Flash Video - for movies on websites

roxics

roxics

Veteran
So what's the general verdict on flash video for web delivery?
I've been slowly converting over the films available on my website from quicktime and WMV to Flash. Basically I decided to go this route to try and maximize compatibility. I kept hearing people tell me stuff like "We don't have quicktime installed on my computer at work and I'm not allowed to install stuff" or "Windows media is screwed up and not working right for me". So I figured most people have flash so I'll try that.

So far, so good. I've had people tell me it loads really fast and plays great. The player I use doesn't load the video in the background until it's clicked on. So it's not a bandwidth hog either. People on dialup don't have to worry about visiting a page of mine that has a flash video embedded.

The only problem I've noticed is when compressing video that was shot on film, like super 8 film with a lot of grain. The flash encoding see's the grain and makes everything relaly pixelized. Everything shot digital seems to work great though.

So why aren't more people using flash videos on their websites? Is it just too new still?
 
I think that not many people have a license for the software, so there is no "free encoder." as of yet. Also, they have to be embedded in webpages, and are not just played as a stand-alone file (unless you do some serious tweaking, or download a FLV player)

WMV is free, and thats wh you see alot of it. Google video is free, and encodes FLV's but only at a set resolution and bitrate, you see alot of those as well.


We use FLV video on my business website. About film grain not compressing well... take a look at "Muncie Dragway" under the video section. There was a lot of grain in that and it compressed pretty good. It wasn't shot on film, but was added in post.

Http://www.tavproductions.com
 
I use the Riva FLV encoder which is free.
Your right thought, they do have to be embedded into your webpages, but I don't see that as a real shortcoming. If anythign it's a plus. People are lazy even when browsing the web. If all they have to do is hit play they will. But if they have to download first they may not.
 
roxics said:
I use the Riva FLV encoder which is free.
Click to expand...

Thats awesome! A free FLV encoder!

Are there any major quality differences from this and the one Adobe one in the Software packages?

Does Riva support 2-pass encoding?
 
I've neer used the adobe one so I don't know. I don't know how to work with flash at all. I just know how to encode video with Riva and put it on my website with a basic flash player.

But to answer your question, no it doesn't seem Riva allows 2-pass encoding. But it does allow you to pick your frame size, bitrate and frame rate. As well as deinterlace and pad/crop your frame. It also allows you to pick whether you want to include audio and what it's quality and bitrate will be. So for a basic encoder that is free it does enough.

http://rivavx.de/?encoder
 
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roxics, Thank you.

roxics, Thank you.

I can't wait to get home and try out free flash. I have been wanting to go flash. Your post really helps. Thanks again.
 
So Roxics do you just output the video as quicktime and run it through that FLV encoder, and then upload it?

Sorry, I'm pretty new to this world. I just want to keep the best quality for the footage when I upload them. Thanks.
 
Well yeah, you could output to quicktime and then convert to flash. Or if you're on a PC you could output to AVI and then to flash. The only conversion I've heard RIVA doesn't do well is WMV to flash.

I've just been converting video's I've already had, some have been quicktime, some AVI's.

As far as a free player here is the one I use. Seems to work really well.
http://www.jeroenwijering.com/?item=Flash_Video_Player
 
Im also in the process of coverting everything to flash video.

Porsche has used flash video on their sites for almost a year now.
 
roxics said:
I use the Riva FLV encoder which is free.
Your right thought, they do have to be embedded into your webpages, but I don't see that as a real shortcoming. If anythign it's a plus. People are lazy even when browsing the web. If all they have to do is hit play they will. But if they have to download first they may not.
Click to expand...


Exactly man, I use the same player on my website. Works really well, I dont know many sites anyway that make you download to view anyway, its much easer for the public to watch stuff with one click. Plus flash starts playing WAY quicker than other formats I tried.
 
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