A couple of questions I've been getting about the Code Camp and user group videos we're posting at Wrox.com:
1. Why can't I fast forward or skip ahead through the video while it's streaming? Answer: We're running these off of a standard IIS server, not a Windows Media Server. IIS supports streaming, but not indexed playback during streaming to allow skipping ahead. If you want to do that, just download the whole video and all of the forwarding and timeline controls will be available in Windows Media Player.
2. Why isn't the video quality better? Is Camtasia to blame? No, Camtasia rocks. The raw videos I'm getting in Camtasia format are 100% clear, as if you were looking right at the presenter's monitor. The problem I've discovered is with the Windows Media Encoder. It just isn't well suited to on-screen presentation videos like this. The blurring and color blotching seems worst in Scott Hanselman's videos and I think I know why. When I watch the raw presentation, he's flying back and forth between open windows, background tools that pop up, and his desktop. It's just faster switching between very varied images than the encoder can seem to keep up with. I've twidled all the settings and got the best I can for now without doubling or tripling the file sizes. The other option would be to post an alternate version in Camtasia format and a link to download their playback codec. Because WMV is universal for my .NET developer audience, that has to be my common choice though.
I did some at work with the Flash option at 640x480 and it created a Flash FLV that turned out OK.
Posted by: Scott Hanselman | July 19, 2006 at 12:14 AM
What an interesting way to get people interested in reading! Book trailers are like movie trailers, but for books! You can find them all over the internet now, but here is a site that's featuring them on YouTube. http://www.youtube.com/booktrailers
Posted by: mpsingh | March 21, 2008 at 04:14 AM