How To Use Open Source to Create Online Multimedia

Online multimedia has never been more sought after. With websites such as YouTube among the most popular in the world, it is good to have multimedia on your website. The most common type of online multimedia uses Adobe's Flash engine. Typically you create Adobe Flash files (SWFs) using Adobe Flash Professional. There are, however, open-source alternatives depending on your need. Open-source software is useful because it is free and the source code is available to the public. Releasing source code to the public shows that the application is safe and free of spyware and allows personal modifications to be made if necessary.

Instructions

Creating Online Multimedia from Video Screen captures

1. Download CamStudio from the official website (See Resources) or from SourceForge. CamStudio allows you to record whatever you do on your screen. This is useful if you want to demonstrate how to use a program or tool.

2. Double-click the downloaded installer to begin setup. Follow the onscreen instructions then double-click the icon on the desktop to launch the application.

3. Click the "swf" button on the toolbar to begin "Recording to SWF." Use your computer to show what you want your video to display.

4. Click the CamStudio icon in the task bar, then click "Stop" to cease recording. CamStudio will now convert your video to SWF for online usage. It will open the folder that holds your SWF file automatically. Use this file for multimedia on your web page.

Creating Online Multimedia from AVI Files

1. Download SWFTools (see Resources). Double-click the downloaded installer to begin setup. SWFTools will allow you to convert (among other formats) AVI files to Flash SWF files for use as online multimedia. During installation, make a note of what directory SWFTools is installed in.

2. Locate the AVI files you want to convert on your hard drive. Right-click the file or files, and click "Copy." Navigate to your SWFTools installation directory, right-click, and click "Paste."

3. Click "Start" then "Run" and type "cmd." Change the directory to your SWFTools installation directory. Change directory using the "cd" command, for example if you are in "C:\ >" and want to navigate to the "hello" folder located at "C:\hello" then type "cd hello" then press Enter on your keyboard.

4. Type "avi2swf file1.avi -o file2.swf" without quotation marks. Change "file1" to the name of your AVI files and change "file2" to the name you want for your SWF video. Press Enter on your keyboard to begin conversion. Wait for the conversion to finish and you will have an SWF video for online playback.

Creating Online Multimedia from PDF Files

1. Download QPdf2Swf from SourceForge (see Resources). QPdf2Swf works with SWFTools (see Resources) to convert multipage PDF files into slide shows.

2. Double-click the downloaded installer to begin setup. Once setup is complete, double-click the icon on the desktop to open QPdf2Swf.

3. Click the "Options" button at the bottom of the window. Click the "Find" box at the top right of the page, beside the box labeled " "The path to pdf2swf." Navigate to the directory that contains SWFTools. Open the directory and click on the program file "pdf2swf.exe" or "pdf2swf" if file extensions are not shown. Click "Open" and then "OK."

4. Click "Open" at the top of the main window and locate the folder with your PDF files for conversion. Click "Open."

5. Select a multipage PDF from the list in the box. Click "Browse" beneath the list and specify an output directory for the conversion.

6. Click "Start" and wait for the conversion to finish. The resulting SWF file will display the pages of the PDF as a slideshow.

References

• CamStudio: CamStudio FAQ
• SourceForge: SourceForge.net: QPdf2Swf: Screenshots
• avi2swf: avi2swf

Resources

• CamStudio - Free Screen Recording Software
• SourceForge: SPdf2Swf
• SWFTOOLS: SWFTOOLS