Importing Video, Embeding Hotlinks and Hosting

[msjanew1955]

HI,  I am editing videos in camtasia.  I want to embed hotlinks in the video.  In camtasia, they allow you to embed hotlinks, but the outputted swf and/or fla files are not supported outside of catasia's proprietary hosting service, screencast.com.  In otherw words, the hotlinks are lost once we host thefile at Brightcove.  For adobe presenter, how can we import camtasia video files, embed hot links in the video, and then host at Brightcove and still maintain the hotlinks?  Alternatively, i can also edit th vieo in premiere, and then import that into presentor.  If that is a better solution, that is fine.  The end goal is to have a video with embedded links that will work when hosted at Brightcove.  To do this, the file format needs to be fla video, not swf.  Thanks,  Matt

[Jorma_at_CoSo]

Do you mean FLV video? FLA files are source files for building Flash content, which ultimately ends up as FLV or SWF. FLV content will not contain any interactive elements, while SWF will.

You should be able to insert the SWF file output from Camtasia into Presenter, and retain the interactivity, but if Brightcove is not letting you use SWF content, then Presenter won't be much help, as it ultimately outputs SWF. It is setup to run on any SCORM or AICC compliant LMS, so it should work with Brightcove, but it seems like it may be worth testing before investing in Presenter.

[msjanew1955]

Hi Jorma,

Thanks for your considered response. If I may, I’d like to follow-up with an additional question.

It is clear that it does not work to create Camtasia videos with hotlinks exported in a swf  file hosted at Brightcove. However, I am wondering if you are suggesting I should look at using Presenter as the medium to do the same thing with the idea that as a SCORM/AICC compliant LMS tool, this format might actually be compatible at Brightcove. I know Brightcove does have  videos hosted there with hotlinks that are built using customized plugins via outside developers (i.e. doubleclick, etc.) that run ads from an ad server.  They also have players that use proprietary Brightcove BEML code to allow “banners” that can be clicked on.

However, before exploring these time/resource intensive options, maybe it is worth thinking in terms of the Presenter/SCORM angle—especially since all we want to do is run 3 hotlinked banners (nothing as fancy as targeted ad servers required). This functionality is “instructional” ala LMS, so maybe it will work?

Thanks,

Matt

Matthew H Newman

Content Manager,

[Jorma_at_CoSo]

OK, I looked at Brightcove and I'm not sure that the Presenter tool will work any different. Since Brightcove is a video delivery platform, I suspect that any non-video media (SWF for example) will not be supported. I don't believe the LMS (Learning Management System) files will make a difference, as they are used for launching and tracking the content from within an LMS.

In the case of using an FLV or MP4, there is no interactivity available within that format of video. The links you are placing over it are part of the SWF wrapper or player that is delivering the video. So it would make sense that the linking would not be accepted. You may need to look at a different delivery platform if you want to have that functionality available from Camtasia, Presenter, Captivate, etc. A standard web server should be able to do the job.