Movie Size?

[khettinger]

I'm new to creating video demos in general and am unsure what size to make my movies.

My output will be Flash-based. I don't know what platforms my users will be using, so I'm aiming for a "standard" size that will readily appear for most monitors/laptops without requiring the user to do any initial scrolling to see buttons I might place in the lower right part of the screen.

I've heard that 1024x768 works as a rule of thumb, but would love to get additional feedback.

Thanks,
Kyle

[RamonS]

I think you already figured out what you need to watch out for, but here is my recommendation:
I'd go with what the minimum resolution is that the software you cover in the videos is designed for. If that is 1024x768 then use that as maximum size for your videos. If you pick as maximum for videos the minimum required by the software then you should be in the green. But keep in mind that the videos are most likely not viewed full screen, but in some sort of player or browser, which uses up some space. In that sense make the videos as large as necessary and as small as possible. Focus on the area that you want to cover and ignore anything else that might appear on screen. For that you may need to run the application to cover in a resized window rather than full screen. Smaller videos also make for smaller files, which will require less performance on the client system. Not everyone has a beefy system that is exclusively dedicated to watching the video. I, for example, tend to watch such videos if I have to wait for a process to finish.