Digital Workshop

I'm creating a standalone publication which contains video files created by Techsmith Camtasia. The CD is for widespread distribution and the application will run directly off the CD. I don't want the user to have to install video codecs so I was wondering what the most appropriate codec would be.

My thinking so far is that if I use Flash, this will need the user to install Quicktime or the Flash plug-in. I've found that WMV files are not good enough quality so am tending towards an AVI file with a codec such as MPEG 4 V2. If I use MS Video 1 codec, the file size is too large. Does anyone have experience of this or suggestions?

Many thanks.

Could you not just use the TechSmith player to display your videos? Do they have to run in the publication itself or could they be launched from the publication? The TS player has their codec built in so your user would not have to install anything and you can launch it via commandline calls from within Opus. I would look at this option first and see if it is viable for you. Then I would probably go the Flash route. Flash player usage is pretty universal these days.

Any MPEG 4 based codec is extremely unlikely to be present on most PCs. For maximum portability stick with reliable old MPEG 1.

What bwpatric said.

Launching the CamPlay.exe file and associated avi files with the relevant switches works a treat.

Just make sure you include the player in your distributed CDs!

The only disadvantage is that because you include the original avi files, they can be copied.

Many thanks for the replies - I'm not going to go the route of using the launch of the TechSmith player as this gives no control over the video playback. It also launched a security message when starting to play the video. I'm also wary of the Flash route as I'm not totally convinced about the penetration of Flash. I've not been able to find a way of creating MPEG files as my video editors all limit the video dimensions to pre-configured sizes which are not compatible with my file dimensions.

Instead, I've found that the MS Video 1 codec gives good quality for my video (a combination of text and picture animations) & I think the file sizes are manageable and this codec should be on most PCs.

Thanks again for your help.

Just for the record, the Camtasia player is quite controllable, and I've never encountered a security message when launching it through Opus, either. (Powerpoint, however, DOES produce such a message).

However, if you're happy with MPEG1, best of luck

MPEG1 or MPEG2 will always play on the end users computer. The other option is to supply QuickTime or Windows MediaPlayer 10 installer on the CD and then MPEG4 would play.