streaming flash videos for the web

bigteethproductions

bigteethproductions

Well-known member
Hey all,

Apologize if this is already up but my searches did not come up with anything.

I am looking for software to take my videos created in FCP and make them Flash videos for the web, with a player.

I'm on a mac, so some of the cheap alternatives to the big ones won't work, and I have zero knowledge of Flash.

It seems that both Sorenson Squeeze and On2 Flix are popular for this, but also not real cheap, though if they do the job I guess its worth it.

Can anyone recommend a software that will compress a video into a flash video and easily allow me to add a player, preferably with some controls for the viewer?

thanks.
 
i'm in the same boat as you. i'd like to know how to get that clear flash video that starts to play almost immediately. using vegas video 6, premiere and after effects. anyone help us out?
 
hey skippy,

I bit the bullet and went with on2 FlixPro software... still testing it out. I'll keep you posted on my progress, but I still welcome any experienced person to offer some insight into this.
 
Hi bigteeth,

I think your question is *which* embedded flash player (company name/product), something I've been chewing on myself. A few that have caught my eye include Wimpy (http://www.wimpyplayer.com/) and Dynamic Media Player (http://www.dynamicmediaplayer.com/), or my Sorensen Squeeze.

Perhaps others can share their experience on features and functionality (from both the end-user and webmaster), browser compatability, end-user graphical interface, web requirements (code, complexity, scripts), ability to work with leading blog programs (wordpress, movabletype), vendor's customer support, cost, etc.

I see bits and pieces of the puzzle yet it would be nice to hear others experiences before making the plunge.

Many thanks, Michael
 
The easiest way to create Flash movies from QuickTime exports from FCP is to use ffmpegX. In FCP I export to a DVCPRO HD or DV master, then use ffmpegX to make compressed versions for Video iPod (QuickTime) and web page display (Flash Video).

There are two embedded Flash players that I currently recommend for integrating into web pages: (1) Flash Video Player and (2) Flow Player. Both allow you to embed Flash (FLV) movie into a web page. I'm currently using Flash Video Player and evaluating FlowPlayer because it has an optional thumbnail feature that's very cool.
 
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Hi David,

Thank you for the helpful tips. Yes, I also had my eye on Jeroen Wijering's popular Flash Video Player (100 Euros), but haven't heard of Flow Player or its thumbnail feature. My recollection is Jeroen's player also supports popular blog software, a very important feature for some of us.

Many thanks, Michael
 
Thanks for the comment.

moonlitnite said:
[...] also had my eye on Jeroen Wijering's popular Flash Video Player (100 Euros) [...]
Click to expand...
Just to clarify the details as far as I know, Flash Video Player is licensed under a Creative Commons License, so it is free to use for non-commercial use.

For commercial use, he sells licenses for 15 euros. The commercial license allows you to use it on a commercial (corporate or paid-for) web site, which is prohibited by the Creative Commons License. If you license it, he also drops the obligation to include credit and to share-alike any modifications you make to the scripts. A very reasonable license fee for such a nice player.
 
FYI - while Camtasia generates flash code, it does not include the actual flash player code that sits on the server. Here's the quote from the Camtasia site:

http://www.techsmith.com/learn/camtasia/current/general/1501.asp
Flash movies on the Web are viewable using the Flash Player plug-in. The Flash Player is a free download from the Macromedia Flash Web site, making Flash available to all Web users. Both Internet Explorer and Netscape Navigator utilize a specific plug-in made for that particular browser, allowing Flash animations to look the same on any platform. In some newer browsers, Flash Player is built-in and a separate download is not needed. On older versions of some browsers, viewers must download the Flash Player first in order to properly view the Flash content.

So it seems like the issues I raised above (#6 above) still seem to be relevant unless I'm missing something...

Regards, Michael
 
i want the player to play right away as the page loads
i want the image quality to be as good as possible
i want the size to be as large as possible

people have different computers with different graphic capabilities
people have different connection speeds to the web

so you have to adjust to a general compromise where you either
make a small enough file that most can play
or make different versions so people choose the one they think is right for them
or make a larger version and loose some who don't have the patience or the tech

has anybody here experimented with a format that scales itself
when you make a jpg progressive it opens with a low resolution first and then follows with a higher resolution image
is there a format available that does this in a movie, if the computer is slow, it shows the same movie at a lower resolution so the cpu and graphics card can keep up
and in the same way, if the connection wouldn't be fast enough, it streams a more compressed stream to the computer and that becomes the limiting factor

wouldn't it be great if you could make a movie file that was one large size only
then with great compression tools this was put into a multilayered file in one move
you would put this multilayered file on your webpage
then there was a code that kind of tested the computer and capabilites of the viewers connection and computer
and the max playable size framerate and quality within the possible datarate would be selected by the flash code and be sent to view

i know this is a highly complex set of code, but it should be possible to construct such a player within the flash environment, I just don't have the depth of the knowledge of coding myself, but perhaps somebody sat down and did one somewhere
 
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