot muncher  –  15 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (+32)
#4

Seems like a nice and useful software. Thanks GAOTD Team.

Reply   |   Comment by Agent 001  –  15 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (-52)
#3

The Good
* Nice clean interface.
* Very simple to use and straightforward.
* You can add comments to your videos.
* Records video and audio perfectly.
* Video journal entries are nicely organized.


The Bad
* Saves recorded videos in WMV format only.
* "Exporting Journal Video" is not natively supported.
* Uses up more then a decent amount of computer resources.
* Initially the program refused to detect my camera.
* No password protection.
* Only meant for single user use - no profiles feature.

Registration and installation
Went fine on Vista Home Premium 32-bit.

Free Alternatives
Every computer/camera comes with a program that allows you to record video. You can make adhoc journals using that program - just record what you want, and title your journal as you would title journal entries. The only thing you would be missing when compared to The Video Diary is the ability to add comments and a nice organizational structure.

Verdict
The Video Diary is a simple program that deserves a thumbs up. It has a nice clean interface, and is point and click when it comes to creating journal entries. However, there are a few draw backs to this program, as I mentioned above, with the biggest ones being no password protection and being able to only save in WMV format; however as per the method I described above, you can use AxCrypt to create adhoc security of your journal entries and use FormatFactory to convert to other video formats until the developer adds in these features. The Video Journal is a keeper for people who want to make video journals.

Full Review: Click here please.

Reply   |   Comment by Ashraf  –  15 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (+178)
#2

Can anybody please explain why one would need such a software?
Apart from publisher's own description!

Reply   |   Comment by ssj  –  15 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (-100)
#1

Nice Program Thank You GAOTD
Have yet to use it, but it installed easy and activated just fine
From the looks of it. I think it will be a fine program.

Reply   |   Comment by Paul  –  15 years ago  –  Did you find this comment useful? yes | no (-89)
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