Here’s a quick review of my first experience with Incansoft’s GFX Video Writer, which will convert your articles into video.
First off, it’s a pretty large download — about 20 megs. From looking at the installed package, there is one DLL file that’s 10.5 megabytes and another is almost 4 megabytes, so it looks like it’s all needed for the software to function properly (a DLL file is an easily changed module that the main program needs to run. Don’t worry too much about it if you don’t understand it; it’s not vital for the operation of the software).
The first time I started it up, it asked me for my registration key. As a reseller, I have a “master key”, which I entered. You’ll get your own registration key when you purchase the product. As is always the case with `Incansoft Software, there were no issues with activating the software.
I wrote an article especially for this test about BusinessActionSteps.com and why I created this particular domain to document my progress towards building a successful Internet-based business (so watch the video I made; it will be interesting!). Here’s what I did next to create my video using GFX Video Writer:
* Opened the software.
* Clicked on the “Background” tab and chose a background by clicking on it.
* Clicked on the “Advanced” tab. Added a default header and footer (using the built-in font controls, similar to what you’d find in a word processor). Chose some background music and set a time duration of 60 seconds for each slide.
* Clicked on the “Import” icon at the top of the screen to import my article.
One note here: I had to once again click on the “Slides” tab to view my slides. I was still on the “Advanced” tab and was wondering what happened to my slides… 
It did give me one blank slide at the beginning of my slide presentation. I didn’t want it and was able to delete it by simply clicking on the slide in the “Slides” tab and hitting the “Delete Slide” icon at the top of the “Slides” tab. Be warned; there is no “delete confirmation” — the software presumes you know what you are doing!
I then went through the slides and formatted each one the way I wanted them to appear, i.e. centered the title slide. Each paragraph appeared on its own slide. Note that you don’t have to import an article; you can actually type an article within the software itself.
One thing that would be nice to have is the ability to center the text from top to bottom, similar to the way you can center the text horizontally on the screen. But it was easy enough to “eyeball” it and center it from top to bottom using different Font Sizes.
You can add images — actually, you can do a LOT more with this software — but I decided to go ahead and produce my article. I just wanted to do a quick example for you to watch so you’d know what’s possible with the software.
You have several different formats you can choose for the output: wmv; avi; mp4; flv; swf; and mov. I chose flv so I could embed it in this blog post (hope it works!). It only took a few seconds to create the video (note that I’m using a relatively new computer running Vista 64 bit with a large amount of RAM; your performance could be a lot different), then it asked if I wanted to preview it. Probably a good idea…
I didn’t like a couple of things with my first effort. First, the text looked blurry in the video. I’ll try to fix that by choosing a higher quality output when I produce the video. Second, the slides went too fast. I can fix that by choosing a longer transition time on the “Advanced” tab (which I thought I had already done. Oh, well!).
The software also has an annoying (but tolerable) habit of asking if I want to create a file if it does not already exist. Well, duh…! It also does not remember the last place I saved a file; instead, I have to navigate each time to the folder where I want to save the project (you do want to save your stuff frequently). If I saved a project in a different folder once, chances are pretty good that I’d want to save it in the same place the next time — and not in the default location that is decided by the program. This seems to happen with all Incansoft software, not just GFX Video Writer. Thankfully I can point this out to the development team and perhaps they will change this behavior.
I also figured out (I think) that each slide has its own Transition and Time Duration properties. These are set on the “Advanced” tab. I presume that you have to click back and forth between the “Advanced” and “Slides” tab, select each slide, then go back to set the Properties. Impatient “me” decided to just click on the “Set this as default for all my slides” and move on.
So the second time I produced my presentation, I chose High Quality and had the duration for each slide set to 30 seconds. It took a lot longer to produce this second video — so much, in fact, that I thought that the software might have locked up. But it didn’t…
The slides still seemed blurry to me; it could be the flv output method I chose. After I looked at it some more, it could also be my viewer (Irfan View) because the quality seemed to be quite good at the start of the show but deteriorated as it went on. I’d love to show you the final video; however, WordPress keeps telling me that the file does not meet security guidelines.
Geesh…
Instead, you can download it at this link:
http://www.BusinessActionSteps.com/test_article2_091101.flv.
At least my FTP client still likes me…
My verdict? I need to play around some with the combination of backgrounds, fonts, font sizes, etc. to ensure that I get the best quality videos from my articles, but for the price — especially when you consider what some other services charge for something similar — it is well worth it. I’ll be posting some articles to video sites in hopes of creating some traffic.
Again, you can learn more about Incansoft’s GFX Video Writer — and purchase it using my exclusive 60 day refund policy — by clicking HERE.
