I’m creating some tutorials that I want to be text with short embedded videos (instead of still images), for distribution over the web, but am struggling to find a good format. I’ve been trying pdf but it doesn’t seem easy (or even possible) to embed videos of adequate size (say 1280 px across) into a pdf. I guess I could use HTML but would like to explore other options for formats that anyone can read without having to pay for software. Any suggestions welcome.
What about using a blogging platform like Wordpress? Ultimately it’s HTML, but it gives you a WYSIWYG editor, embedded video, and facilities to keep it all organized and searchable.
I second the web approach for a couple of reasons. First of all, there are a lot of publishing platforms and tools that make it easier as Tony said, like WordPress or DotNetBlogEngine or even some more robust but heavy solutions like Dot Net Nuke or Umbraco.
The big reason for me is your video size requirement. Those are going to be some very large videos, consume a lot of bandwidth and people don’t always support those screen resolutions. They may be watching on a mobile device or tablet for instance and have no real pressing need for the full scale video. Using the web approach would allow you to take advantage of streaming services that would adjust the video size and quality based on network and/or device resources.
These will be paid tutorials, so I need a downloadable product. I can still use HTML. I might reduce the size of the videos. I could possibly use pdf in landscape format documents, but the videos will still need to be smaller. I have an example of the presentation format I’m going for on my website here. That’s HTML of course.
ETA: I think I’ve solved my problem. I can use pan and zoom in Camtasia Studio to produce a smaller video while still showing everything I want. Embed in a pdf in landscape format. It’s a bit of work but I guess that’s what I’ll be charging for.