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.

Ashraf  –  15 years ago  –  Ritieni questo commento utile? sì | no (+178)

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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.

AndyPandy  –  15 years ago  –  Ritieni questo commento utile? sì | no (+46)

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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.

Fubar  –  15 years ago  –  Ritieni questo commento utile? sì | no (+45)

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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.

carrot muncher  –  15 years ago  –  Ritieni questo commento utile? sì | no (+32)

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#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.

Fubar  –  15 years ago  –  Ritieni questo commento utile? sì | no (+31)

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