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The OS you use on your desktops cannot be of any consideration. The
Webmaster/Web team at your firm should have the tools needed to take a video
and package it for the company Web site. They may need to edit it for Web
visitors, but the resulting files have to be in a format common to at least
the most commonly used Web browsers and operating systems.
Good luck!
Donald H. White
James River Technical Communications
dwhite -at- jrtcllc -dot- com
www.jrtcllc.com
|-----Original Message-----
|From: Ken Poshedly [mailto:poshedly -at- bellsouth -dot- net]
|Sent: Thursday, January 21, 2010 12:05 PM
|To: Techwr-l
|Subject: website tech pubs, etc.
|
|
|Fellow tekkies,
|
|I'd like to introduce the presence of my company's technical
|manuals on our website and need some advice.
|
|First, some background. I'm one of two tech writers for Sany
|America, makes heavy equipment similar to that of Caterpillar,
|Komatsu, etc. It's just getting started in the U.S. with a
|sales and engineering office in Peachtree City, a southwest
|suburb of Atlanta; a full-blown assembly plant is currently
|under construction a few miles down the road from my office.
|Even though we are a wholly-owned subsidiary of Sany Heavy
|Equipment in China, the plan is to truly "Americanize" Sany
|America with a great and useful website that includes all the
|bells and whistles needed to get across to our current and
|prospective customers that we want to be a truly American
|business venture.
|
|While I'm not directly involved with the website -- except for
|occasionally spotting errors and such and reporting them to
|the powers-that-be -- I want to offer to our customers various
|forms of technical publication assistance including:
|
|1. Downloadable pdf files of our tech pubs
|2. The ability order printed&bound tech pubs
|3. Videos of specific technical procedures
|4. A method of suggesting improvements, reporting errors, etc.
|(i.e, customer feedback)
|
|Our audience consists of equipment owners and operators who
|use our hardcopy materials in the field (noisy, rough and very
|busy construction sites); as such, our manuals are simply
|three-hole drilled, perfect-bound books with black text and
|line art graphics on white paper. At this time we don't see a
|need to do online (html) versions of our manuals because it is
|simply not practical for an operator to position a laptop in
|the cab (or elsewhere on the machine), then view and run
|through procedures. Videos might work to augment what's in a
|manual and be viewed in an office setting.
|
|My question is really what process and software is / are
|required to go from digital video camera to online video? What
|digital editing software is required? (We currently use
|Windows Vista.) Do I simply upload a wav (or whatever) file
|directly to our website or is Flare or somesuch intermediate
|program required?
|
|Obviously, I'm totally ignorant in this area, so any pointers,
|ideas, or suggestions about other websites or whatever is appreciated.
|
|-- Kenpo in Atlanta
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