Chapter 17: Displaying Video

Overview

In This Chapter

Compressing video in Flash 8

Using the Video Import wizard

Unleashing the FLVPlayback component

Adding cue points to video clips

Controlling data rates with SMIL files

Using Sorenson Squeeze

Creating alpha video .flv files

One of the most exciting features introduced with Macromedia Flash Player 6 was the power to add digital video footage to a Flash movie file (.swf)! Designers and developers alike had long awaited this feature. With Flash Player 6 or higher, video can be played without relying upon additional browser or system plug-ins such as Apple QuickTime or Real Systems RealOne player. Flash Player 7 improved the capabilities and performance of video playback, enabling you to load .flv files directly into Flash movies at run time from a standard Web server, without the aid of Flash Communication Server. With Flash Player 8, you can take advantage of a new video codec, the On2 VP6 codec, which yields better compression (that is, smaller file size) with superior image quality to the Sorenson Spark codec used in Flash Player 6 and 7.

Note 

You learn more about the new capabilities of the VP6 codec later in this chapter.

Macromedia has added more tools to make it easier for you to integrate video into your Flash movies. In this chapter, we show you how to perform a wide range of video procedures, from importing a source clip to playing the video clip within the FLVPlayback component.

Note 

This chapter explores the Flash 8 Video Encoder, which is only available with Flash Professional 8. If you are using the trial version of Flash Basic 8, make sure you have switched it to Flash Pro 8 in the Help menu.