Trying out FLASH video

I converted a wmv file to this 18 minute FLASH video clip.

It's 66megs all up but I just was wondering how it played on different systems and how long you have to wait before it had buffered enought to start playing. I wait about 5 seconds and it starts to play my end.

The quality is not the best as it was done from a wmv file. I encoded the wmv file with Macromedia FLASH PRO 8

Here is the Test Page.

Cheers

Paul Wags

Firefox / hi speed ADSL -> started to play within 3-4 seconds (i can only hear it play now)

Very nice video too..... can the screen size go up as well ??

Hello Paul,

Also using Firefox and highspeed broadband and the video started up right away and ran through flawlessly to the end, no pausing to buffer, no jerkiness. Nice footage too by the way.

Cheers guys.

I think this could be the way to go then as there is no problems with this stupid MAC / PC thing.

400 kbps seems a good rate. Might try one from a better master to see how it comes out then I might be able to make the window abit larger as well.

Full screen? I'll see if I can add a control somehow.

Strange but I've been experimenting with this in the last couple of days too on the back of a small promo I'm working on. I reckon it may be the way to go also.

Wags your video plays smoothly for me here in Thailand on my slow ADSL.

People are saying that the On2 VP6 codec is the best for Flash video at the moment.

Here's a sample made in On2's own encoder, On2 Flix standard demo (1-pass) ($39) at 260kbps, 320 x 180:

http://www.underwater-footage.com/surface-marker/

Here's a bigger sample made in On2 Flix Pro demo (2-pass) ($249) at 512kbps, 480 x 270:

http://www.bubblevision.com/flash-video-test-Dreamweaver.htm

Both those samples above use Adobe's Flash Video Player included in Dreamweaver 8 with the same skin Wagsy's used (Halo_Skin_3.swf). I don't have Flash Pro.

I prefer no border around the video and I like the controls outside the video itself. Dreamweaver doesn't offer such a skin and I was looking for a lighter-weight (quicker loading) player anyway so I made the following page with the Wimpy Wasp player ($25):

http://www.bubblevision.com/flash-video-test-wasp.htm

That's nice but it won't show the first frame of the video before you press play, which is a big drawback I think. It's supposed to display a picture of your choice but that doesn't work too.

I also tried the flv player but there's some red stuff across it for some reason and again it doesn't show the first frame of the video:

http://www.bubblevision.com/flash-video-test-flvplayer.htm

However if you can get it to work, the flvplayer has a full screen option (not implemented in my example).

If you have Flash Pro already then you can also investigate the Proxus player.

These 3rd party players make it easy to create a playlist of videos next to the player.

I'll probably end up using the Adobe player and "borrow" Flash Pro for a day or 2 to make a nice borderless, minimal skin for it.

There is also an On2 Exporter program for $199 which plugs into things like Premiere Pro and Procoder. I thought that might be best for me but the demo hangs for me in Procoder 2.

The On2 Pro codec can also be accessed as a plugin by Sorenson Squeeze for Flash (same price as On2 Flix Pro).

Way to go Nick.

Yes FLASH is the way to go.

Here is something I did.

When you click on this link it will open up a new browser window and then you can make the browser window any size and the flash video will follow with controls. Might go to about 700kbps and see how it loads/looks next.

HERE IS THE LINK

Worked well for me.

I have an average 60msec ping to hdvunderwater.com, on an institutional (.edu) LAN. Started playing instantly and was smooth as a sheep's backpassage on the new spring clover.

(By comparison, wetpixel has an average of 62 msec ping and my own site has an average of 43msec)

Way to go Nick.

Yes FLASH is the way to go.

 

Here is something I did.

When you click on this link it will open up a new browser window and then you can make the browser window any size and the flash video will follow with controls. Might go to about 700kbps and see how it loads/looks next.

 

HERE IS THE LINK

Works for me (Firefox 2.0 on Windows XP) , but you might want to see if there's an option to preserve the aspect ratio when resizing? Right now you can do some crazy stuff with it

Yeh...it's like big stretchy thing now

Just trying to get the code right now so it plays in a window with a full screen option.

Once I have that sorted will fine tune the kbps so the average person on ADSL will have it playing just about straight away, so then whole 60 min clips can be loaded up.

Once I have it I will post the code Flash Code.

Cheers for checking it out by the way.

Way to go Nick.

Yes FLASH is the way to go.

 

Here is something I did.

When you click on this link it will open up a new browser window and then you can make the browser window any size and the flash video will follow with controls. Might go to about 700kbps and see how it loads/looks next.

 

HERE IS THE LINK

Wags I'm using Maxthon, a tabbed browsing shell for Internet Explorer, so in my case that opens up and plays nearly full screen in a new tab. Still looks good (and the aspect ratio of the video itself is locked) but you might want to bear in mind that a lot of people are moving to tabbed browsers such as Firefox and IE7. A javascript popup might be preferable but with so much anti-popup stuff being put into browsers now, I think I'm going to stick with plain old embedding.

I like the controls. Is that a standard skin from Flash Pro 8?

EDIT: Actually, are browsers like Firefox and IE7 suppressing javascript popups or have I got that wrong?

Nick look at this now with your browser.

Encoded at a higher rate

Yes the controls are from Flash Pro 8

Hows it look.

NEW FULL SCREEN MODE

The update takes the Flash version in Firefox to 9.0.21.75 and it works great. It displayed right across my dual 17" screens. In IE6 and Maxthon the update doesn't seem to advance the Flash player version beyond 9.0.16.0 and full screen doesn't work. When I click the full screen option it just carries on playing at the small size.

It would be cool to have a full screen button in the controls, like Google Video and YouTube.

Also can you make a single button that toggles "play" and "pause"?

The video played jittery at first. Like 4fps or something. My connection is ADSL and it's supposed to be 512kbps but I just ran a bandwidth test and it's only running at 294kbps at the moment.

Personally I'm thinking 480x270 at around 500kbps for HDV stuff is about right.

Hey Nick

It works for firefox my end as well and I did get it going in IE but I cannot remember what I did

I'm sure adobe will be on to it as it's still in Beta stages.

There is a Pause/ Play already, it's the same button, just click it again.

Yes looking at adding a full screen button to the tools and to have the tool bar go away after abit only to re appear once you run the mouse over it.

My ADSL is 1.5megs but download is 125 kbps max and it played no worries.

Stay tuned

Wags what frame rate are you using? With WMV I was using 12.5fps which is half PAL but it seems Flash wants whole numbers. i.e. 12fps, which wouldn't make such a nice conversion. On the other hand using the full 25fps seems OTT for a low-bitrate video.

Also, if you go here in IE what version of Flash does it say you've got?

http://www.adobe.com/cfusion/knowledgebase...cfm?id=tn_15507

Nick on the computer IE works it's 9.0,21,75

On the one IE wont' work is 9.0,16,0 so it must no be updating..will try to uninstall it etc.

Frame rate is 25fps, I'll see how other frame rates look.

But.... HAVE A LOOK AT THIS ONE

Move you mouse over the control bar and it hides etc and there is a full screen button on the right end as well now.

The control did disappear once and came back when I moved the mouse over them and now they are not disappearing again. Personally I quite like the controls to remain there so I know where I am in the file.

The full screen button works sweet in Firefox.

When I do some of these for real I won't auto-start them and I'll have the first frame showing something interesting as a preview of what's in the video (i.e. not fade up from black).

The framerate issue is a bit confusing in Flash because the flv and swf can have different rates. And I read somewhere that the swf likes whole-number rates only. 15fps is a perfect rate for web movies which is one reason I was thinking of shooting 60i with the Z1 (as it happens I've started shooting 50i to benefit the PAL part of the world and potential transfer-to-film customers).

I'll try uninstalling Flash player in IE and reinstalling that beta one.

Yeah, that's working now.

Don't forget that Javascript launcher to get around the IE security warnings. Dreamweaver 8 generates that automatically when you insert a Flash video. You can see it if you view the source of my links above.

I might even have to licence one of these players off you when you're done

Im going to close this topic and start a new one on FLASH Video Full Screen as some of the video links are dead here now.

Wags