Videos has become very popular on the internet both in webpages and as a standalone media. Everyone’s doing it. It’s time for you to include some video in your digital books, and a webbook makes that easy to do. Yes, with HTML 5 there is now a markup for video, which removes the complexity.
Perhaps the easiest approach to video is to simply make a video clip that doubles both as a YouTube video and a video that you can use in your webbook. That way, you can use all your videos to promote your book, and all your videos will be hosted free at YouTube. YouTube is a high-powered streaming server. What a deal!
Video files are streaming files which take up a lot of bandwidth and in prior times required a powerful, specialized, and expensive web streaming server for delivery. Today many web host services offer to handle streaming media as part of their normal web server services at no extra cost. Inexpensive popular web host services that handle streaming media include the following:
Green Geeks (https://www.greengeeks.com)
JustHost (https://www.justhost.com)
These are just two among many. It’s a very competitive industry. Check out the various services and the monthly fees they charge for hosting your website and handling your streaming media. Get some assurance, however, that they do handle streaming media, particularly video.
When you start getting a lot of customers, however, you will want to upgrade your streaming capability to handle heavier traffic. Look for a specialty streaming service designed specifically to handle streaming media such as:
Blubrry (https://www.blubrry.com)
Lybsyn (https://www.libsyn.com)
PodBean (https://podbean.com)
For your webpage you simply use the HTML5 video markup together with the URL of the video file.
YouTube Remember that using YouTube to host your video is a great way to easily provide great video at no extra cost.
Once you have your hosting situation figured out, you’re free to do almost anything you want to do with video. You can make your own videos, you can get free videos on the web, or you can get royalty-free videos that you purchase.
Videos are not limited, however, to TV-like presentations. You can do things on your computer screen and capture by video what you are doing. Teaching how to use a certain software program is an obvious application of this idea. But there might be many more applications you can dream up once you get your creative juices flowing.
In Publishing by Voice, I cite the example of Ken Burns’ 11-hour Civil War video seen on Public Television. There is very little live human visual action in that video. It is mostly still photographs and voice narration. You can easily do a similar documentary in the same format using screen captures. (When I say easily, I mean without technical difficulties; the creative efforts of a project like the Civil War are extraordinary.) The technology has been reduced to a level where nonprogrammers can productively use the software necessary for such an informational production. Keep in mind also that just as your webbook being read in a web browser will look like an ebook in an ebook reader, your video can appear almost the same in a web browser as if it were played on the Netflix app.
In yesteryear, the smorgasbord of potential videos that you might incorporate into a webpage was substantial. The only problem was that you had to be a programmer or a very knowledgeable nonprogrammer to embed video into a webpage. What has changed with HTML5 is that it’s now quite simple to do, and the huge smorgasbord of potential videos is still available and, in fact, has grown much larger.
In addition, people are now so adept at taking videos with their smart phones that it almost goes without saying that you can make your own videos. If you use smart phones carefully, you can take purposeful videos. And you can also find good video capability in point-and-shoot, prosumer, and professional digital still cameras.
Indeed, many professional videographers use DSLRs (digital single lens reflex still cameras with interchangeable lenses) with video capability to shoot professional video. The lenses are great and comparatively inexpensive; the digital video capability is substantial, inexpensive, and well-integrated; and DSLRs are typically less expensive than comparable video cameras with interchangeable lenses. If you have a DSLR that’s not very old, you’re already on your way to becoming an accomplished amateur videographer.
As we all know, however, the videos that professional videographers make look easy to do. They are in reality much more difficult to make than they look. There is a learning curve to becoming competent with a video camera. But there are plenty of books and digital training courses on video skills that make learning easy. With some learning, some practice, and minimal equipment you can become competent in making video clips that will enhance your webbook.
Alas, don’t forget editing. You will need to acquire video editing software and learn how to use it. You won’t have to learn editing techniques that make viewers’ eyes pop out, but you will need to learn the basics.
Once you have a video to embed, you can do it easily with HTML5. The markup is:
<video> </video>
The markup has 11 attributes that enable you to manipulate the embedded video according to your requirements.
Again, as I mentioned in the chapter on audio, don’t feel you have to saturate your webbook with video at the get-go. Try a little bit. As you develop your confidence with success, you can add more later. Remember that a webbook can be an everyday work in progress.
Summary
Video on the web has become normal for websites. Next it will become normal to integrate video into digital books. Such integration is quite simple for webbooks. What’s needed is creative experimentation on weaving this medium into text.
