[Grinler]

Let me start that I am completely new to Flash. I have read through the forums but was not able to find my answer. I would like to create flash videos for the editorial content, tutorials, and blog entries of my site.

Predominatly these videos will be coming directly from PC screen captures created from VMware. Vmware saves these videos as AVI files. I will also be creating videos with camcorders which can then be imported as AVI and exported into WMV etc.

What I would love would be to be able to create videos with a player like they have on CNet. An example is:

http://reviews.cnet.com/Firefox_2_RC...?tag=cnetfd.mt

I am not adverse to learning, just need some guidance as to the direction I need to take.

So with that information about what I want, here are my questions:

1. When creating flash videos, do I want to create FLV files or SWF files?

2. What software do I need in order to create these videos? Can this software be used to edit these videos after so I can zoom into areas of the screen etc?

3. What software do I need in order to convert the AVI or WMV files into FLV/SWF files?

4. Do I need to first create my customized player in Flash and then open my individual FLV/SWF videos in it? Or are the players part of the video itself?

5. Can these videos be streamed instead of fully downloaded before playing?

I have been playing around with SwishVideo but not sure if thats what I need.

Any and all help is appreciated. I apologize if these are too newbish to be asked here.