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Participant
May 29, 2009
Question

Personalized Videos

  • May 29, 2009
  • 1 reply
  • 346 views

I work for Southern Illinois University and have been given the job to create a video welcoming all the incoming students.  My boss wants me to have instances in the video be personalized to the student its being sent to.  For example, an incoming student would get an email with a url.  He clicks the url and goes to a website that has a few fill-in spaces asking for their name, a photo, and whatever else.  After the info is submitted a video begins playing.  Throughout the video there will be fliers, banners, bus sides, billboards, marquees, etc throughout the scenery with that specific student's info (all content drawn from the filled in info on the previous page).  A bit of a "Greetings" thing.

I assume to do this I would have to link the video to a database, at least the bits that are personalized.  What directions should I look into and things to remember while shooting the footage, getting the student info to be placed via a database (I dont want to have to edit each individual students video).  I want to make one video but have it be personalized to whoever watches it.

Here is an example of what I am trying to do.

http://www.cnnbcvideo.com/?nid=bO06BP9s0cm1AuhgOyDs7DIwOTc5ODM-&referred_by=8696 445-hI94oYx

use the button to the right to customize it again.  Check out the process.  This is what I am trying to re-create.

this is another example:

http://www.tsgnet.com/pres.php?id=46832&altf=Ubnnz&altl=Dbwbssfuub&lap=2

p.s.  To be clear, the editing isnt gonna change, just the name of the student and thier photo if i can be so lucky.  So its just text that is changing.  I think both videos do this.

Thanks guys,

Kyle Ragaller

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    1 reply

    Inspiring
    May 29, 2009

    Kyle,

    These systems are using the Flash Player to serve up the videos. I believe they are grabbing the personalized content (i.e., my name) and placing it in Flash elements (text boxes) that overlay the actual video, which is not edited in any way.

    Depending on how you build it, Flash can grab the personalized data in a variety of ways (call a web service, bridge to JavaScript, call a CFM template that pulls data from a DB, etc.). You might have better luck getting more detailed suggestions on the Flash/Flex forums, as this functionality is really handled in Flash more than CF.

    HTH!

    Craig