Topic: Videos for Web

Not that i need it right now but i needed it in the past and will need it in futer.
What is the best way to get filesice of films as smal as possible without loosing to much quality

shrink res as much as can be beared, choose the right compression/codec

yes but what codec

codec depends on what plugin you want to use. these options com to my mind:
win media player, real, quicktime, flash (which i would recommend).

GRUMBLE, what's the best way to output movies as Flash files man? Been thinking about it lately and was hoping there was a way to do it without springing for pricey macromedia products...

well, if you want to avoid pricey macromedia products and you are on windows, you can download the windowsmedia encoders for free. personally i think wmv gives a good filesize/quality ratio if you just want to play the video.

i dont know about quicktime and real, but i guess they should be available for free too.

as for video in flash, you need flash basic if you want to just play the video, or flash pro if you wanna do special effects, and more advanced stuff.

basically, you create an FLV file with the flash video encoder and you can use that in your flashmovie like a movieclip instance.



edit: if you google for "flv" you find some freeware flash video encoders, but i have no experience with them.

(Edited by GRUMBLE on 12-07-2005 20:37)

very nice, thanks! I'm quite familiar with available codecs but have really been interesting in FLA solutions as you could embed them in pages more reliably and have a much more consistent ability to present them same across all browser, OS and media player configs, unlike working with "video files"

Happen to know if Flash still uses the qt sorenson spark codec?

I'm go spelunking on FLV, I appreciate it

yes it has the sorenson spark codec
as of flash 8 when you encode a video you can choose between the sorenson spark codec or the so called on2 vp6 codec.

in the flash help file it says, that on2 vp6 has better quality at same data rate than sorenson and supports an alpha channel.

so it seems there is no reason to not use it.

I agree with this guys, you should choose the right compression codes and this codes really depends on what plugin you want to use.


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I haven't played with it yet, but Swish Video is something like $50 USD.

Jason

For what it's worth, Flash 8 has an awesome FLV encoder that is the best in my opinion. Im in the process of redoing all my video files to switch formats. It's one way to prevent myspace hacks from leaching videos from your site.

Im still relatively new to flash but so far it's been really easy.

In the past I've used Vegas and encoded to Quicktime with multimedia settings, mono audio, etc. to keep files relatively small. But as mentioned, it all depends on what your final format will be.

FLV works well, I just bought Swish Video so I could produce a client site. Not a bad deal, works well once you tweek the settings a bit. Not a bad alternative to upgrading or buying flash just for a video project. It also provides a few interface options but I find most of them to amateur for comercial work. There new mp3 jukebox generator looks intresting as well. I may pick-it up later this month.

Like Rob, I too use vegas; but I typically encode to uncompress AVI or sony's DV format, and then run my files through Quicktime Pro and encode for the web. Either way works just workflow differences. I perfer Sorenson Compression, but apples H.264 is very nice if your users have upgraded to Quicktime 7. The windows version was a bit buggy at first, but I haven't had any issue with it currently.

J. Stuart J.



(Edited by jstuartj on 05-17-2006 13:42)