This week at Tintisha, we have been producing an interactive Flash-based software demonstration for the Leadership Toolkits that we produce for LSIS. The software demonstration needed to showcase all the new features in the current versions of toolkits. We then duplicated the demos onto USB sticks using our brand spanking USB duplicator.

The main features of the software demo are:

• Interactive Flash-based interface
• Video captures of the toolkits in-use
• Play, pause and seek video controls
• Professional voiceover (provided by Andy Turvey)
• Subtitles for all videos
• Browser based and cross platform
• Works both online and offline.

Why do we use Flash for our software demonstrations?

By using Flash for our software demos, we elliminate the need for the end-user to have the neccessary video playback plugins in their browser (which can vary between operating systems and platforms). With Flash, all the end-user needs for playback is the Flash plugin, which is already installed on 98% of computers worldwide. Our videos are compressed and converted to .FLV files which also use the Flash plugin for playback... so no more messing around with Quicktime or Realplayer! Flash also lets us customise the video playback controls, and the buffer for streaming, meaning we can attempt to make the videos playback smoothly on most broadband internet connections.