No More VisualHub!

[lawnman]

http://www.techspansion.com/visualhub/

[terryj]

from TUAW.com

There are plenty of Mac tools for video compression in the marketplace, ranging from Windows Media-oriented tools (Flip4Mac) to professional workflow builders (Sorenson Squeeze) to hardware-assisted H.264 crunchers (Elgato turbo.264). Few of these products, however, have hit the sweet spot of wide-ranging capability, quality output and extremely affordable pricing like VisualHub from Techspansion. For less than $25, you got Flash and WMV output that rivaled products 3x the price, plus easy conversion to iPod and iPhone-friendly formats. Along with sister apps audio compressor AudialHub and iPod-only video converter iSquint, VisualHub was a prime example of a well-built, "Mac way" media app.

Sadly, the past tense above is no accident. Techspansion's website has been shuttered and the products have been discontinued. Tyler Loch (Techspansion's founder) let us know that the difficult decision to close down Techspansion is a personal one, and he's readjusting his priorities to focus on other needs. His choice is understandable, but we will definitely miss VisualHub (not to mention the laugh-out-loud funniest release notes in software history). Best of luck to Tyler in his future efforts.

Update: For those who are inquiring, there are no current plans to move VisualHub to open source. The underlying engine for much of the compression magic, ffmpeg, is already open-source and present in other Mac tools such as Handbrake.

For those going to snow leopard and Macs released in 2009,
it may be an issue. But the application, right now, still works.
It is still viable, and will probably be viable for years to come.

Thoth, Azureus 2.5.04, MacroMedia Freehand, AppleWorks 6,
iMovie HD, and now Visual Hub / iSquint....
these apps all still work under Tiger 10.4.11, and many still work
under Leopard 10.5.5.

It may mean you have to keep an old Mac to run your favorite software,
(I do) or that you may need to look for alternatives, but nothing
lasts forever. *shrugs*

Thanks TylerL, for at least taking the time to make one of the best
video conversion apps for the mac EVER.
In tribute, I plan to use it until it won't launch no more....

[pixel zombie]

that's a shame, i have heard it was a great app and one of the view that could deal with mkv files...

[bunginuts]

Well this news is quite depressing...

[albloom]

Yes, VisualHub is quite nice. There will doubtless come a time when
it stops working. A replacement of similar ease-of-use?

Has anyone tried MovieConverter? About the same price as VH.

[terryj]

when and if it stops working, I'll go back to ffmpegx for some things,
lean more heavily on Quicktime Pro and MpegStreamclip and MoKgVm2DVD,
and might start using D-Vision.
:P

But until that time comes, I'll keep a mac around that will still run
Tiger, & still run VisualHub.

[mhar4]

That's a total shame.

[Herve]

Has anyone tried MovieConverter? About the same price as VH.

I do everyday (was a joke)
not the same purpose: MC only convert to DVD or DV (no flash or iPod export), but is more specialized. There is some features more (standard conversion/interlacing management/subtitles/aspect conversion/DVD-authoring with menus etc)

Tyler did a great job with basic files (progressive one)
his way to inject flv metadata is great.
VH (or iSquint) was not only a "ffmpeg GUI". The ffmpeg's ability to handle iPod/iTunes so easily comes from Tyler (he send the tip to the ffmpeg mailing list)
etc
PS (my 2 cents): his softs are discontinued for personal reasons, perhaps he will continue them after...

bye

[albloom]

I just read that Tyler is doing the honorable thing:

iSquint and VisualHub, the popular video converter on Mac OS X have
now gone open source. They also has got new names, Film Redux
(VisualHub) and PunyVid (iSquint).

Mayhaps all is not lost after all.

[Herve]

I made a build of PunnyVid for a friend a few days ago
this version is only intel (not PPC, because I didn't take time to compile fmpeg on PPC)

I made some changes (to be compatible with newer versions of ffmpeg)
It may be some bugs (I didn't really test it)

enjoy
http://movieconverter.online.fr/_PUBLIC/PunyVid.zip

PS: when I have more time, I will make diff and will update the sourceforge project
bye