[FMX] load video bar

[thebull]

hello,

anyone can explain me how to do a load bar for video, equal to that used on praystation.com web site. I can do a preload bar, but i want it to play the movie while downloading, and to insert a stop and a play button on it too.

thanks

//thebull

[subquark]

do you mean a small movie to watch while waiting for your main content to load?

if so, mave a movie clip with the "watch this while I load" animation and place it in the first frame where your loading bar is.

once loaded, i presume your swf goes to it's next frame, thus leaving behind the loading animation

let me know if i completely missed the mark here . . .

[thebull]

:)

go to the praystation.com website on news scroll until finf I SEE U ON 3D, chose project information and on the content area chose video, there you can see what i was trying to do

:)

//thebull

[subquark]

you know, i miss alot!

i went there and just saw a preloader that went to 100% then loaded the content . . .

if that's what you need, look at this super tutorial:

kirupa loads (http://www.kirupa.com/developer/mx/percentage_loader.asp)

other than that, i guess you can build a little bar that tweens from frame one to the end of your movie while the movie streams in (if you mean a bar that shows how much content is still loading while they start watching your swf, sort of like the bandwidth profiler "show streaming" when testing in flash). now that would be neatoBurrito! anyone know how to do that?

calculate the total bytes, calculate download speed and scale a bar

hell, i can't even calculate with a calculator!!!!

[andrthad]

Hi subquark,

I saw the videos you are referring to. To me I can't tell whether they are avi/mpeg/mov videos that are controlled by flash or if it is just animations built in flash. The file size leads me to believe it is video converted to a flash swf.

A good video component is located at http://flashcomponents.net/components.cfm?nav=2&per=10 .

It allows you to control the video that you import into Flash MX. It has a stream bar and play, pause, rew, ffw, and volume controls.

[subquark]

thanks andrthad!

your SWFJukeBox is most outstanding!

[cermunnos]

I didnt find the componant that link was referring to.

Anyway just a few questions.

I want to create a flash page with a dynamic menu to access several different video files.


I've tried importing quicktime files but they all seem to have obscene compression, small movies seem very large, greater than a few megs its seems.

Can I stream Realplayer files into the movie? how?

If not the mpegs that I could possibly import into such movies would they have relative compression rates to thier sizes or would they be made really large by the quicktime compression process.

[andrthad]

Subquark,

Thanks for the compliment on my jukebox. LOL. I also just realized that you were not the thread starter.

Cermunnos,

try this
http://flashcomponents.net/component.cfm?nav=2&id=71
If you need help on how to install component, let me know.

Not sure about the Real Player files. I did see some talk about that on Flashkit, but I can't remember what was said.

Below is a link that uses the above component. The video was a 40-50mb quicktime video that I got off the Counting Crows CD. I imported it into flash MX. Put the video on its own layer and the video component on another layer. This video is a 5MB swf that streams fairly well over a DSL/Cable or greater connection.

http://www.thadandrews.com/AmericanGirls.htm

Are you trying to stream video for dialup users?

[subquark]

thanks for all the great info! dial-up hell is my world!!!

[cermunnos]

For dialup users? correct. so i cant use 5mb files to be realistic. streamed files are the only solution and i gues flash cant do this :o

[andrthad]

cermunnos,

You are correct a 5mb swf would be very hard to stream over a dialup modem. You could use a preloader to just preload say 10-20% and then play the movie. That might give you enough of a head start to stream the entire video.

Flash can basically stream anything you want video or audio. The point is you have to control the quality of the video and audio when you encode the swf so that it will stream properly on the desired connection (broadband or dialup). For example:

<b>Broadband</b>
swf file size: 5,242 kb
video size: 240 x 180 (pixel size of video)
video data rate: 168kbs (controls video quality)
video frame rate: 12fps
audio compress: 80kbs (controls audio quality)
Encoded with Sorenson Squeeze
http://www.thadandrews.com/AmericanGirlsBroadband.htm

<b>56k Modem</b>
swf file size: 1,423 kb
video size: 160 x 120
video data rate: 24kbs
video frame rate: 12fps
audio compress: 24kbs
Encoded with Sorenson Squeeze
http://www.thadandrews.com/AmericanGirlsModem.htm

Hope this helps answer your question. I have used a program called Sorenson Squeeze to do this example. Flash MX also has a cheap version of Sorenson built in that you can play with. The quality value is the key on controlling file size and then also the publish setting of your audio.

[andrthad]

cermunnos,

More info about Real Player files in Flash. Did not find anything on Kirupa about it (I looked 1st, did not want to promote another site - Kirupa rules), but check out these threads.

http://www.flashkit.com/board/showthread.php?threadid=400086&highlight=Real+Player

http://www.flashkit.com/board/showthread.php?threadid=396210&highlight=Real+Player

[Gedankenspiel]

I would convert a quicktime movie to Flash swf by using Sorenson Squeeze. Sure, it's a commercial product (retailing for $99?) but it beats a straight conversion in Flash by tenfold at least.

If you have more of those projects and tasks, check this out:

http://www.sorenson.com/content.php?cats=2/4

Once you have the swf file you can name it with a sequence at the end, like movie1.swf. To answer the random load of that swf file, simply write a script that does a load movie with the random number attached to it.

Needless to say, you can control the movie file just like any other timeline in Flash.

[cermunnos]

What ive done instead is have an embeddable mpeg file in a html doc surrounded by a 2 flash movies.

One of the flash movies though has forward and back buttons, play and pause buttons etc.

I found this on macromedia
http://www.macromedia.com/support/flash/ts/documents/tn4160.html

It describes perhaps a possible way to allow the flash buttons talk to javascript, and i believe the java script can then control the actions of the mpeg. Its a bit too complex for my brain though and i dont know much about javascript.

Does anyone know what the code would look like to get these 3 different parts talking : a flash stop button : the javascript : mpeg movie.