Friday, July 25, 2008

A super late entrance with a super megaton.

-The biggest announcement seems to come to Marvel, where they practically confirm that a new Marvel vs Capcom is coming "...sooner than we think."

-Also, speaking of superhero crossovers. Some new characters confirmed for MK vs DC. Captain Marvel and Liu Kang was announced at E3. Joker and Jax were announced this week at ComicCon. IGN has a wicked render of how Joker will appear in the game.

-Found a video on Nico highlighting the most Skillfully Satisfying Supers in fighting games. As I understand it, it's not necessarily the best or flashiest, just the ones that are hard to pull of and most satisfying to pull off in a real competitive fight.

I've made a forum post detailing some of my freeware picks. It's a small start, I plan on doing more eventually. I'll go ahead and just copy it here:

Irfanview:
http://www.irfanview.com/
Irfanview is to Windows Image Viewer like Firefox is to Internet Explorer. Have Photoshop, but HATE to open it when all you need is a quick crop or resizing? Irfanview is right up your alley. It's lightweight (opens incredibly fast) with a TON of image editing features, Batch converter, and a plugin system that allows it to do practically anything (although right now, it's mostly just for allowing it to open virtually any file. By no means a Photshop replacement, just a great Image viewer and editor. A lot of Manga fans will also tell you it works great for a Manga viewer as you can basically cycle through all the "pages" in a full screen browser mode.

1Click Youtube Downloader
http://www.eurekr.com/
There are TONS of Youtube Downloaders out there, some even cost money. I've tried several. But this is the BEST and it's FREE. This recent version also has the ability to save HQ videos. You can download a variety of ways. Whether it's a single video, All you favorites, or all of one user's videos. UNLIKE a lot of other Youtube Downloaders, 1click, will name the file for you and organize it in appropriate folders. You can also change the output file to AVI, MP4s, whatever you like! Only downside is that it's essentially a clone of Internet Explorer in its interface.

AoA DVD Ripper
http://www.aoamedia.com/dvd_ripper.htm
This is a Shareware DVD Ripper. It's simple, straightforward, and easy to use. The limitations of this "trial" is simply a 10 minute limit. So, don't expect to rip full TV episodes or movies. HOWEVER, there's a "Movie Clip" option, a bit tricky to get the exact timing you want, but if you need small clips done for say a video project or you just want to upload your favorite movie scene to something like Youtube, I highly recommend this program. I actually made a couple of short One Piece clips I ripped from my (LEGIT) DVDs using this program:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D9XhRzfAEu0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v22Inay1sUE

Media Convert (Web App)
http://www.media-convert.com/

Need a quick file converted? Don't have a piece of Software conversion on hand? Try Media Convert. A free online converter with a wide array of converting options. Just select the file, and your options (NOTE: If you select one of the profiles on the left it pretty much ignores any other settings you put in). File uploads, coverts and you download the converted file. I actually use this site a lot for my Nico Video rips (FLVs to AVIs/MP4s/NTSC DVD MPGs)

SUPER
http://www.erightsoft.com/SUPER.html

Need something more off-line? I'm sure if you've ever wanted to convert a file, there are TONS of expensive apps out there. SUPER is FREE. Totally and completely. Interface is a little clunky and crowded, but it works like a charm with tons of options to get the file you need converted JUST right.

Anyway, that's just a start, more to come later.