Multimedia eBooks or video tutorials?

[3deeguy]

Videos should not be dismissed as having less value than the other methods. The word 'car' evokes a different image for every reader. The author of a PDF may have to make assumptions about his audience that some people will miss.

We all have different abiltities and insights. I don't have a preference for one method or the other.

[GCharb]

Thanks for the replies, I am working on a one page multimedia tutorial that I will show this week. It uses text, images, sounds, video and a few more things, impressive what you can do with a PDF, like having a version for viewing, one for printing.

It can use JavaScript as well, extensively, so I need to refresh my JavaScript a bit, this should be interesting to say the least!

[barryem]

I also suspect laziness, young peoples just do not want to read unless it's a Harry Potter book, even then, most just wait for the movie to come out.

I'm a lazy 70 year old, although I do love to read.

I don't really have to learn AS. It's something I enjoy playing with. I also enjoy learning so I do spend time learning things, but only when I enjoy it.

Faced with a PDF with embedded videos, I nearly always read to the first video, watch it, watch the rest of the videos and ignore the rest of the text. That's not a bad thing since I do sometimes go back and read selectively when I don't quite get something or if I'm stuck on how to do something.

But with video tutorials, if they're interesting, and yours have been so far, I keep on going. If they go too fast I rewind. I generally watch things twice, sometimes more. And then later I'll come back to review things I might want to understand better.

So my preference is for videos. If they're embedded in PDF files that's okay as long as there's some continuity when it's needed and the text isn't a requirement to benefit from the videos. Actually, having the text there to refer to when needed would be a nice thing.

What comes to mind when I think of this PDF ebook with videos is the manual and the tutorial series that came with Daz's Hexagon. Those are PDF's with embedded videos. Actually the videos are pretty sparse so the text is important but I was able to get a bit comfortable with Hexagon using them. Something with richer videos would be nice.

Barry