Pros and cons
This week's assignment was pretty cool except for the blip tv not accepting flash part. I initially set my preferences to web so that producing anything but flash or quicktime produced a horrible video. My quicktime movie was optimized for an ipod so the image is kinda lame too.
This is one of the cons of screencasts or video content. It requires a bit of knowledge of video creation as well as codecs and formats accepted that many librarians might not have ready knowledge of. Although the learning curve is not too steep, I can imagine that it could scare some off and its obvious that I did not do a perfect job on my creation.
Other cons might be keeping the information short enought to retain interest. I have been told that to shoot over 3 minutes is a dealbreaker for these things and I can well imagine it. I would be hardpressed to sit through something like that myself. In addition the content might require decent bandwidth to access which might be an issue for those outside of the academic setting.
Of the pros there are many as well. Its comforting to have a nice voice guide one through a problem. The camtasia video hints were a great example of how to do this right. In addition once the video is uploaded it is possible to skim through the information using the controls at the bootom of the page.
The interaction available is also a good idea for distance students who might never have the opportunity for a librarian to show them the basics of a database.
