New important update available:

http://mediacoder.sourceforge.net/

http://www.portablefreeware.com/?id=623

..a very good application

To save anyone else the time clicking around today: the download links to the installers on the official website aren't active yet, you have to go to the SourceForge download repository.

The 7z package isn't available yet, either. You don't need a 7z package to update your portable package (you can install - copy - uninstall), but I'll try back tomorrow, anyway.

EDIT: It seems the SourceForge repository is no longer active: the above link doesn't work, there are no references to SF anywhere on the MediaCoder website (that I can see, but I haven't searched extensively), and the latest release in the SF repository is 0.62. There's a link on the official download page to "previous versions" that includes some .7z packages, but never the most recent. I don't see why they even bother with a .7z release if they'll never bother to keep it up-to-date.

You can use Universal Extractor too, but I don't know what is extra.

Medicaoder uses XULRunner now (if clicked during installation), so it may be portable out-of-the-box. Anyone willing to test?

Arithmomanaic

The bottom line:

1. You can extract it with Universal Extractor, but it's a bit of a mess
2. The installer can make a portable install, but still saves the install path to the registry
3. The included xulrunner means you don't have to copy Firefox (though it does write inconsequential settings to %APPDATA%)
4. You could just put a relative path to FirefoxPortable.exe as your browser path
5. The latest build runs the setup wizard in your default browser every time you start MediaCoder (despite checking the box not to do so)
6. The installer includes OpenCandy, which will cause those very concerned about privacy to balk.

You can use Universal Extractor, but the folder structure is confusing when compared to my portable install (for which I used the installer under Sandboxie and copied to its current location). The files and folders in the "$31" directory seem to get sprinkled in a number of subdirectories. There's no "xulrunner" folder or "xulrunner.exe" anywhere in the extracted files, though these exist in my portable install.

The installer now includes a "save data files in program folder" option, which makes a portable install, but it still saves the install path to the registry.

In light of the above two complications, I'd recommend either doing an install - copy - uninstall or using Sandboxie. An additional advantage to using Sandboxie is that the OpenCandy data will not be stored on your computer.

There seems to be a bug in this build: I can't avoid it running the setup wizard in my default browser (I switched the default to IE to make sure it wasn't just running Firefox) every time I start it, even though I've checked the "Do not show this page on next startup" (and I even went through the whole wizard just to see if that would help).

After struggling with it for way to long, turning to Google and the Mozilla Knowledge Base for help, I'm pretty sure that xulrunner cannot be made to run "stealthily". However, there's no reason to change the settings for the included xulrunner (stored in %APPDATA%\Broad Intelligence\MediaCoder) anyway - they're inconsequential to the operation of MediaCoder. So it would seem that MediaCoder is portable with the included xulrunner (no need to copy a Firefox install), but it's not stealth. However, if you're running FirefoxPortable, you can just use a relative path to FirefoxPortable.exe in the settings (which can be accessed in MediaCoder under the "file" menu, or by manually editing prefs.xml).

Finally, some might consider OpenCandy to be spyware:

Is OpenCandy killing the submission, or is it in a queue?

Arithmomanaic

bump

MediaCoder V0.7.1.4430 is available.

Download: http://mediacoder.sourceforge.net/dlfull.htm

V0.7.1.4430:
[update] MediaCoder build 4430
[add] CUDA accelerated H.264 encoder
[add] CUDA accelerated frame scale filter
[add] video buffer memory utilization control option
[fix] aspect ratio issue
[fix] misc bugfixes
[add] CUDA H.264 encoder
[add] CUDA video filter (only down-scaling implemented at the moment)
[update] x264 r1163
[update] MediaInfo 0.7.16

Read ashghost posting (see above)

Hesitant to install-copy-uninstall every time I want to update, I finally decided to look at MediaCoder's forums to see if I could find any news about a no-install package. It turns out that the 7z packages are available at Google Code.

EDIT: The Google Code site is also no longer available.

I don't know why the developer is choosing to host it at multiple sites, but it does seem to be the same "Stanley Huang". It's a bit behind the "official" release (it's currently at 0.7.0.4399), but it does make updating a heckuva lot easier. This 7z version doesn't include XULRunner or XULPlayer, only an XULApp folder. So, the old instructions (copying a Firefox installation) for making it portable probably still apply.

The developer has removed MediaCoder from SourceForge entirely (including the outdated instructions on how to make it portable): http://blog.mediacoderhq.com/mediacoder ... forge-net/

It seems that it's no longer possible to make a portable version using UniExtract (or at least I couldn't figure it out), but the installer does have the checkbox for saving settings portably. The XULRunner option has also now matured enough to be a useful alternative to relying on an installed version of Firefox.

So the OpenCandy installer is no longer avoidable, but it's really only an issue for the truly paranoid, as it's only visible as suggested download (and it's even unchecked by default) during the install process. I updated the links and the "How to Extract" section but I left the version number alone, which means it doesn't get recorded as an update, so I just wanted to let folks know.

I guess MediaCoder is slowly drifting away from the freeware path...