Digital Workshop

Any developments on the video tutorial front?

Brian

I posted a query regarding video tutorials some time ago and got no response. If DW have decided not to produce video tutorials, than those of us who indicated an interest would like to know the state of play.

Should it be the case that no vid tutorials are forthcoming, then I would still like to see some kind of tutorial material - even if static and based on screenshots.

I don't want to make a fuss, but I'm about to embark on a very large commercial project –an interactive CD - and the lack of structured tutorials is a real setback, and is leading me to consider using other tools. It is not that I am a computer novice - I have been working with PCs since 1983, and have skills in VB, Pascal, Corel ad more, but I developed my skills by taking courses and reading tutorial books.

Wading around the admittedly very good Opus documentation is not very efficient for me as a way to increase my technical proficiency with Opus.

Having invested £600 in several Opus products over the last two years, I would be happy to spend another £70 for good tutorial material. I just don’t have the time to learn by trial and error.

I'd be grateful is someone from DW could respond.


best regards,

Brian

Brian

Let me ask you a very basic question: how much would you be prepared to pay for the tutorials you request?

Commercial reality is probably a factor in why DW and others have not responded to you request.

Over the past 6 years, I've developed many learning materials which have included tutorials for Opus as well as for third-party applications.

Before I can work on a tutorial, I have to be confident that I have the knowledge on which to base the tutorial. Gaining that knowledge can add many, many hours to a tutorial project.

Planning, designing programming and testing a significan tutorial such as you've requested can take a lot of time. For example, here are the times I have taken, using Opus, to produce 4 fairly comprehensive tutorial projects: 122 hours; 246 hours; 316 hours; and 343 hours. These do not include time that did not involve using Opus.

Even if I value my time at a realistic $100 per hour, costs incurred come to: $12,200; $24,600; $31,600; and $34,300.

To be commercially viable I have to be sure that I can recover these costs -- and more. Whether I (or DW) can do this depends on the potential market for the tutorial.

In the case of Opus tutorials, DW currently has 697 registered users for Opus products. This is probably the maximum potential market for an Opus tutorial.

Many Opus users may choose not to buy a video tutorial, further limiting the potential market. Do the maths. A tutorial could cost in excess of the money you have already spent on Opus products. Would you pay that much for a tutorial? Probably not.

I haven't written this to cause upset, but there is a commercial reality that has to be met before I would even consider undertaking such a project. I'm sure similar costings would be undertaken by DW and other developers.

Ray

Thanks for taking the time to reply. I quote from a message from Paul Harris, Posted: Mon Apr 04, 2005 8:56 am, in which I understand him to be leaving the possibility open for producing video tutorials:





I was simply requesting information as to what decision had been made. I recall that I was not the only one interested in video tutorials.

I am not writing this to cause any upset, either. I do find your suggestions to ‘do the maths’ and consider commercial reality to be a tad patronising. As a paying customer of DW, my money is as good as any other customer’s; I just happen to feel strongly that having tutorial material available would help me in using the product for which I paid good money (I develop and deliver courses at a British university and do have some knowledge of learning needs and styles, BTW).

If it is not viable for DW to produce video tutorials then I would be happy to have some final word from DW on this.

I have raised the question because I am at the start of the implementation stage of a major e-learning CD-ROM, and have to decide whether to build it in Opus or in Runtime Revolution. I was therefore wanting to have an outstanding query settled before making my decision.

And BTW, mate, I make my living (and live) in London, so don’t lecture me about commercial reality! .

Thanks all the same for taking the time to reply. No hard feelings.

Brian

I also purchased Runtime Revolution (Revolution Studio) to see if it would give me some drawing functionality that I require and Opus does not have.

They have available a series of video tutorials in wmv/mov format, that look like they are fairly standard Camtasia type video captures with a voice over commentary.
These would not be that difficult (read expensive) to make.
I suggest DW downloads some from runrev.com and has a look to see what I mean -- full blown video production is not required.

Having struggled with 'Revolution Studio' for a couple of months, constantly tripping over its quirks, freezes and strange ways of doing things.
I've tried dozens of Multimedia authoring apps, use only a few of them, but nothing comes close to Opus for ease of use.

Paul

Paul

What you have described mirrors almost exactly my own experience with Runtime Revolution - while it was easier to get started as there are vid tutorials and a book, I soon hit a wall. Even with their new antialiasing engine, they are some way behind Opus on drawing tools, in my view. It does offer Mac compatibility, but Opus seems to offer so much more in terms of functions and is a far superior working IDE. I've been thinking of ways to wrap up Opus flex output in Revolution for Mac distribution. I'd say Revolution is more of a general application development tool, which is how I use it, but even my limited use of Opus has shown me that Opus is a superior multimedia tool. And Apple still has only 5% of the market, I gather. I just wish I could find the time to learn how to use Opus properly. Ah well ...

For my planned CD/DVD ROM project I've judged Opus to be the superior authoring tool to Revolution, so it looks like I'll have to tough it out or hire an experienced Opus developer.

Paul Harris has replied elsewhere explaining why DW haven't made any video tutorials. His reasons are sound and I do accept that most Opus users don't seem to want the kind of tutorial material I'm after. I don't see any point in my pursuing the matter any further, but if you (or anyone else) come across any useful material for learning Opus then I'd be very grateful to have a PM.

I really appreciate your taking time to reply.

very best regards,

Brian

Hi Brian,

I was reading your blog from 2006 and was wondering if you got anywhere with your tutorial request? I'm not a new OPUS user but am self-taught. I can use OPUS pretty well but I know that I am not using it to its full advantage. Do you know where I can find help?

Thanks,
Jeannie

Hi Jeannie

Sorry for taking so long to reply, but I have not been around these forums lately. The short answer is that I got nowhere with the tutorial request: if you look through the thread you will see a a few replies from established users that were borderline patronising in seeming to suggest that the request for tutorials was not reasonable.

I resolved to leave the issue alone, but then I saw your post.

I'm waiting to see what happens with the next version; in the meantime I am working with other tools, but still keeping Opus as a possibility for building a product.

best regards,

Brian

Hi Brian,

Sorry you feel that way. I understand the need to have access to decent learning materials. My company was originally established to build educational products using Opus but we have a growing number of customers in a similar situation to you and Jeannie who have invested in Opus and have a reasonable understanding of the program but want to push their developments further.

We have created complete projects from single ideas to writing reusable scripts for many different walks of life. Which is where the problems start - Opus is a very, very powerful program capable of creating a variety publications and deciding what to including in any training is complicated.

Many of our customers request information about how the publications we have created work and we provide this as well as commented scripts to help them develop their ideas further and hopefully extend their knowledge of Opus. We can, and would if requested use, as Paul suggested, screen recording software that would allow the customer to watch the development process.

Including this as part of a project is a reasonable request as the majority of the cost / time is offset by the purchase of the project work and a single disc of the tutorial could be burnt and posted to the customer - but I'm not sure yet how would work for standalone requests.

If you've followed my other post, you'll know that this is something that Interaktiv have been looking at and bouncing ideas around. Following lots of discussion here and with various members - one possibility would be something along the lines of 'the making of' style material - where a real live application's development is recorded and broken down to teach the fundamentals of Opus by covering an agree set of concepts.

Personal, I feel that this would work better with a group, rather than an open application - where by a selection of people agree the concepts that they need to learn and a project is proposed - in a similar vein to In Service Training (INSET).

Anyway, enough chatter. I do hope that you continue with Opus. It will produce the most amazing results.

Regards,

Mack

It is our intention to overhaul the help system, documentation and include tutorials in the next version. As I think I've said before - the problem has been identifying where the need is. people use Opus for so many different things at so many different levels.

I have been working with customers to identify some of the key areas which cause problems in the real world to ensure these are covered rather than just arbitrarily guess at what might be useful.

Paul Harris

Hi Paul

That is excellent news. I will be looking forward to getting some tutorials to help explain some of the concepts that I have difficulty with. I have been following this post hoping something will come of it.

Steve A

When I was a 'beginner' to using Opus, I found many of the 'Examples' in Script Help Files just did not illustrate the principle. They were probably okay for a programmer, but not me. e.g., simple things like 'valueOf()'.

I'd suggest an Appendix (of extended examples), to show one Command in context with related commands... as to how they are applied. Illustrate what kind of vars need to be set up, and layout the sequence of steps or code.

As for Tutorials, I've found IdeaMason did a nice job for their application. Well partitioned by kind of work being done.
http://ideamason.com/products/tutorials.htm

All that said, the Opus Manuals have been under-emphasized. There is some great stuff there (goes beyond Help file). It just takes time going thru several times.

Great to hear that there will be updated documentation/tutorials; I look forward to the next version. I've reviewed the old threads on the topic and I see quite a few suggestions.

Brian

I have mixed feelings about video tutorials. As we all know Opus can offer a number of different solutions to the same problem (which I feel is one of its greatest strengths). I find the manuals and help files excellent and these normally meet my needs. If not, I will come here and post my problem - I have always been offered help and a variety of solutions -something which videos will not provide. However, for a complete novice videos would provide some support, although I still believe they would never offer the depth of knowledge that is available from other users. I would suggest adding further online tutorials (and some of these could be videos or flash files - created with Opus of course) where comments can be added by other users.

Like others, I have also purchased Runtime Revolution - mainly to provide cross platform support. Whilst the video tutorials are very good the software is far more restrictive in its approach than Opus and often there is only one way to do something so the videos work well. I too have found Runtime not as flexible or powerful as Opus. I would warn those who have Runtime to avoid purchasing the new manual as it is just a printed version of the Help Files without an index rendering it almost useless (and it costs over £30). Well done DW for providing us with a decent properly bound, indexed manual(s) which come packaged free with the boxed version.

TWO BIRDS ONE STONE.

This might be a fair solution to the video training issue. Using dimdim's web conferencing it it possible to offer real time lessons in Opus with the possibility that these could be recorded and achieved.

I'm going to try a short lesson out to see how effective the technology and what the response is. If you want to get involved, then read:

viewtopic.php?t=3549

Regards,

Mack