If you happen to be using or playing with Adobe's new Media Player then I've got a feed for you to check out. That is if you are interested in Flash Media Server and developing applications with it.
I've taken our new Flash Media Server community site, fmsguru.com, and put out an AMP feed that can be loaded into Adobe's Media Player. It works quite well and I'd say that I really like how the videos play in it. All that's left is to figure out how to get the banners in to customize the show a bit better. There's a serious lack of documentation on it all but I think I've managed to get it together reasonably well.
Check out the feed here: http://www.fmsguru.com/rss/amp_rss.cfm
To add the feed, just open up "favorites" and down at the bottom there is a button to add an RSS feed. Click that and copy and paste in the above link! It's that easy. Everything should just start to load from there.
There are 11 tutorials in there right now with more to come! Should have new shows every week with the plan we have in place now. Those videos are progressively streamed in, if you're into being able to skip around in the file without downloading the whole thing, then go check out the tutorials page on the site for some true streaming by Influxis our cool streaming partner.
Bit late to the party but I thought I'd quickly post that Adobe's Flash Media Encoder version 2 has been released. Go get it here.
Looks pretty good from a cursory look at it. At least it starts up unlike the last version which I had to uninstall some stuff to get it to run.
I'll probably mess around with this a little later on, hopefully I can get some time to post a review here in case anybody wants to know what I think :)
Some new features:
- Command-line options. Use command-line options to run encoding sessions via scripts or from a command prompt.
- MP3 support Encode audio in either MP3 or Nellymoser format. For MP3 format, you can also choose the number of channels (mono or stereo).
- Timecode support. When using a device that can generate timecodes, embed an SMPTE timecode in the video stream.
- Features for enabling 24/7 broadcasts. Several settings and command-line parameters make it easy to run encoding sessions continuously. Create scripts and integrate them with your existing automated systems.
- Support for remote access. Access Flash Media Encoder-in both GUI and command-line mode-via Microsoft(R) Remote Desktop Connection or RealVNC(tm).
This is definitely worth reading if you are into flash video and streaming it out to your users/clients/customers etc. A new article on Adobe's Developer Center in the Flash Media Server Developer Center by Fabio Sonnati.
Here is my presentation I did at MAX Hong Kong 2005 on Testing for Security Holes in Flash and Flash Media Server 2.0. This is the second in a pair of sessions I did at all three MAX conferences in Asia this year, here is the other presentation (Best Practices & Architecture for Flash & Flash Media Server 2.0).
This one too has streamed video with captions and syncronized slides and once again I have to thank Captionate 2.0 for the excellent functionality to get captions and cue points embedded in an FLV file that just fits in the seminar app. This time I took advantage of the importing of the captions text file and formatting that is in Captionate 2.0.. I can't believe I didn't use this before. I had actually copy and pasted in every line last time.. it took far too long. With this importing stuff, it parses out the file into bite size lines and then all you have to do is press the "add caption" button and it adds in the line that you want to add in the file as it plays along.
Truly simple and efficient.. I can't rave enough.
Anyways, the presentation is a bit drab and dry.. it's security centric so what more can you ask for right? But there are quite a few points in there worth listening to I think if you are an intermediate FMS developer or budding FCS/FMS developer looking for tips and concepts on making your apps a bit more safe for the "real world".
Anyways, here is the link to the presentation files again, just in case.
Again, any comments are very appreciated (I only got one on the last one.. I hope the preso was useful to some..), and any questions should be answered as soon as I can, so freely post any and all :)
I've finally managed to get the video I took of my session on Best Practices & Architecture for Flash & Flash Media Server 2.0 that I did at MAX Korea 2005. I did have two other versions, one from Singapore and one from Hong Kong, but the Korea one seemed best because we had over an hour for our sessions, whereas the others were one hour or less. So there is more content in this one.
The video is Flash 8 streamed from FMS2 with the captions put in for the whole video with Captionate 2.0. I've got to say that this app rules! It's a serious pain to get all the captions (took me 4 hours for 1 hour of video to type them all out), but once you have them, Captionate just makes it easy to embed in the FLV file and in turn integrate into the our Flash application.
Anyways, I have one more video I want to get up, Testing for Security Holes in Flash and Flash Media Server which I have captured but just need to edit. The one I am using is from the Hong Kong MAX conference. It shouldn't take me too much longer, but I am doing it only in my spare time.. which I'm lacking more and more of lately. Either way, I expect to have it up next week at the latest.
Here is the link again to the presentation files just in case.
And the session details:
Best Practices for Development and Architecture for Flash Media Server
This is useful for not only miniature sets, but for anybody that wants to do green/blue screen keying. Which is becoming insanely popular with Flash.
I've been finding a lot of the "making" sections of movies that are on DVDs and sites like the link below offer a lot of tips that can be taken advantage of in video for the web now that Flash has much better support for video, and in particular, the alpha channel.
From the Kingiskong.net site. Click on Post Production Diary - 9 Weeks to Go!
On a side note, I've been following the making of King Kong by Peter Jackson for quite a while now. I can't wait until it comes out. On the one hand, I like that I can see how they make everything, and they show most of their secrets, but on the other hand, when I go to the movie I expect that I'll enjoy it just a little bit less now that I know how everything works. Look for imperfections and stuff too probably.
This has got to be the best set of tips all in one place that I have seen on the web so far, by far.
If you are looking to get some quick tips on what to do when you are shooting video, check this flash video/synced animation presentation on current.tv.
There are a lot of good tips and advice in getting your subject in the picture, looking good and sounding good. Along with the basics for compression for the web. Check it out, even if you do have some experience and feel you know what you are doing. It's a really good presentation/lesson, and it's all done in Flash.
I love watching the video banners that MM puts up, because so many ideas come to me as to how to spoof them!
Anyways, I had a few ideas on one of the latest video banners they have up and decided to put one into proof of concept. Proof of concept?.. hmm well, I went through the video shooting, graphics and video encoding etc to get it up for all to view.
This one spoofs the walking man that walks across the screen to pick up the Studio 8 box that is sitting on the floor.
I do have to say that this is one of the easier ideas that I picked, just due to lack of time to mess around with stuff like this. It's not quite up to snuff, but I like it :D
Anyways, if you got the Flash Player 8 plugin installed then here it is (if not, go install it and then view it, 'cause it needs v8 player to run..).
Let me know your thoughts if ya got 'em in the comments :)
Just a quick rundown of how I made it:
- Video was done with a green screen, chroma keyed in After Effects.
- The kicked box was done in Swift3D v4.5 (thanks to the new simple bitmap placing, creating the box was a snap) and then published out as a PNG sequence with alpha (the white halo was matted with AE and the shadow was added with a new light layer). I actually wish I spent a bit more time on the animation.. it looks funny still to me.
- The graphics for the box and logo was snagged from MM's site and "adjusted" in PS, brought into AE, added a drop shadow and just masked it on with the movement of the leg.
- The video is encoded for Flash8 and then I just used the netStream object to progressively load in the FLV.
Nothing special that's for sure, but I just love doing these spoofs :D
By the way MM, if you guys are offended or just don't want it up, let me know and I'll take it down right away.
This video totally cracks me up :D
Good use of flash video in this instance.
When you get in, click on "showreel" and then Jebs Jobs in the list of the player.
(warning, long post..go get a coffee)
I couldn't help but respond to the couple of posts out there on flash video of late. The first one is Geoff's post about how flash video is taking a bit more precendence in their everyday work, and then how JD posts about what made him take notice of the post was exactly that. Not me, not even close... The one item that made me snicker and nod was the part where Geoff points out that flash video just isn't being used by the masses yet at all for "kooky amateur video".
Sure you have the "major" sites like Toyota, Sony etc doing Flash 8 video (before it's even released...), and then there are the all flash sites up until now for movies and games and whatnot that put some flash video in there, but for the most part "just normal movies" are almost always up in WMV, MOV or MPG.
When you go to sites that have funny movies, commercials, bloopers etc, they are most likely quicktime. Why is it that these people don't use flash video? Could it be the (up until flash 8 video) bloated size and crap quality? well.. maybe not crap, but it doesn't compare to any others. Is it perhaps because people just don't understand how to put Flash up? How about the HUGE misconception that the flash player isn't available enough/people don't have it installed so won't be able to see it? I think this one is a bit big. Also in relation to that problem, thanks to the crap flash stuff out there, people hate flash and install blockers specific to stop flash content!
Or how about that you have to go out and buy a completely seperate encoder just to create FLV files? That there is no FLV player that is used commonly used everywhere? Then, you go through the trouble of downloading the whole file from whatever page it is on, snag it from your cache (because nobody puts a link up to an FLV file, and it's not like you can right click a flash file and "save to disk") to view it offline, double click it and it doesn't play in anything..
At least when you go to a page with windows media or quicktime you are guaranteed a play/pause button, volume and playhead with some reference as to how much is loaded etc. It looks like a video player, it feels like a video player and this is what the masses are used to. This by far is not the fault of Flash but there are a lot of messed up video players out there, and they are all are slightly different. To the savvy of us it's nothing, but without a familiar interface it's tough to see what's up on the page when suddenly some vid shows up and all you want to do is stop it and the interface is completely different from what you may be used to. It would be smart of MM to make a free standalone player though... I wonder why they don't.
Of course, there are some great players out there, and some really nifty ideas but that's not the point. The point is that flash video has to get out there in a comfortable and intuitive way that everybody can understand. The way to play it is "normal", the way to upload it is "normal" etc. MM is trying hard to do this I think providing a new Flash video component that is easy to setup/skin and use though. Kudos there :).
Anyways, once that happens I think we'll see a lot more flash video out there especially with the leaps and bounds that it has made in the latest release. As much as I'm doing a bit of bashing on the flash video concept I'm all for it and I don't even remember the last time I uploaded an MPG/MOV/WMV file.
On the flip side:
What is the one MAJOR bonus that I can see with flash video? Being able to put in closed captioning (something that most video and now podcasting don't have at all) and timed animations. The interactivity is most definitely the biggest bonus for flash video, and that alone for us makes up the difference that we have to pay with bigger files to get the same quality that the other encoders enjoy. Of course that all changes now with the new encoder from ON2.
Anyways, just some thoughts at the moment that I had to pop out onto the blog. Hopefully that makes a few people think on what they are doing with vid out there.
Just a quick example of using the alpha channel in flash 8's video.
Link:
http://www.mediacreator.jp/forum/forum_posts.asp?FID=23&TID=59&PN=1&get=last
I gotta say I really like it. Coulda used it in my spoof I did a while back...
An item came up in the Figgyleaf Flashcom list of how to manipulate a flash video to allow for slow motion and fast forwarding/rewinding.
Now I can understand how you'd want to do it all in flash/FCS with one video but forcing the player to seek to certain points in the video to simulate the speed/direction you want the video to go at seems a bit rough.
"When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail". I got this saying from a book a while back and it stuck with me, and I think that is what is happening in this instance too. You may be able to hammer in a screw, but it's not going to work as well if you went through the effort of actually screwing it in right?
Anyways, all I did was bring the video into After Effects and manipulate the speed/direction and then encode all the videos (4 in all) to flv.
The proof of concept example I made doesn't take advantage of FCS's streaming abilities but is instead using progressive streaming. This means that the videos need to be slightly preloaded to be a smooth transition. In other words, when you play this example, it'll work better the second time around :)
Proof of concept Flash Video manipulation example
Not to say this is the best way of doing things (especially for long big movies), but it feels better to me in the long run. Not only that, the code can be reused.. just need the 4 vids to play.
*Update (the next day..)*
FCS version works much better. I'd post the example but it's pretty much the same just faster and not quite worth the risk of having my FCS server jacked by somebody. If you want to see it, you most likely know how to contact me so do so with an email and I'll send a link.
I've just finished reading over a whitepaper from Fabio Sonnati and found it fascinating as there are quite few items in there that I either didn't know nearly enough about, or just didn't plain occur to me, yet seem so obvious now...
I strongly suggest anyone who is remotely interested in how flash video/video for FCS works to check it out.
Fabio's blog site is here. (expect to see more from him in the near future I think)
The whitepaper can be downloaded from here.
And the long silence breaks today on the blog of the STi studio.
We've been busy...
Aaaaaanyways, I hope there are others out there that can feel my pain with this issue. If not, I can say one thing to all of you out there: PAL to NTSC conversion is a pain and annoying and all that kind of stuff. I've decided to not even bother doing it myself due to the trouble I would have to go through to not only have to get a machine or camera that can play the PAL tape (which are actually quite expensive if you can find them), but then to also have to convert the thing over on my computer.
It is of course very possible to do. There are steps that can be taken with Premiere and After Effects which will in fact turn out not so bad, but 2 hours of material is a bit much and there are some things in life where paying to have it done is worth it over doing it yourself.
The only problem was now how to find a reputable and reliable with good quality work company that can do this. This is the first time doing it here in Canada. I did some calling around and found a couple of places willing to do the work and then quite a few that didn't. It doesn't seem to be such a popular bit of work to do nor in high demand. That doesn't really surprise me and I was expecting it, but it makes me wish that much more that the world would just make one type of format and stick with it. Of course there are more than video formats out there that we all wish would stick with one format the world 'round..
Anyways, I'll be getting my 24FPS converted to 29.97FPS media back on a DVD tomorrow which should be interesting to see. This will give me an idea of the quality of work they can do and how I treat our client material from this point on. Hopefully they're good.. because they are really close and it's quite convenient.
The next problem is that I have no way to see the original video.. so how will I know if there are color or audio problems? Not being able to compare is going to be a bit of a setback I think when it comes to judging the quality of the conversion.
Anybody else out there that has dealt with this problem? What did you do?
Back in August of 2004, shortly after its release, we blogged about a problem we came across with SS4 not correctly writing much needed metadata to FLV files it generates. You can read the original post here. In the comments of that post, you will see that I received a response from their support department that the problem had been passed on to the techs and they were working on a solution, that would probably be available in a point release.
Well, I noticed today that 4.1 had been released (AFTER 8 MONTHS) and hurriedly downloaded it with much anticipation of being able to output valid, useful FLV files, without relying on other software. Their updates do not seem to come with a readme on what has been fixed, nor does the update site seem to supply such information. However, as this is a Flash centered program and that was one of the most obvious problems, I just assumed it was fixed. After some tests, my hopes were soon dashed against the rocks and I remembered that little saying about not ASSuming...
SSOOO, I sent another email off to support, asking what exactly was updated... Below is my original email and that returned from their support staff.
---------------My Original Mail to Support------------------------------
Sent: Thursday, April 21, 2005 7:17 AM
To: Support@sorenson.com
Subject: Bug Report
First Name: Kris
Last Name: Honeycutt
Email: kris.honeycutt@solid-thinking.com
Operating System: Windows
Product: Sorenson Squeeze
Product Version: 4.0 (they haven’t updated their support form for 4.1 yet...)
Problem Description: I recently installed the 4.1 upgrade for Sorenson Squeeze for Flash MX (from version 4.0) and I am curious what was changed. I was hoping the issue with Squeeze 4.0 writing incorrect meta data to FLV files was resolved, however it still seems to be present. Please confirm.
---------------Support Response------------------------------
Kris,
That function was not added to Squeeze 4.1. I am told it may not be included until Squeeze 5 is released next year.
Andy Engberson
Technical Support
Sorenson Media
4393 South Riverboat Road Ste. 300
Salt Lake City, Utah 84123
---------------------------------------------------
To the support dept’s credit, Mr. Engerson's response time was excellent, however waiting 8 months for an update and STILL not having the problem fixed seems rather ridiculous to me, seeing as one of the products primary functions is to export FLV files....
If they wait long enough, I am not sure how many people will even care when the fix does finally come, considering Macromedia's licensing deal with On2 for using their video technology in future versions of Flash...
Here's the project that I had mentioned in a past entry here that we have dubbed "Voice of the People at MXDU". It's a simple flash video gallery that has the opinions and thoughts of some of the people that were at MXDU2005. The idea was Geoff's in the beginning and we just ran with it here doing the wacky design of the page and dev of the video player (which is quite basic with only 2 buttons.. but it works great). A great idea in the first place and it's excellent to see that we could actually implement it this time around as it was coming close to being cancelled just to all of us being so busy. I expect to see improvements and more stuff for MXDU2006.
Please keep in mind though that I haven't added in all the videos just yet (there are quite a few..) so check back every once in a while to see the new ones. I'll try to get them all done this week though.
The funnier ones are the speakers actually, as all they talk about are the 2 Mikes whooping their arses in the X-BOX room. Could that be because that's all they did? :D Of course then there were the 2 Mikes bragging about it..
Here's the link to the application:
Voice of the People at MXDU2005
On a side note, I just want to comment on how cool my laptop held up on the way home from Australia. I actually managed to edit a whole bunch of pictures, write a few blog posts, mess around with a few other things, and then capture all the video that we took for the VOTP and the thing still had at least 2 hours of battery time left. Time flies when you're having fun though, so to me it was a reasonably short flight getting back. Thank god I recharged everything before getting on the plane though.
Thanks again to everybody that had the courage to stand in front of the camera and say their piece. It turned out great!
Warning: This is a long post...so you might want to take the time to grab the beverage of your choice...
Overview
Last week I was working with a client who wanted to have a promotional DVD, which was created by another company, “converted” for distribution on CD-ROM. The DVD contained 5 promotional videos (chapters), plus short intro and exit titles, that formed a short story about the company’s B2B mobile services. They were to be distributed during events and the client wished to have a version for users who did not have a DVD drive. Each video was 3-5 minutes long, with the combined time being approx. 27 minutes.
NASA, we have a problem…
The initial project request was to convert the DVD menu to Flash and simply link it to QuickTime movies, one for each chapter. I really did not like this approach, as it seemed rather unsophisticated (I hate requiring the user to open up an external player for vid…). However, the timeframe for the project was pretty short and the budget was tight, so they shot down the all Flash idea when I brought it up, as I mentioned it could require additional time. The project had lost some of its appeal at this point, however it sounded simple enough, but a few issues came up after the client delivered the materials.
The Menu
If you do video conversion, you know it is not exactly a speedy process. From Premiere, one video was averaging 40min to an hour for full conversion. While I was doing the above mentioned compression tests, I went ahead and recreated the Chapter menu in Flash, using supplied PSD files. The original DVD menu was pretty boring. No animation to speak of, not even button rollovers. So, I setup the menu so that the title screen first played, displaying the name of the disk, and added some subtle rollover effects to the buttons. I also included an exit button that played the closing title sequence before quitting the presentation.
A solution and the pitch…
Once I had confirmed that the QuickTime approach was not going to work with the required specifications, I went ahead and did a test converting the shortest video to FLV, using Sorenson Squeeze 4. Up until this point, I had only really used FLV for online solutions, so I was not sure of the results I would get when converting for CD quality. Happily, the resulting file, at 640x480, was well under half the size of the same MOV (Only 30mb), and the picture and sound were still good, even when viewed fullscreen. The best part was the conversion process took far less time. 20-30min.
Armed with this information, I contacted the client to show them the menu and discuss an alternative method for video delivery. I once again suggested an all Flash solution in which the movies played within an FLV video player. But, this time around I had an example to show them. The “winning” points in swaying the clients decision were the following:
With both sides happy, I went back and planned what changes needed to be made to the interface. I integrated the FLV player, added a “back” button to return to the menu and added the loop button to the menu, with t he necessary scripting (Detect what video was playing, if it was finished and which to load next).
Conversion to FLV and Sorenson Squeeze 4…Not totally smooth…
I would like to say converting everything to FLV was simple, but…..
We had previously documented the issue with Meta data. Below are some problems I experienced with Squeeze during the project.
I had previously found that Squeeze would not successfully export if the path for the destination folder had any directories using 2byte characters (Japanese in this case) in the name. This time around I found that it will also not successfully import files from those directories as well. To make things worse, the error message you receive states that it failed because the file format was unsupported… You can imagine my frustration when this happened while attempting to import an MOV file that had been compressed using the Sorenson codec….
Once those two issues were worked out, it was smooth sailing. The batch conversion features of SS4 made the job a lot easier and, as I mentioned, it cut through the compression process in great time.
The Wrap up
You probably need a refill of your drink by now. Thanks to those of you who made it to this point.
After it was all said and done, the CD, with 5 FLV videos and projectors for both PC and MAC, the total file size came in at under 500mb, well short of the 700mb mark. I could have increased the video quality even more, but the clock was ticking and it was time to deliver. The client was extremely pleased with the final product. In fact, they preferred the menu and delivery of the CD version BETTER than the DVD, although the DVD still obviously had better video quality. All in all, the project was a great experience and solidly shows that, when file size is a concern, FLV is a great technology for offline video solutions as well.