Total waste of my time. This program uses a skinned interface that does not scale properly on any machine/any resolution I tried. Resizing the window screws it up even more. I can't even get to the registration button (though why would I, considering?). It's in a not visible/inaccessible area of the skin, as are the buttons to add files to join. As is the join button itself. The buttons have no accelerators. No context menus. Etc.

Down with trash skin engines!!!!

Worthless crap. Please be more careful about which applications you select for the giveaway.

For # 84.

I feel that if a product is offered to the public and it says it converts from one format to another one, it should have that codec with it! I have the latest K-Lite Mega codec installed here, and that allows my two players - GOM and BS Player to playback anything that I have thrown at them, unless of course the file was produced by A1. Companies have NO right to offer a player without its codec software being installed with it, or, that it states which one is needed and where you download it from. Incidentally, the GOM Player (Freeware) will tell you if a file needs a codec, AND it provides you with the url to use to find it.

This programme merely stated that it converts to MPEG, and more than that I never investigated. It seemed to me that almost no one tried the conversions, just the join facility, and that surprised me.

I have now uninstalled it using REVO Uninstaller (Free)to do so. An issue mentioned above about removing shared files, are not an issue with REVO Uninstaller.

I feel disappointed that this product arrived here in the state it did. As most users wont have any technical background, it seems unforgivable to distribute it in such a poor stage of refinement. This comments in NO way implies criticism of GAOTD. I have tried many programmes offered here, and indeed I have paid for them later on having been impressed by what they did and the service they provide the customer. EAST TECH products being one such example.

Tom.

"kybeaty"If I save this program to disc will it work after a reformat?

In cases like this, where you're given a serial number (or even a license file, .KEY or .REG file, etc), what I do if it's a keeper, is download the app from the homesite as well. That way I can (most probably) re-install later & use the serial number, and not have to worry if GAOTD's download package will prohibit the install since the giveaway is over.

And, if it's something I really, really want, I'll uninstall the GAOTD vers & re-install the shareware vers & verify that the registration works. (It always has so far!).

Downloaded A-one Video Joiner. Tried to installed. Up top it read "Trial Version". Huh? Continued installation. Got popup "DeleteFile failed: code5. Access is denied." etc. Okay, started over. Downloaded it again. Tried to install software again. Again "DeleteFile failed: code5" popups. Something to do with "atl.dll" and "msvcvt.dll". (Where can I get these 2 files?) But I was NOT trying to delete anything. Was trying to install! I'm not a rocket scientist and really not computer savvy. But am pretty good at following instructions.

Anyone have a fix for this so I can use the software? Thank you in advance.

If I save this program to disc will it work after a reformat?

I had previously performed this task manually using the freeware AVI editor AVITricks classic.

Source: 3-piece Youtube capture in AVI files, compressed using MS MPeg4 version 2 video codec (fourcc code mp42), and 128kbps MP3 audio.

Destination: AVI container using each of wmv9, DivX 6.7, and XVid video codecs (Audio remained as 128kbps MP3).

Result: Although this program correctly identified the length of each piece (AVITricks fails at this, blindly using the value in the AVI header record - a value that, for these files, is incorrect (Youtube gave the total length for all 3 parts, and the capture program blindly copied down that number)). With all 3 codecs, by 20 minutes into playback, the audio led the video by 4.85 seconds (It had stayed in sync when this same set of files was joined manually using the AVITricks editor, outputting to these same sub-formats).

Looked promising to start..... but..

I had major problems installing, First time around it opened up and half of it was missing, the "skin" was there but no buttons, just holes.

Next time around it started up but nothing would function and then it would crash/

Last time in installed in virtualised and it installed and started up ok though I had to register it manually.

Actually using it was another story, it would only accept certain files, not all the filetypes I had supported in Directshow for other applications (like FLV and H.264)

I tried converting two easy files, MPEG1 anf also Divx AVI..
Mpeg1 failed saying "convert fail"

AVI dix looked to convert but stuck on 0% and just did nothing until I had to crash it.

It looks promising but is a waste of money for something that is just faulty, also it infests your windows/system folder with a huge pile of folders..

I highy reccommend to AVOID.

Can anyone please tell me any software which can Join 2 AVI files of
DIFFERENT resolution & bitrate ??

To #85 Kristine,

I am using WinXP Home. Install and register with a breeze. After download by my favourite Winzip. First you click the activation key and then set up the software. When it finish installing to your program folder. There will be a 'box' pop up with a line of 'serial number'. I normally paste in my own 'lock box' to store all serial numbers in case. Hope this help. (but i notice I can't maximize the software, only 'open' in a minimize box with clear buttons. Yet to try out.

I didn't download the programme having read the comments. One thing, though, what I like is the links to real 'free' programmes. I've got some good stuff from the links! Keep up the good work guys and girls!

I got a run time error. RegDLL.tmp and then a Microsoft visual C ++ Runtime Library message when I wanted to run it. I can't register it because can't get it running. Captured the windows for the techy who needs to work out the bugs.

This is a reply to comment 60: If your forums are the separate section where people can come discuss installation issues, you could have fooled me. I don't want to take time to count here but I would bet that about 65 to 70 percent of all the comments right here on this page don't belong here then.
All i know is, I'm a software developer and if I were to give up my hard work for giveaway to get some feedback about usability and other issues that would make my software better, I would find it quite a large waste of time to wade through all the negative comments and just plain ignorant newbie complaints by people who haven't ever even spent 5 minutes learning how Microsoft Windows works, much less a free program.
All of these installation complaints day after day after day devalue your service.

#79, if you want to keep track of which files are and aren't installed by a particular program, get a copy of RegShot 1.82 from http://regshot.blog.googlepages.com/regshot , set it to scan the windows and common directories plus the partitions you install on, and it'll make a tidy little list in text or html so you know which got added. And can be nuked.

I haven't made my mind up yet on uninstall for this, I got up late and I'm still capturing some videos to join, to see if *it* likes the video Showbiz DVD 2 puts out for divx from an ads capture box. OpenDivX 4? crazy.

But that's the sensible way to sort out what was from what got added.

Thanks- installed easy and runs great :) Joined two videos quickly :)

I am apparently quite lost. I see the program just fine, and I see the register button just fine.

What I do not see anywhere is a serial number or registration number. There's no instruction on where to even look for it. It's not in the readme file.

Anyone point me in the right direction? Thanks!

#57, Tom, when reporting faults and incompatibilities, it helps to specify exactly which codecs you're using. A-one supports numerous codecs for MOV and AVI, and you don't specify which version of MPEG you converted to. Now, everyone's system is different, their installed codecs are different, and I would never claim that this is quality software or that you didn't encounter bugs on your system, but there's little harm in people trying this out for free (the Lame codec, which I noted in comment #23, is the only one which was overwritten on my PC). I converted a WMV to MOV (Sorensen3), MPEG-2, and AVI (DivX and Xvid) without problems, but I don't use "off-brand" media players (played back via QuickTime and WMP 11).

I did notice some problems. The progress bar frequently fails to update (0 progress, with increasing expected duration), but one can clearly see the actual progress in the preview window. It hung on repeated use without closing, but did respond to the standard Windows close command. On my computer, .MOV source files render without audio, but I've generally had that problem with non-Apple MOV codecs on my computer.

As for some of the comments here, of course there's going to be some degradation when using lossy encoders. Of course it doesn't handle DRM'd files. Of course you're going to have problems when joining files with different resolutions.

I don't think the quality of A-one Video Joiner is remotely high enough to buy it (especially not for $30), but I had more successes than failures with the tests that I did on my PC.

An excellent piece of software! Thanks, GAOTD!!

I'd also like to second what "Mercury" said about VirtualDUB. A wonderful, freeware app that's continually updated. It's amazingly FASTTT & usually perfect or near-so at joining, eg., AVI video files. BUT as Mercury said, the files have th have the exact same bitrate, framerate, etc. AND you need to follow the directions EXACTLY. (EG, selecting "Direct Stream Copy" under BOTH "Audio" & "Video." See here at

www.videohelp.com:

http://www.videohelp.com/oldguides/virtualdubedit

Amazing, the first time i used VDUB - I couldn't believe how fast it is, and how good. (Occasional audio synch problems, and a few minor problems, but very seldom.)

But, test this A-One app against VDUB & I'll bet VDUB will win. Time-wise & possibly quality-wise as well. Take two small AVI video files (remember, exact SAME bitrate, framerate, etc for VDUB) & join with A-One then try again w VDUB. I haven't used A-One Video Joiner for a while, but as i recall it's pretty sluggish with some types of files, but maybe not with AVI.

Anyway, I just joined two AVi files (a DVD rip of a film in two parts, each the size of a CD - ~730 megs) and I had my joined files in under 5 min. Flawless!

Another thing some other apps do is make the joined filesize much huger than the two parts. Beware of this happening...

Also, the above site, www.videohelp.com should help anyone with video-DVD related file operations, and it's got a very active user base, site's constantly updated, and you can find tons of info there on VirtualDUB.

Finally, on VDUB - there's a separate app called VirtualDub MOD & another app called VirtualDub MPEG-2. The latter, for example will work for other video formats (eg, MPEG-2) - join,split,etc.

See here:
http://www.videohelp.com/tools/VirtualdubMOD


http://www.videohelp.com/tools/Virtualdub-MPEG2

In answer to "Rich's" question about joining .VOB files, this can be done with the above (not the basic pkg, VirtualDub by itself). Remember, that VOBs are actually MPEG-2 files. Want to convince yourself? Just temporarily change a file's extension to *.MPG or *.MPEG & if your PC's file associations & video-DVD player are set up, it'll play just fine.

I only mention this because many people ask about "converting" VOBs to MPEG -- they already are!

So, one of the above modifications of the basic VDUB pkg can be used to join VOBs and to convert VOB files to AVI (as a sort of DVD ripper.)

Also, there are a couple of other good freeware apps for joining VOBs:

Someone mentioned VOBMerge, which I haven't used. The app I've been very happy with is VOB2MPG (also freeware). VOB2MPG takes your DVD's whole VIDEO_TS folder (probably has to be 'decrypted' first, and ripped to your hard disk), then it simply goes thru & joins up all the VOBs to make one large VOB (again, an MPEG-2 file). See here:
http://www.videohelp.com/tools/VOB2MPG

(Note that it's requires the .NET framework.)

In terms of JOINING these VOB's, as Rich asked, just be VERY careful. if as you say you're mixing different DVD's. To just play the files on your PC, this is fine, but if you want to watch the files on a standalone DVD player (if you don't have one that can play non-DVD structured files, eg AVI, etc.), you'll run into trouble if you don't preserve the *.IFO & *.BUP files from each. These files interpret the VOBs for your standalone DVD player (PC's are usually a lot more forgiving, and often don't need the IFO/BUP files). So, what I suspect you'll really need to do, if you want a newly "re-authored" DVD with all these VOBs from different DVD's is a program to re-convert ALL to DVD structure (creating new VOBs along with new IFo/BUP files). Much easier than it sounds, really.

Again, www.videohelp.com is a great resource for apps to re-convert VOBs (or now, joined MPEG-2's) back to a proper DVD structure ready for burning to DVD.

Finally, VOBs (MPEG) are *huge*. I'd recommend, really, converting these & re-compressing in the process to AVI's first. A good AVI rip of a full-length, standard 2 hour film will run anywhere from 730 megs to just under 1.5gigs (2-CD), each chunk being the size to fit on a standard "700" meg CD (actually, the cd holds approx. 733 megs). Quality is just as good as the original, & you've saved the cost of a DVD ($0.25 or more vs pennies for a CD).


Besides videohelp.com, another equally good site is afterdawn.com

http://www.afterdawn.com/

Oner other thing about video joiners like A-One Video Joiner & especially VirtualDUB. Don't know about the former, but the latter really, really excels at cutting snippets from the video. Eg, editing out, deleting commercials from an AVI file. Or sections you don't want, or just splitting your big video to a smaller set of files.

OK, one *final* thing. There are lots of filter/plugin addons for VirtualDUB with which you can do some pretty amazing things. EG, add video watermarks (logo, text, image) to your video) and another addon to fuzz out or blur the watermark on a video (eg, an annoying "screener" notice or text that scrolls across the screen). Not perfect, but sure beats seeing that logo/text, & is better than a simple blackout bar.

HTH

Henry

Seems easy to use and I had just the thing to try out, some recent home video in .mov format--all the same video size/quality. However, with a total amount of 3 files with just over 1/2 hour of video total...the "remaining time" finally settled out at 12 HOURS of progress time! However, I found it this isn't totally accurate either (see below). I'm used to joining full one hour TV shows (in DIVX .AVI) I've recorded on my DVD-R (after removing commercials) with Virtual Dub and it takes no where near that amount of time. Even when encoding them into DIVX, it doesn't take this long! It seems to me that this is just re-encoding as well as joining, even when it doesn't need to. All I really wanted was a simple join where I could edit the file in it's entirety and then re-encode if necessary.

It also crashed when I canceled that encode. What it had encoded so far wouldn't play, so I can't judge quality.

Second test was to take two of the same .mov files and see if it would join and encode into .AVI. Video was 2 min 30 sec size and the remaining process time ran up to 40 HOURS. However, the actual process time ended up being 24 min. So the estimated remaining time is bogus. But I found the resulting file play was jerky and there was no audio. Certainly I would look for alternatives rather than paying $20 for this.

I get a gray screen and a splash screen.
Nothing happens.
Tried both download sources.
Too bad, I could use a fast, simple joiner.

Interface does not display completely using a 1650 by 1050 widescreen display using large fonts (120 dpi) making it useless.

Oh, just wanted everyone to know that uninstalling was a horror show since it installed so many DLL files in my system folder. Uninstall kept asking me, one-by-one, if I wanted to keep these DLL files since they may be used by other programs. I kept them since I did not want my computer to be messed up by removing them. What a horror show in my book.

IMHO, forget installing this program. Very poorly written/coded software title. Might do way more harm than good. "Just stay away" is my opinion.

Keep on getting an error when I simply try to add a movie file to join. "Error open input file". It makes no sense.

Uninstalled. Not worth the effort.

Thanks anyway GOTD

FOR THOSE HAVING PROBLEMS RUNNING THIS PROGRAM: I too was getting the "grey screen" problem... Here's how I solved it:

1) Run the GAOTD Setup.exe to install the program. Make a note of the serial number, then uninstall the program.

2) Go to the official website (link at top of this page) and download the program installer from them.

3) Use this official installation program to install the program again.

4) When you run the program, you shouldn't get the "grey screen". (Well, I didn't!) Click on the "Register" button, and enter the serial number you copied earlier...

5) Enjoy!

Tried to get it to run on my Vista OS -- install went fine, but the program locked and froze every time I tried to convert a file. I started with an AVI and got an error message. I switched to a WMV file and tried to convert it to an MOV and no dice. Thanks anyway fellas - it could be a Vista thang.

Converting from mpeg1 to avi worked, back to mpeg1 at the bottom 5% is fuzzy.

Downloaded fine, installed fine, registered fine.

The activation applet that appears hangs, just close it and add your serial to the GUI middle bottom button named register and away you go.

Make sure your screen resolution is set to 1024 X 768 if you get an odd GUI.

I run xp pro sp3.3624 and also works fine on xp pro sp2.

Does not work on vista as not written with that in mind.


System Requirements: Windows 95/98/Me/NT/2000/XP

The prog installed fine. Tested on a couple of RMVB's and the program joined without a problem, into mpg. The problem (and question) now: Why is there no audio present in the new file? The video looks fine but, I have no audio. Anyone?

Tried to convert two AVIs into 1 MPEG-2. The output video was cropped at the top and the cropped section was displayed at the bottom.

Useless.

#27 - why have a quad xeon with win98? It can only use one core....

#27 Braiden...is it 98 or ME?

To #49 (J Mal):
You have to register the program to turn trial version to full version. I have not had any problem registering this or any other program offered here and all of them are full version once you register them. Read the intructions I offered earlier (#33). You will have to reinstall the program with the activation to get the serial number to register with.

For future reference, I advise anyone to copy any "extra" info needed for a program and paste it into a .txt file to have handy if you need it later and don't want to go through the whole reinstalling of a program to get it. Personally, I think any program that needs a username, serial number, etc. they could actually post right on the product download page, but since they don't do that, copy and paste is the next best thing.

This program installed with no errors for me, I tested it out on a couple of movies from my digital camera and it worked fine, very fast too! This may become useful incase I run out of flash memory on my digital camera but since flash memory is getting cheaper there is no good use. And #15 and #16, you register the program by clicking the Register button; it is at the bottom of the main window.

THANKS #21 FOR THOSE WEBSITES, I DID USE ONE THAT YOU SUGGESTED, NO I USED TWO, BECAUSE I WAS HAVING PRBLEMS WITH THE ONE I ALREADY HAD, WHICH WAS THIS GIVE AWAY, I DID NOT DOWNLOAD THIS ONE BECAUSE OF THE PROBLEMS I ALREADY WAS HAVING, BY THE WAY THAT CNET DOWNLOAD IS GREAT SITE FOR ANYONE WHO NEEDS TO FINDS FREE SOFTWARE IN HURRRY OR NOT , SAY YOU NEED SOMTHING NOW , AND CANNOT WAIT TILL GAOTD DECIDES TO HAVE A GIVEAWAY ON WHAT YOU NEED! TRY IT YOU WILL NOT BE DISSAPOINTED!THANKS GAOTD, I LOVE YOUR SITE!!!! I AM A DOUBLE AMPUTEE LIVE ALONE AND OFTEN AM GREATFUL FOR YOUR GIVESAWAYS!!!

Well,

This is pretty useless. The window doesn't expand, there are no menus, I can't get to the right half of the app.

Sounded like it could be interesting, but not if they can't even figure out how to calculate pixels properly!

Does anyone know of a freeware program to take an .AVI file and convert to an .ISO?

Nice little program.
Installed and registered quickly and easily on Win ME-SP1. During the install it stopped to tell me I had a missing Msvbvm.dll error, with the option to ignore the message and continue installation, which I did. Program opened up fine. I then went to http://www.dll-files.com/ to download a newer version of the (missing) dll file, but it was the same version as the one I already have in C: WINDOWS/System. I then opened the program again, and despite the error, joined 3 short videos together. Thanks GAOTD

difficult ot install

@friendly mentor,

Our Forums are the "separate section" for discussing everything "else" such as installation issues (as well as recommendations for other freeware programs) - come & join in.

Please comment only on the software here. If you have technical problems or suggestions on our project, please leave us a note in our forums.

I have a suggestion for GAOTD: Why don't you have two comments sections, one for "installation problems" and the other for reviews of the software? It seems that the comments are full of "I can't install this" or "Installed and worked perfectly" but there is very little of "Here is what I think of the program, here is what I did to use the program, and here are my suggestions to the software company that provided the program"

All of this noise about how the installation went is a lot of horsehockey. Not the intended purpose of the site and it happens every day way too much. Jeez, give us all a break.

Re: #9, 14, 22, 28, 29, 31, etc., I get the exact same problems on my XPsp2pro, 512 MB DDR, 2 Gig AMD, GeForce 4 MX 440, w/ 1280 x 1024 rez and 108 dpi (thought it was 96). Hate having to close down all of my programs & reboot windows, but if it's only for this once, maybe o.k.

Re: #17 & 39--I used an Amiga to run a lowpower TV station almost 20 years ago while still using (then) a Commodore 64 for regular word processing and other chores instead of a TRaSh-80 and PC Jr. Things that claim to be hot or have more features often are less reliable.

Re: #27--which brings me to MR (or MS) hardware rich and OS poor. I hope you don't have any confidential or personal information of that fast but probably overheating MOBO 'cause if it doesn't get lost of scrambled in all that firepower, anybody can access it under Win98.

I download it without trouble, and installed its serial number. I use an XP3200 32 bit, XP Home and SP2 with all updates PC.

It converted a 7 Meg WMV file to Real Media and in full resolution it was 35 Megs. This file played faultlessly using GOM Player and BS Player Pro. V 2.2.6.

Converted the same input file to MOV format. It did the job, but when I tried to play the MOV File, it crashed my GOM and BS player when it started to play. A failure!

Converted to MPEG. Crashed itself the moment I pressed 'Create'! Tried another file and it did the same again. Failure.

Converted the same 9 Megs WMV file to AVI. It said was starting conversion, but after 14 mins. nothing happened other than a counter telling me it would take 24 hours to convert and still counting! Another failure!

This is flawed software! It will not handle FLV files, something I need to do often.

I use Applian Replay converter, and that seamlessly does every conversion it say it will do, and it has from the start. It is not free but it does work.

Maybe this software will join up vids, but so will Media Join 2 free, and HJ split will carve up clips for free.

This package needs a LOT of work on it. A failure to me!

Tom.

Hell, same problem as already mentioned - a blank grey screen and that's it. See my screenshot.

I like this prgram, but it doesn't work on my TRS 80 or my vic 20 - so I guess I will use the machine with XP on it ... Thanks, GOTD

THis program downloaded, installed and registered
without the slightest problem for me.

WinXP Pro SP2

Seems to do as advertised...

I re-joined a 2 part mpg movie file seemlessly
into a single AVI as a test. no problem

THanks for the utility program.

AND IT DID!!! WOOT .FLV

This program will not let you resize your truncated window if you use large dpi settings! Thanks #32! I changed the dpi and was able to register. There was another program a while back with the same problem and I was never able to register that one.

yes thats looks good, but will it convert the google format, there are a few google videos i want to steal, and i cannot find a good video ripper

I tried it out on my XP machine. No problems at all. Locks up on my Vista Machine. Will try it out more later, if we have electricity. Having some very snowy, wet, windy weather here.

#17 You are the only person I know that still uses Win-98, or SE. Win-XP is better, but I wish I had never bothered with Vista. You would like XP if your computer is fast enough, with enough HD for the OS.

Surprise, surprise..I thought Giveaway of the day was free programs..This program is not free, only the trial is free.....What's the sense in downloading unless you intend to buy.....I used to love GOTD and have quite a few programs I got from them...But I noticed lately a lot of the giveaways are trial offer... We don't need GOTD to get that, you can get that anywhere on the web.......

Robert, I can see the complete interface now after swithcing to 96dpi. But it is quite inconvenient to restart the computer everytime I use the program. Thank you very much!