In the last week, I had to replace my FTP client and FLV encoder software, so while I worked on a video clip, I thought of writing this simple tutorial to get you started with video publishing in case you don’t know how.

I won’t write about the artistic aspects of filming and editing. That’s…not my job, and neither should it be yours. In fact, this sort of thing should be left with “old hands”, but if you can’t find an expert in time, this little tutorial will give you some understanding in minutes. By the way, marketing is your PRIMARY job, just remember that. First, let me give you 2 links to comparison reviews of Creative Vado and the Flip video camera.

“Creative Vado vs. Flip” review #1
“Creative Vado vs. Flip” review #2

The Flip video camera is an American product while Creative Vado can be bought off the shelf here in the Asian markets. Otherwise, look out for them on eBay, or wait for better versions and wider distribution to come. Such fuss-free camcorders are best for shooting quick YouTube-quality videos you can upload on the Web. If you want to film a presentation you can purchase a tripod stand as an accessory to keep it ‘still’. Vado doesn’t seem to have any accessories yet, but a stand should be available sooner or later. After all, it’s commonsense to have it.

Suppose the scenario is you have a job to convert an AVI or MPEG video into Flash format and get it playable on a web page. How to do it? Get a free MPEG/MPG to Flash converter. These softwares are a dime a dozen now and they are free too, but the replacement I found is Pazera Free Video to Flash Converter 1.0 by Jacek Pazera. It requires no installation, runs straight from file and converts at a steady speed without any halfway pauses. Jacek has also produced other types of converter software so check them out. You can also find his Free FLV to AVI Converter 1.1.

Use VLC Media Player to play your Flash video on your desktop interface. VLC also includes popular DVD codecs so you can play DVDs with it. I used to naively think that I can play DVDs straight away before realizing the DVD drive still needs a codec installed to play the format. What crap…like you buy a car and you still need to buy the key.

Once you’re happy with the Flash video, you’re ready to FTP it to your web server. The only FTP client I trust now is FileZilla. Again, FTP clients are a dime a dozen, some are free and most have a “resume” feature to cope with large files in case the Internet connection drops.

What I experience with my previous FTP software is you may resume an upload but the file is already corrupted the moment the connection breaks. It took me a day to figure this out and I easily wasted productivity on that. You may get connection cut-offs anyway because your server can register ‘inactivity’ (even as the upload continues) and went into “passive mode”. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, be thankful you haven’t encounter such a problem yet. FileZilla registered server inactivity several times and still managed to upload my 19 MB Flash video in perfect order.

Go back to “Creative Vado vs. Flip” review #1 and notice the 3 video clips in the blog post. Yup, they have unmistakable Flash video playback control. Go to Free Video Coding to get your HTML code and embed it in your web page. Use the Anarchy Media Player plugin to embed the video into your blog.

That’s about it! The next step is an enhancement so it’s optional.

If you still don’t know much about AdWords, the best way to learn is to watch the videos at the AdWords Learning Center. For those who know enough of it, I like you to watch the videos again and notice the design of its multi-track interface.

How would you like to organize your own list of FLV videos and enable visitors to play them from one window just like it is done at AdWords Learning Center?

Tracy Childers, the creator of FLV Producer, has just the right software for you to do that and it’s called Media Menu Producer. One top marketer even used it to string a series of short videos together to make one long video sales letter.

The multi-track list doesn’t just appear on the left side. You can have it on the right and below the video window too.

Next, you can move on to video marketing…