Make Your Own Streaming Video - Free

All right! I relented. Here it is - I did make another video - on how to make a video. Or more accurately, how you can cut the learning curve and do it yourself - for free.

There's a lot of huff and puff about 'streaming video' at the moment, and there's no doubt it makes learning software and some marketing messages much easier.

The recommended tool seems to be Camtasia - cost about $300. But there is at least one free alternative. CamStudio.

Use it, and you can create all the streaming flash videos you want - for free.

In a sec, I'll show you how. Just be warned, this is my first public effort!

Now, there is one catch. The download link on the CamStudio site redirects to Macromedia. There you will be greeted with this message:

'Macromedia Captivate, the latest version of RoboDemo'.

And Captivate appears to be CamStudio stripped of some key functions. It's 'the latest', so I downloaded it and wasted a lot of time trying to convert to Flash before I realized you need to buy the upgrade to be able to finish the job.

So, for a limited time, you can download the original CamStudio (complete, and free) below. It's a bit over 1MB. (If it doesn't download, I may have had to withdraw the offer because of bandwidth considerations.)

To watch the video below you'll need the Shockwave/Flash browser plugin. Most computers have it installed as standard, so when you click the 'Play' button, the video should start playing - although, depending on your Internet connection, it may be a bit slow.

If it doesn't play, you can download the player free of charge from here:

http://www.macromedia.com/shockwave/download/download.cgi?P1_Prod_Version=ShockwaveFlash

So, turn on your speakers, and prepare to be amazed! You, too, could soon be making your own videos - and products.

The first one is recording your video - it's just under 5 minutes - and the second (2 minutes) is converting it to streaming flash.

Apparently the program objects to you running two versions of it together, so a few functions misbehave towards the end.

Once the flash is done. your browser will pop open. View source and copy and paste the code into your web page. Easy as that!

Just remember to upload the flash files (takes forever) and ensure the code includes the correct link to it.

Now available here. See note in 6 Feb post.

You can download Camstudio here.