Chapter 8: Video and Audio Components

Overview

One of the most useful features of Flash is being able to import and play video and music files, especially since the Flash player is more common than any media player on the Internet. Fortunately, any beginner can import a media file into Flash, publish the movie, and view the media through Flash. Unfortunately, there is much more to controlling media types in Flash than simply importing files.

In this chapter, we'll work with the Audio Player and Video Player components. Although these are very complex-perhaps the most intricate in the entire book-they have very few parameters, which are very basic. However, because of the density of the components, we must take extra care when editing their graphics. I'll take the most time going over how to "skin" the components: replacing the player's default graphics with your own.

The components in this chapter will greatly simplify your projects whenever you need a media interface. They offer advanced functionality with very little work outside of graphic skinning. You will learn how to create the media files that will be controlled by the players and how to customize the various parts of the player. When you are done with this chapter, you won't be afraid to add a soundtrack or video presentation to your site.

• An audio player component

• A video player component

• ActionScript control of the players