This actually came about from a discussion about Armand Morin/Tracy Childer’s Screencam Generator Suite Vs. Camtasia. They are both excellent pieces of software but the one biggest plus of Camtasia is the ability to create multiple formats. Why is that important?

The majority of the screencasts and videos you see and will continue to see online is flash. This is because it’s able to be viewed accross a wide variety of computer operating systems and it’s freely available.

However, this is just my gut feeling. If you’ve seen those digital media players like Archos, Creative Zens and the super cool smartphone or Pocket PC’s, you will notice a common thread. WMV. This is going to be one of the leading if not the leading formats in the future for video.

Why would you want to watch a screen tutorial on a tiny portable digital media player screen? I guess that is somewhat a personal preference BUT drawing from my observations of podcasting and the portable MP3 Player, I’d say that would be a good indicator. I’ve often found myself wishing I could watch my copy of Traffic Secrets CDrom tutorials away from my computer. Oh it would be absolute bliss to be able to learn literrally from my kitchen , laying on my bed or on the road.

So if you’re screencasting to market your products, it really wouldn’t hurt to have an option to create WMV videos.