VirtualDub is a video capture/processing utility for Windows platforms (95/98/ME/NT4/Win2k/Windows XP/Vista), licensed under the GNU General Public License (GPL). It lacks the editing power of a general-purpose editor such as Adobe Premiere, but is streamlined for fast linear operations over video.

It has batch-processing capabilities for processing large numbers of files and can be extended with third-party video filters. VirtualDub is mainly geared toward processing AVI files, although it can read (not write) MPEG-1 and also handle sets of BMP images.

Features of VirtualDub 1.9.2 :

Sure, you've probably played a few video clips on your monitor. But have you ever made one yourself? Used a video capture device? Wrestled with the software that comes with it? Felt like the software is a few leagues above or below your level? Time to try something else.
• VirtualDub helps you get video into your computer.
If your capture device is Video for Windows compatible, then VirtualDub can capture video with it. But VirtualDub isn't your average capture program:
- Fractional frame rates. Don't settle for 29 or 30 when you want 29.97.
- Optimized disk access for more consistent hard disk usage.
- Create AVI2 (OpenDML) files to break the AVI 2GB barrier and multiple files to break the FAT32 4GB limit.
- Integrated volume meter and histogram for input level monitoring.
- Real-time downsizing, noise reduction, and field swapping.
- Verbose monitoring, including compression levels, CPU usage, and free disk space.
- Access hidden video formats your capture card may support but not have a setting for, such as 352x480.
- Keyboard and mouse shortcuts for faster operation. To capture, just hit F6.
- Clean interface layout: caption, menu bar, info panel, status bar.
• VirtualDub lets you clean up video on your computer.
There are lots of programs that let you "edit" video. And yet, they're frustratingly complex for some of the simplest tasks. VirtualDub isn't an editor application; it's a pre- and post-processor that works as a valuable companion to one:
- Reads and writes AVI2 (OpenDML) and multi-segment AVI clips.
- Integrated MPEG-1 and Motion-JPEG decoders.
- Remove and replace audio tracks without touching the video.
- Extensive video filter set, including blur, sharpen, emboss, smooth, 3x3 convolution, flip, resize rotate, brightness/contrast, levels, deinterlace, and threshold.
- Bilinear and bicubic resampling -- no blocky resizes or rotates here.
- Decompress and recompress both audio and video.
- Remove segments of a video clip and save the rest, without recompressing.
- Adjust frame rate, decimate frames, and 3:2 pulldown removal.
- Preview the results, with live audio.
You can take a captured clip, trim the ends, clean up some of the noise, convert it to the proper frame size, and write out a better one. Don't see a video filter you want? Write your own, with the filter SDK.
• VirtualDub is fast.
The author of VirtualDub is very impatient. That means his program is designed for speed, both in the interface and in the processing pipeline. Converting a compressed, 320x240 MPEG-1 file to an uncompressed, 24-bit AVI requires only these two steps in VirtualDub:
- Open video file (Ctrl-O).
- Save AVI (F7).
How fast is this operation? On a C450, 40 frames per second (1.3x real-time speed). With a little tweaking, the speed rises to 55 fps (1.8x), with the CPU hardly breaking a sweat at 40%.
• VirtualDub is cheap.
To be exact, it costs nothing. VirtualDub is licensed under the GNU General Public License, meaning you can use it for free. No risk involved, and the whole source code is available if you want it.

Changes from VirtualDub 1.8.7 to VirtualDub 1.8.8 :

• [bugs fixed]
- Command line: MPEG parser status dialog ate Ctrl+C/Break.
- Command line: Ctrl+C/Break while running the job queue (/r) now skips the rest of the queue.
- PluginAPI: DetectBySignature() now receives correct file size instead of zero.
- PluginAPI: Fixed frame tracking bug in default video decoder object that caused intermittent failures.
• [regressions fixed]
- JobControl: Command-line run (/r) was broken by retry logic (since 1.8.7).
- Filters: Blur and Blur More no longer write broken config lines into scripts (since 1.8.0).

Changes in VirtualDub 1.9.2 experimental :

• [features added]
- UI: Added support for configuring keyboard shortcuts in edit mode.
- UI: Added Always on Top to window menu.
- Filters: Filter cropping dialog is now resizable.
- Filters: Added align-to-2 option in resize filter.
- Filters: ELA and Yadif modes of deinterlace filter are now optimized for CPUs that have MMX but lack SSE2.
- Filters: The filter preview window now has the same context menu size and filter options as the main panes.
- Filters: Frame conversions at the start of a video filter are now cached.
- Filters: Fixed rare crash when downsizing 8-bit YCbCr images with resize filter.
- Filters: Improved frame allocator assignment for lower memory usage.
- Filters: Added field delay filter.
- Render: Added an option to warn if no audio is written on a save operation.
- Render: Fixed several blitter bugs, particularly those involving 4:1:1 sampling.
• [bugs fixed]
- Preferences: Audio buffers value was set incorrectly exiting the dialog. The value show when the dialog appears was correct.
- Filters: Fixed positioning issues in the filter cropping dialog for small frame sizes.
- Filters: Filters now receive finite mFrameCount values in render mode instead of unspecified (-1).
- Filters: Yadif mode of deinterlace filter was not caching internal frames efficiently.
- Filters: Fixed crash in certain paths when a filter frame request fails.
- Filters: Fixed occasional crashes with aligned scanline requests, particularly with cropping.
- Filters: Fixed artifacts in resize filter on right border with certain filter+ratio combos, pre-SSE4.1 CPUs, and YCbCr formats.
- Capture: Custom video format had HDYC listed twice instead of HDYC and v210.
- Images: Fixed hang in PNG encoder.
- Render: Added workaround for random hang when aborting render while using XviD with threaded compression enabled.
- AMD64: Fixed crash in resampler with certain filter/ratio combinations.
• [regressions fixed]
- UI: Timeline scrubbing is more responsive again when dealing with files that have long delta frame runs (since 1.9.1).
- Render: Fixed hang if there is a string of duplicate frames longer than the video pipeline (since 1.9.1).
- Filters: Fixed some caching and frame numbering issues with filters that have non-zero lag (since 1.9.1).