Example of an embedded video from Asperpix

How to get a $139 tool for free!

This is Asperpix - a new kid on the block that has some nice features if you want to put videos on your website. It's free to sign up although they offer a "pro" version - but it's so expensive they don't post the price; they want to be able to call you and give you a hard sell. Most of us, though, can get by fine with the free version.

It lets you post videos (several of them actually) from YouTube or you can host them on your own computer and use it as a server - but I don't recommend doing this. People all over the Internet could be slowing down your computer if they watch them from your own in-house server.

It has a nice feature call a "hotspot" that lets you use various methods of highlighting a particular part of the video - it actually follows that particular item around ... great to highlight a product or e-book shot! Click the STYLE button on the video above to see what I mean. It won't work though if the author hasn't previously highlighted something - and there's nothing appropriate in this Tim McGraw/Taylor Swift music video to highlight.

To go to Asperpix.com, just click the little blue logo in the top right corner.

After I signed in and responded to the e-mail confirmation I got the second video on this page in less than 5 minutes. It is a music video I created for a client and put on YouTube just this morning (as I write this). When you log on there's a search box at the top of the web page.

• Enter keywords in the search box on any page and click 'Search'. See Fig. 1.

• Browse the search results to find the video or note/scene you are looking for. Videos are identified by a video icon to the right of the thumbnail image, while notes are identified by a yellow note icon. See Fig. 2.

• Open the video or navigate to the note by clicking on the thumbnail image.

Note: You can see a larger view of the video or note thumbnail image by clicking the video or note icon to the right of the thumbnail. See Fig. 3.

I had already gone to YouTube and copied the URL of the Soul Fire video above (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ee4BmAWB9ng) and pasted it in. It didn't find it that way, but the next page that popped up had a "Web" option. I clicked that, pasted this URL again and my video immediately popped up inside an Asperpix frame.

I just clicked the video thumbnail - and up it pops inside an Asperpix player. It's a lot easier and quicker to first upload your vide to YouTube, then use their URL. It also helps get you additional viewers by the mere fact of being on YouTube!

Click on the EMBED button, choose video, then paste the HTML code into your web page. The code will look like this (this is the actual code for the third video, Hope Remains).

<object classid="clsid:D27CDB6E-AE6D-11cf-96B8-444553540000" id="asterpixConsole" width="425" height="380" codebase="http://fpdownload.macromedia.com/get/flashplayer/current/swflash.cab"> <param name="base" value="http://web.asterpix.com/player/" /><param name="movie" value="http://www.asterpix.com/loadConsole/" /><param name="quality" value="autohigh" /><param name="bgcolor" value="#ffffff" /><param name="allowScriptAccess" value="always" /><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true" /><param name="flashvars" value="selId=&videoInstId=10464081"/><param name="wmode" value="transparent"/><embed name="asterpixConsole" base="http://web.asterpix.com/player/" src="http://www.asterpix.com/loadConsole/" width="425" height="380" align="middle" quality="autohigh" bgcolor="#ffffff" allowScriptAccess="always" allowFullScreen="true" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" pluginspage="http://www.adobe.com/go/getflashplayer" flashvars="selId=&videoInstId=10464081" wmode="transparent"></embed></object>

Now I use Firefox and when I switch to the PREVIEW mode, Internet Explorer tries to load but fails. That's OK, just close it out, unless you're already using IE. Microsoft forces you to add www.asperpix.com to your Flash security profile, then restart Windows IE...a pain in the butt, but that's Microsoft for you. I found this out by previewing the page in IE before uploading it to the website.

When I open the page in MS FrontPage (even in the NORMAL mode), IE tries to load again - and will not. I think it may have to do with an Adobe Flash Player update problem. It froze both IE and Firefox as well as FrontPage. This is the biggest negative I see. It plays fine when I play it from the original page ... perhaps I need to upload this page to a live server first before I can really test it!

WARNING: If you have this problem, it will be multiplied several times for each video player you have on the page.

Just save your file and your ready to FTP it to your web host or add another video.

The fourth example above is from Asperpix' blog and shows an example of a player with multiple videos AND a small box in the top right corner that is actually a link to someone's website. This is an example of how this tool can be used for Internet business. Show them a video and have a clickable link right to your product page. (No, I didn't click on it!)

The last example shows how this tool is used in education. The video is the famous 1984 Apple commercial modeled after George Orwell's "1984" and the "hot spot" buttons in it open up a small window that the teacher uses to point out how the commercial borrowed ideas from classical films and literature. (Yes, I did click on these!) This could be handy in creating online training videos.

Now I heard about this from some internet marketer who was trying to sell me a $139 package to do basically the same thing. He threw in some training programs and a free version of CamStudio, but I prefer to do things cheaper. I already had the free CamStudio, so I've just saved us both $139!

Go take the Asperpix tour to see their own video on how to use Asperpix. There are only two and they're each only two minutes long.