Flash MX for video streaming...

[cstv]

just seen this (http://www.workinprogress.tv/personal/118118/118118.html) and was suprised to see that it's done with flash. particularly impressed with the fact that it started playing instantly - even on my adsl connection there's normally a delay with windows and real media...

Asked my brother who happens to be a web designer, and he told me about Flash MX which lets you embed videos and it'll stream them for you - all sounds very clever!

...and rather expensive too...

so, is anyone using Flash MX for streaming?

mark.

[dacquinh]

I work extensively with Flash MX nowadays. Its power for designing interaction and user interface goes way beyond HTML and hence it could be an interesting choice if you wanted to design a real embedded video experience. A big plus is that the flash player is the most distributed plugin for any PC connected to the net.

The videos are suffixed .flv (flash video) which is just a container for a video coded with Sorenson Spark codec or Wildforms Flix codecs. For comparaisons between the two and further links check http://www.scottmanning.com/specials/flashvideowars/

The tutorials at Webmonkey are always well done
http://hotwired.lycos.com/webmonkey/02/43/index4a.html?tw=multimedia

In order to deliver decent quality you should target at the flash MX plugin and bitrates about 300 Kbps.


Cheers

hendrik

[cstv]

thanks for the tips hendrik, i'll give it a go!

mark.

[mooblie]

hendrik

I am new to this area, and would appreciate your guidance/experience. My initial research shows:

- progressive download is better that streaming for shorter/higher quality clips? - true/false?

- in the progressive download arena, there is currently a battle between codecs: Sorenson's Squeeze or Wildform's Flix. Any comment?

- Either will generate video files for progressive download that will play in any Flash-enabled browser (avoiding the "WMP/Quicktime/Real" issue entirely) and being available to almost everybody - true/false?

Many thanks for any help.

Moobs

[cstv]

this flash embeded thing is an interesting idea... had a quick squint at FlashMX 2004 yesterday and i still can't work out how it works! i could always watch their tutorials, or read the help... there's an idea!

mooblie's point about "avoiding the "WMP/Quicktime/Real" issue entirely" is one to look into. does anyone know of any impartial figures relating to how widespread these different players are. Obviously we could ask Real, Microsoft and Apple, but "impartial" was the operative word in that request... http://www.dvdoctor.net/cgi-bin/ubb/wink.gif and their numbers would most likely refer to the number of downloads or installs rather than actuall physical users...

and the same would apply to flash; how widespread is the plugin?

cheers,
mark.

[mooblie]

If you ask Macromedia, you get this (http://www.macromedia.com/software/player_census/flashplayer/tech_breakdown.html), but as you say, cstv, it's far from impartial.

However, my research does appear to indicate that the Flash player is well ahead of ANY others, including WMP.

[dacquinh]

Mooblie,

Sorry for the late reply, I have been absorbed by work deadlines and a move out/in old and new house, so things were too busy.

I've worked last two months day in day out with flash and my overall conclusions is that for really good quality (top bitrates) and difficult to encode material (e.g. football matches) flash video does not live up to my expectations. However for cartoons/talk shows it does give good results. We have now given up on Flash for video and use MPEG-4 and MPEG-2 in our lab, it's great quality and an open standard, however not really ready for mass deployment on the www. But it is for our specific needs here. All interactivity is handled by Flash which is overlaid on top of the encoded broadcast MPEG-4 streams.

The discussion squeeze/wildflix is a bit outdated today as Flash MX 2004 Pro does support much better encoding embedded in the program today.
<BLOCKQUOTE>quote:</font><HR>
either will generate video files for progressive download that will play in any Flash-enabled browser (avoiding the "WMP/Quicktime/Real" issue entirely) and being available to almost everybody - true/false?<HR></BLOCKQUOTE>

True

If you want cross firewall, greatest target group video (the flash player!) on the internet I belive Flash is the way to go. But you need to give up encoding quality for fullscreen video.


Hope this helps

Hendrik

[mooblie]

It does help indeed - many thanks, Hendrik! I must now do some experiments of my own, based on your findings - but I am not a power user like you, and I don't need full-screen video over the web, but I do want the largest target group. Sounds like Flash MX 2004 Pro is the way to go.

Thanks again.