Working with the Flash 8 Video Encoder

Flash Professional 8 ships with an exciting new stand-alone application called the Flash 8 Video Encoder. On Windows, you can find this application at Start Menu ð Programs ð Macromedia ð Macromedia Flash 8 Video Encoder. On Macintosh, on your start-up disk, look for the Flash 8 Video Encoder application in the Applications: Macromedia Flash 8 Video Encoder folder.

When you run the Flash 8 Video Encoder application, you see the interface shown in Figure 17-35.

Figure 17-35: The Flash Video 8 Encoder application

The Flash Video 8 Encoder works as a batch processor for the same encoding engine that is used in the Video Import wizard of Flash Pro 8. You can specify all of the same settings in the Flash 8 Video Encoder application. Some benefits to using the Flash 8 Video Encoder application include

• Adding multiple source video files: You can drag and drop (or browse to) one or more video source files on your computer or network into the application's queue.

• Duplicating settings: Once you've specified the settings on one source clip, you can click the Duplicate button to add another entry in the queue with the same clip and its settings. You can then adjust the new duplicate's settings to a different data rate.

  Caution 

  You can not save settings from one clip and apply them to a different source clip.

• Saving the queue: You can save the list of video clips in the queue to resume work in another session. However, you can't save the queue list as an external project file.

Cross-Reference 

For a review of the settings you can apply to clips, read our coverage of the Video Import wizard for Flash Pro 8. The same encoding settings are available in the Flash 8 Video Encoder.

The Flash 8 Video Encoder does have some drawbacks that you should keep in mind before starting the encoding process:

• Lack of de-interlacing capability: If you have a source clip that is captured from an interlaced video source, such as NTSC footage from a miniDV or DVCAM camcorder, then you need to de-interlace the footage in another video-editing application prior to importing the clip into the Flash 8 Video Encoder tool.

• No 2-pass encoding specification: Unlike Sorenson Squeeze and other Flash Video encoding tools, you can not specify a 2-pass encoding process for video clips. By adding a second pass to the encoding process, the encoder can better analyze the footage for compression and optimization.

• No contrast or filter control: Some Flash Video encoding tools offer you the capability to adjust the color balance, contrast, and other image tonality adjustments. The Flash 8 Video Encoder does not offer these adjustment controls.