Video presentations of the goods on my e-commerce site?

[Frida]

Hello, everyone,

I am in trouble and I need your help.
I'm developing an e-commerce website and I want to have the option to add video presentations (using a web camera and a microphone) of the goods I am going to sell - to add close-ups, demonstrations of use, etc. I think such a feature will help my website gain an unique and more attractive look or at least I hope so.

The trick is that I am not very experienced in the matter and I don't know how to do it? I think there has got to be some tool (I hope, easy to configure and run), anything which can help me? If anyone has some thoughts in store, please, share.

Thanks in advance, everyone,
I will appreciate every piece of help,

Frida

[beauzero]

There are lots of options...
You can use a web cam...use cnet to see which gives you the clearest pictures and sound (usually microphone is built in). Personally I would let "someone else" host the video for you...like youtube. Use the standard Movie Maker in XP/Vista to edit it (not the best but free). It will also let you do voice overs using the same camera microphone if you don't like what you said the first time. youtube gives you an html link that you can put in your website.

make sure you end the video with your website url because you will probably get more people viewing it on youtube than on your personal website unless you have an excellent niche or have already developed the traffic.

sorry this is a little disjointed...in a hurry...hope it helps.

[lorax]

one of these may help [google.com]

[stajer]

We actually just started doing this and have been very pleased with the results. It leads to incremental business, plus it has given us enormous credibility in our niche.

I recommend spending the money to get a good camera and good video editing software. By the time you compress it for the web, the quality will diminish greatly.

Check out Adobe Premiere for the editing software.

I second the motion to use Youtube or Google Video to actually host the videos - you don't have to deal with the technical stuff and you may get additional traffic to your site. Be sure to include your logo and url at the beginning and end of each video.

[cmendla]

Stajer

I had considered using youtube in a way similar to what you mentioned.

I believe that the TOS of youtube preclude 'commercials'. However, I would thing that an informative, or even semi informative video would probably work well. As you mentioned, you want to add your info at the beginning and end. I also put a watermark in the lower left side of the whole vid showing the url. (Don't put it in the lower right since embedded clips will have the youtube watermark there.)

One of the major advantages to using youtube, in addition to the visibility you mentioned, is that you don't have to worry about bandwidth. If you host the video on your site and a lot of people link to it (some with no intention of buying), you could get killed with bandwidth charges. That won't happen on youtube.

cg

[rocknbil]

Agee on a good cam. Disagree on allowing a third party site to host video for a business site. This is for mySpace, Tribes, and other social networks, it's crazy to allow a third party site host your business presentations. Take the bite, get sufficient bandwidth or a dedicated server for your site.

There are less expensive video editors than Premiere. Although it's worth the investment, when it comes to web video it's really overkill. You can't even capture the video directly off of many cameras as Premiere only supports high end hardware. We bought a $600 HandyCam that takes excellent video at 720 X 480, we use it for television commercials. But Premiere won't capture from it. Additionally, you can't even import mpegs into Premiere, they need to be AVI, which requires huge disk space.

The cam was $600. Adobe Premiere is almost $900. Nuff said. Add to the fact Adobe totally botched my order and sent it to some lucky schmuck in California, and I wound up finishing the first project on the demo. But that's another beef.

I totally hate the point-and-drool interface but often use the CyberLink PowerDirector suite for quick web jobs. It has sufficient editing tools to provide titles, color correction, and transitions to put together a decent web video, and the codecs it uses for the web are sufficient for mpg and .wmv (you need an upgrade version for QuickTime.) Premiere's compression is much better for mpg's. Ulead has some cost-effective solutions. If you buy a cam, some form of editing software will come bundled with it.

If you have long presentations (+10 minutes,) you are wise to look at the option of placing the video in Flash so it streams much better. Another advantage of this is it gets around the whole .wmv/.mpg/.mov and Windows/Mac compatibility issue so *everyone* can see your video.

[trinorthlighting]

We turn all our videos into flash files. Most browsers support them. Not all computers have programs to run windows media, quick time, real player, etc.....

Flash seems the most user friendly.

[stajer]

Agreed, Premier Pro is overkill for most web video. But, Adobe premiere elements is $99.

[Frida]

Thanks a ton for your suggestions, everyone.

Your ideas got me wondering really - I think the YouTube alternative is very close to what I need - an easy camera and a microphone recording without any expensive soft required to install. But the point is that YouTube, I think, is more compatible with those "crazy" networks - MySpace, Tribes and the like and what I am looking for is a business solution which will, figuratively, enhance my corporative look and spirit.
Any other ideas?

Cheers,
Frida

[hannamyluv]

I started setting up videos for a company for one of their websites. They don't take all that much.

Handhelp video cam - $250
Tripod - $30
Digital Tape - $18
Video Encoding software (to create a YouTube like flash window) - $45
Microphone - $12

The software that came with the camera worked wonderfully for editing. We did a voice over using Audacity, which is free.

For what is displayed on their site, it is hosted by them but we also uploaded it to YouTube, just for the eyeballs. It is an informational video describing how to put together one of their products.

Honestly, it doesn't look bad at all. The company now wants to put more on the site. I would dare to say that it is on par with a web video they paid $3000 for a year or so ago.

[John_Blake]

I'll chime in your discussion to tell you about my video experience.
The story goes like this: one of my clients needed to have similar video functionality on his home appliances e-store. Quoting some research, he told me video presentations could raise his sales. Ok. I did some serious research around in the web until a lad in one forum gave me a hint - to try seetheface siteclip application. In a nutshell - this service allows you to record and publish your audio/video presentations on your website, using only a camera and a microphone. I have integrated their api into his cms and so far my client is content with what I've done using siteclip.

[edited by: John_Blake at 2:49 pm (utc) on May 3, 2007]