Alternative Flash-Content Players

Macromedia has teamed up with RealSystems and Apple to enable Flash content in the RealOne Player and the QuickTime Player, respectively. By enabling Flash content in other players, Macromedia is promoting the acceptance of Flash as the de facto vector standard for Web graphics. Moreover, with so many alternatives for Flash playback, it is more likely that your Web visitors can see your Flash content.

RealOne Player with Flash Playback

With a little effort, you can repackage your Flash movies as RealFlash presentations over the Web. Web visitors can use the RealPlayer G2, RealPlayer 8, or the new RealOne Player to play Flash, RealAudio, or RealVideo (among a long list of RealMedia types) content. RealMedia movies stream from a RealServer (special server software running concurrently with Web server software) into the RealPlayer plug-in (Netscape) or ActiveX control (Internet Explorer).

Note 

Since Flash MX, you can no longer publish Flash movies tuned for RealPlayer. You can find more information about Flash and RealPlayer at service.real.com/help/library/guides/realone/ProductionGuide/HTML/realpgd.htm?page=htmfiles/flash.htm.

QuickTime Player

Apple introduced playback support for Flash movies with QuickTime 4. Better yet, Macromedia has included QuickTime Flash export options with Flash 4, 5, MX, MX 2004, and 8. A QuickTime Flash movie file (.mov) is essentially a Flash movie file (.swf) packaged as a QuickTime media type.

Web Resource 

The QuickTime architecture and QuickTime Flash format are discussed at length in the archived chapter, "Working with QuickTime," available on the book's support site at www.flashsupport.com/archive.

You can use the QuickTime HTML template in Publish Settings to create an instant Web page that uses the QuickTime Player plug-in. It uses the <object> and <embed> tags to prescribe the name, width, height, and plug-in download location.

QuickTime 4 can support only Flash 3 graphics and actions; QuickTime 5 can support Flash 4 SWF format features, including loadVariables actions; and QuickTime 6 can support Flash Player 5-based features and ActionScript. Flash movies can act as a timeline navigator for other QuickTime media, such as video or audio. For interactive Flash content, you should limit yourself to Flash 4-or 5-compatible actions.

Note 

At the time of this writing, there was not an upgrade to the QuickTime Player that supported Flash Player 6 or higher .swf features.

Shockwave Player

Since Director 6.5, you can include Flash movie files (.swf) in your Director movies, either as stand-alone Director projectors or as part of Shockwave movie files (.dcr) on the Web. The Flash Asset Xtra is automatically included as part of the default Shockwave plug-in installation process. Among other benefits, Shockwave movies enable you to integrate Flash movies with dynamic 3D models and graphics and use Flash assets with third-party Xtra capabilities.

Cross-Reference 

For more information on Director and Flash interactivity, please read our archived chapter, "Working with Director," at www.flashsupport.com/archive.