Creating Streaming Videos

Tutorial: How to Create a Video Clip File

This is general information on how to make a video file for use as video streaming from a website.

This can be done in one of two ways. One is by using a video file conversion utility program. This will take your existing video clip file and convert it into whatever streaming video file format you choose. Or, you could export your streaming media files from video editing software such as Ulead VideoStudio or Adobe Premier.

A videofile conversion utility is a program that imports a video clip in one file format and then exports it to another video fileformat of your choice. Essentially you open a file and choose what file format you want to save it as. You can set the parameters to whatever settings you want for the best final video. The program will then begin the conversion process. After a while, you'll have a usable video file to stream on your web site. When the filetype conversion is complete, then you will need to export your video clip. Just consult the help file of your specific software program for instructions.

Some conversion utilies can be expensive. If you're a novice or are not looking to invest a lot of money in software, there are also many free video conversion tools available. One popular free program is the RAD Video Tools. However this one only converts .avi videos. So if you're looking to use Flash videos, this won't work for you. There are other programs available that will convert to .swf (Macromedia Flash) format, as well as other file extensions. See the video hosting resources page for some possiblities of freeware and shareware software to do these conversion processes.

Which video file format you use is up to you. For first-timers, it's probably best to make several different versions using different formats. The best way to know what works best for you is to experiment.

Now you'll have to put the HTML code needed into your web page in order to display it.

This concludes the first part of this tutorial explaining about creating streaming media. Now on to individual formats.

Depending on which video format you choose will determine which specific HTML code tags you'll need to embed the video file. Just click on the video file format you want to embed on webpages: