Hi Everyone,

 

Just joined your forum as I am doing some research and looks like you have the experts on here that could solve my problem.

 

I am a web designer and up until now included very little video content on my sites. However a client has come to me wanting 30 second to 1 minute videos produced reviewing products and demonstrating how to use them. I need to know the following to avoid mistakes please -

 

What is the best camcorder to get to make this an easy process.

What format should I be recording in.

What is the best output for cross browser compatibility?

What is the easiest software to use to produce and edit the video ready for inclusion on the website.

Any other considerations that I should be looking at?

 

Basically we need to film in the office - good light conditions and then get these clips edited and onto the website as quickly and easily as possible but not burn tons of bandwidth and also future proof the content we produce...

 

OK sorry to go on so long but hope there is someone who has learnt the pitfalls and can steer us in the right direction.

 

All help most greatfully recieved.

 

Simon

www.dvd-and-media.com

Hi Everyone,

 

Just joined your forum as I am doing some research and looks like you have the experts on here that could solve my problem.

 

I am a web designer and up until now included very little video content on my sites. However a client has come to me wanting 30 second to 1 minute videos produced reviewing products and demonstrating how to use them. I need to know the following to avoid mistakes please -

 

What is the best camcorder to get to make this an easy process?

What format should I be recording in.

What is the best output for cross browser compatibility?

What is the easiest software to use to produce and edit the video ready for inclusion on the website.

Any other considerations that I should be looking at?

 

Basically we need to film in the office - good light conditions and then get these clips edited and onto the website as quickly and easily as possible but not burn tons of bandwidth and also future proof the content we produce...

 

OK sorry to go on so long but hope there is someone who has learnt the pitfalls and can steer us in the right direction.

 

All help most greatfully recieved.

 

Simon

www.dvd-and-media.com

 

Hi Simon

 

Not really that experienced with actual filming but a few suggestions;

 

What is the best camcorder to get to make this an easy process?

Likely a mini DV cam would do the job here - Sony are usually good

 

What format should I be recording in.

Guess this depends on how you'll be converting to the format for the site. Certainly best to end up with an uncompressed Quicktime or AVI to convert.

 

What is the best output for cross browser compatibility?

More to do with people having the correct plug in player installed. Flash is most popular followed by Quicktime. Both certainly good enough.

 

What is the easiest software to use to produce and edit the video ready for inclusion on the website.

Unless you buy some serious pro software such as AVID or Final Cut Pro, you'll be unlikely to do anymore than produce and edit at this point and then use other software to convert for the website. Imovie, Adobe After Effects even Flash are options. Then use StreamClip or Flash Media Encoder to convert for the website.

 

Have a look at these links for how to convert the edited film ready for the web;

http://www.soundscreen.com/streaming/compress_hint.html

http://www.adobe.com/devnet/flash/articles/flv_encoding.html

http://www.adobe.com/devnet/flash/articles/video_guide.html

http://www.adobe.com/devnet/flash/articles/flv_howto.html

 

 

Here's StreamClip

http://www.squared5.com/svideo/mpeg-streamclip-mac.htm

 

Best ways to put Flash onto a site

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

http://www.alistapart.com/articles/flashsatay/

 

If your streaming you'll need a web host server that supports Flash or Quicktime streaming. Progressive download ought to be fine with any web host.

 

Quite a bit to it to get the best results I'm afraid...

 

In addition to headcoats excellent advice I'll add a few more bits in!

 

Converting video to flash is a pretty safe option nowadays since the vast majority of people hav the flash plugin (I did read this was 98.5% +). If flash in not an option you always have .mov for use with Quicktime, WMV for Windows media player and MPEG wehich can be played in nearly any page movie player.

 

As far as software is concerned if you're doing video to flash conversion and can't afford the ridiculous Adobe pricinbg there are many alternatives.

 

Ulead make some excellent video editing software - http://www.ulead.com/msp/features.htm

Swish make a video to flash tool which I use sometimes, fairly easy to use as well! - http://www.swishzone.com/index.php?area=pr...p;product=video

What is the best output for cross browser compatibility?

What is the easiest software to use to produce and edit the video ready for inclusion on the website.

Any other considerations that I should be looking at?

www.dvd-and-media.com

 

Yep, Flash is good, or rather .flv. Flash enables internet users on different operating systems can view your videos through their web browser, via the widely available Adobe Flash Player and web browser plugin. So you can transfer your videos from your camcorder to computer, to save time you can use video converter to convert it to .flv.

 

Then you can make a .swf file, which is a flash video player to control the playback of the .flv files. Then you can embed the .swf file to your site. However if you don't know all these stuff, you can use this flash video player maker, which I think is an easy solution to convert videos to flash and add them to web pages.

A free option for converting from avi/mpeg etc, would be Media Converter SA.

 

Allows you to convert to and from the majority of video formats, including flv, avi, mpeg, rm etc.