How in the Tech

Convert videos into executables for painless playback

By Adam Myers ⋅ November 23, 2009 ⋅ Tags: Multimedia

Sharing videos with your friends and family is rarely a straightforward process, at least initially. Assuming you’ve tackled the problem of actually getting the video into their hands, it still seems like most of the time playback is problematic. Almost always the ultimate problem is the computer lacks the necessary Video Codec or the plugin necessary to commence viewing. There are a few ways around this problem, each with their positives and negatives.

Uploading the video to a site specializing in video sharing and playback, like Youtube, is typically the most straightforward – assuming you meet all the requirements of the particular video hosting site. Large videos are a problem, for example. All of these sites utilize Flash to handle playback from within the browser. The assumption being that the computer in question has Flash installed, which is actually pretty safe to assume. But, using this method requires an Internet connection for playback and it is not always easy to save a copy of the video for remembrance sake – which also can lead you back into the catch-22 we are trying to solve!

Another option is to download and install a media player that can handle playback of a very wide range of codec types. Media players like the free VLC are quite popular – if only because they are light, fast, and just work with whatever is thrown at them. However, downloading and installing another program can be a bit intimidating for some, even if it only has to occur once and then they are set for all future instances.

It is then in this situation where we turn to the final option – including the video and the media player in a single executable file that can be played back with a simple double-click. Make Instant Player is a wrapper for the cross-platform MPlayer that does just that. Essentially, Make Instant Player encapsulates MPlayer and your video file in question into a single file. Configuration and usage is straight forward once installed. Pass Make Instant Player your source video file and a location to save the created output and that’s basically it. Further options are available for if you’d like to keep the video atop all windows on playback, or loop the video continuously, just to name a few. All in all, it’s quite logical in it’s usage.

Make Instant Player ensures you can send videos to your grandmother and know you won’t get a troublesome support call soon thereafter. That’s worth something isn’t it?