I've been looking for a simple and low-cost solution to add
streaming Flash video to my web sites. While I like Instant
Video Generator a lot, there are certain times when I want a little
more control over the video and the bandwidth. There are many free tools
available to help you, but many require a copy of Flash which is expensive.
While I was able to cobble together multiple tools to achieve my goals, I felt
there had to be a single tool solution out there somewhere.
Swish makes many creative tools that are relatively low-cost
and enable you to create and implement fancy Flash effects without a)
purchasing Flash or b) being a Flash expert. Their tools are made for average
folks which means virtually anyone can use them.
Swish
Video 2 is a wizard-based tool. You import an existing video (all the
popular formats are supported) and then set the quality desired. You may then
add an icon or logo image to brand your video -- this is going to become
increasingly more important as video gets picked up by the search engines. You
want people to know whose video it is so they can visit your site, so
including an URL in your video is great.
After adding an icon, you can set the audio quality or even
use a different audio file for the video's audio track. If you want to fiddle
with Flash events settings, you can do that too, but most people will ignore
this tab.
When it comes time to publish your video, the last tab enables
you to choose the format (SWF or FLV), border thickness, and background
color.
Here you can also select the type of video player you want to
use. Several different graphical treatments are included, and they are all
quite nice in appearance.
One of the best features of Swish
Video 2 is to include an URL you want the viewer to be sent to when
the video is done playing.
When you are all done, you click one button to compress the
video, add the audio, add the icon for branding, select the appearance of the
player and generate the HTML file. All that's left for you to do is move some
files up to your web server and cut and paste some code. One tool, one click,
one great solution.
To learn more about Swish
Video 2, please click here.
Swish Video 2
