The best example of a bad Website design is erightsoft's SUPER: a normal person isn't able to download thier Software.
What is sooo complicated to put a Link on your Site called >>DOWNLOAD NOW<<??

In fact, thier Site is so fucked up, they made a "Download Helper" Page, to help people download. Brilliant!

website:

Enable your JavaScript, clear your MSIE cache, do not block your http_referrer (with ZoneAlarm or similar), do not use a proxy.

Hey website.

How about No.

Is No good for you?

Visited it.  Either the webmaster is on drugs, or the site is a joke.

D0R:

Visited it.  Either the webmaster is on drugs, or the site is a joke.

Here's the insane dialog box that you get on start-up.  Apparently SUPER © thinks it's a problem that I don't have Windows(R).

And here's the program itself.  It's not the fiendish FileMatrix, but it's pretty awful.

Why yes, it does have comically long tooltips.  Why do you ask?

OPTIONS: I HAZ DEM

D0R:

Visited it.  Either the webmaster is on drugs, or the site is a joke.

 Can't it be both?

 Re:  The massive control box

 I actually don't mind that too much.  Having attempted to do some video encoding in the past, it always annoys me when all the options I need are buried in a cryptically named submenu.  Now, admittedly, some of those radio button groups could have just been drop-down boxes instead, but still, it's nice not having to flip amongst several pages/menus.

The tool tips probably should have been help buttons.  Tool tips are supposed to be "chose the resolution of your display device", not a comprehensive description of display devices, including the complete history of CRT projectors.

Speaking Super(TM)(R)(C)(MRUEQ), can anyone recommend a GUI frontend for video encoding that DOESN'T make me bleed out of the eyes and anus with its utter and all-consuming interface awfulness?

halcyon1234:

 

 I actually don't mind that too much.  Having attempted to do some video encoding in the past, it always annoys me when all the options I need are buried in a cryptically named submenu.  Now, admittedly, some of those radio button groups could have just been drop-down boxes instead, but still, it's nice not having to flip amongst several pages/menus.

Here are some option windows that pop up.

Only one of these three can be open at any given time.  Why?  I don't know.

And let's not be silly, of course it still has menus.

Rootbeer:

Speaking Super(TM)(R)(C)(MRUEQ), can anyone recommend a GUI frontend for video encoding that DOESN'T make me bleed out of the eyes and anus with its utter and all-consuming interface awfulness?

 

Um... er... encoder GUIs? Er... I suppose you can use Emacs to write shellscripts. =)

VLC has a pretty much a sane GUI, but not perfect. VLC has an annoying tendency to just go ahead and produce a bogus file if a) options don't make a lick of sense or b) it can't actually use the encoder in question... (well, at least in 0.8.6)

TRWTF is the software itself.
I tried it a year or so ago, and couldn't get rid of it fast enough... The window handler was written in such a way that every time I click on something in the window it resets itself to the centre of my screen!
Plus, whenever I tried to encode anything it just gave me a very helpful error box, listing all of the possible reasons it could have failed.
Something like this:

• DirectDraw mode is enabled, try disabling it.
• The settings you chose were incorrect.
• The source file or destination file are protected/inaccessible.
• The specified codec is unavailable.
• Your computer ran out of memory.
• The user pressed Cancel.

And more...

Rootbeer:

Speaking Super(TM)(R)(C)(MRUEQ), can anyone recommend a GUI frontend for video encoding that DOESN'T make me bleed out of the eyes and anus with its utter and all-consuming interface awfulness?

http://code.google.com/p/winff/

 No such beast exists, I've looked.

 Back when I had a Mac OS X box, "Handbrake" had a pretty good interface. But the Windows version is god-awful, and I hear that the OS X version and quickly become godawful also.

 Really, all I want is a drag&drop box I can drop files (of any format) on, and end up with .mp4 files that my iPod, iPhone, Zune, Xbox 360 can all play flawlessly. This industry *badly* needs to standardize on a single format, and MP4 seems to be the best quality and supported by the most devices, as far as I can work out.

Rootbeer:

Speaking Super(TM)(R)(C)(MRUEQ), can anyone recommend a GUI frontend for video encoding that DOESN'T make me bleed out of the eyes and anus with its utter and all-consuming interface awfulness?

For iPod/iPhone/MP4 conversion I'd recommend videora. Very user-friendly in normal mode and still clear in advanced mode, were you have all of the parameters (input, output, resolution, compression type etc.) on one screen.

A good all-having app is mediacoder. It's got reading support for virtually every container/codec out there and writing support for every one you possibly would want to write to. It's user interface is "for advanced users" though. There are extensions (menu extensions) for various devices, players and such which are quite easy to use (some of those are packed as a stand-alone app, eg. PSP or iPhone.The recent 0.6.2 version also has a wizard, though I'd not yet recommend it.

One warning: it does have a tendency to crash every once in a while, so don't be suprised if your video gets stuck at 0.0% about 1/20th of the times, just restart it (your video's remain in the qeue) and try again

Tip: Download the optimized binaries for your processor

bstorer:

Only one of these three can be open at any given time.  Why?  I don't know.

Those three windows have become a bit anxious over development setbacks and can no longer work in the same room without a fistfight resulting.  It's fine, though, because using Modern Technology (R), each options window can act independently against a green screen and our digital effects wizards can make it appear as if all three are in the same location, seamlessly.

Also, I don't know as I've ever seen anyone use "Copyright" in the name of their program before. 

Rootbeer:

Speaking Super(TM)(R)(C)(MRUEQ), can anyone recommend a GUI frontend for video encoding that DOESN'T make me bleed out of the eyes and anus with its utter and all-consuming interface awfulness?

The last application that made me bleed out the anus was Firefox... 

Rootbeer:

Speaking Super(TM)(R)(C)(MRUEQ), can anyone recommend a GUI frontend for video encoding that DOESN'T make me bleed out of the eyes and anus with its utter and all-consuming interface awfulness?

 

Ripbot264?  AutoMKV?  Staxrip?  Handbrake?  Megui?

 If you need Vdub-like editing functionality (trim, etc), Avidemux?

dtech:

For iPod/iPhone/MP4 conversion I'd recommend videora. Very user-friendly in normal mode and still clear in advanced mode, were you have all of the parameters (input, output, resolution, compression type etc.) on one screen.

I would have recommended videora once, but since they changed it so that every step of the conversion is really a webpage backed by a website with ads, and the program itself doesn't work without an internet connection, i avoid it ( unless it's changed since then )

For iPod/MP4 conversion, I find that this works perfectly well for 95% of files:

ffmpeg -i file.avi -qmin 2 -qmax 5 output.mp4

In regards to SUPER. Yes, the interface burns your eyes, but when it works(often it'll just fall over and die for no reason), it does work as advertised.

Totally agree the website is a mish mash of bad user design, it's it can be very un-intuitive when trying to find the actual download. Reminds me a bit of something SpectateSwamp would have dreamed up.

morbiuswilters:

Also, I don't know as I've ever seen anyone use "Copyright" in the name of their program before. 

MiffTheFox:

Rootbeer:

Speaking Super(TM)(R)(C)(MRUEQ), can anyone recommend a GUI frontend for video encoding that DOESN'T make me bleed out of the eyes and anus with its utter and all-consuming interface awfulness?

http://code.google.com/p/winff/

The REAL WTF is cross-platform software being called "WinFF"

 If you have a Nvidia 8800 or newer, you could try Badaboom. It is targeted for small Devices, and uses your GPU for the computation.

 .mp4 is ok (or at least better than avi), but it have a couple of limitations. The best Video Container out there is Matroska (.mkv), the only Problem is (as always) the Device-Manufacturers don't get it implemented.

[smart ass mode]
However, responsible for the good videoquality is the Codec, which i think in your case should be h264, also called MPEG 4 AVC, not the Filecontainer. [/smart ass mode]

Personaly, i use AutoMKV a lot lately, the 0.97.1 build is pretty good actually. But you have to know what you want, and what you're doing.

Spikeles:

I would have recommended videora once, but since they changed it so that every step of the conversion is really a webpage backed by a website with ads, and the program itself doesn't work without an internet connection, i avoid it ( unless it's changed since then )

You have a "normal" mode which works that way indeed, but which is much more usable. You also have an "advanced mode" which is a bit less usable but works without an internet connection (and ads).

 Personally, I don't think the ads are that much of a problem: they do want to earn money do they.

jo-82:

.mp4 is ok (or at least better than avi), but it have a couple of limitations. The best Video Container out there is Matroska (.mkv), the only Problem is (as always) the Device-Manufacturers don't get it implemented.

Anyway... While Matroska is a technically superior container format, what few demuxers that do exist don't do a very good job of dealing with the underlying streams, so we end up with screwed up framerates, not being able to move around in the video file, lots of CPU overhead, general all-around badness. In my opinion, the best option we have right now is Ogg (container), using either Vorbis (audio) and Theora (video) or AAC (audio) and H.264 (video), while the most compatible option is MP3+XviD in an AVI RIFF container.