What is the best way to output to Flash?
 

I was wondering what is the best workflow to output a flash file from Premiere Pro using Cineform. I want to display a movie clip in a Flash player.
I am using HDLink to capture HDV from my HV20 camera.
Hopefully, I can use the tools available in Premiere ie Adobe Media Encoder or Export Movie.

Thanks in advance.
John Rich

I'd recommend downscaling Cineform video in VDub to the dimensions you want (within CFHD codec specs).

Then encode into Flash using software like On2 FlashPro ($$$) or Sothink Video Encoder for Adobe Flash ($$). Results are the same quality-wise.

Try Xvid4PSP (Winnydows: XviD4PSP & GlassBalance: News).

It is a free tool and doing a great job encoding to FLV
Just import your Cinform AVI file and on the software choose to encode FLV.
Don't forget to set Video -> Decoding -> AVI Files to AVISource,
or for faster converting, AVI files to > Direct Show

If you need more help just let me know.

Johnnie

Thank you very much for replying.

I looked at all three of your suggestions. However, I wanted to use something I had if possible.

While I can't be sure this method is as good as yours, I downsized the footage using Premiere and CF's codec (I deinterlaced the footage on capture with HDLink and used a progressive preset for the Premiere project and the output from Premiere) and then output to Flash with player and all from Camtasia.

It seems to look good, but the pictures were only 640x480.

Thanks again for your help.
John

I tried the Xvid4PSP program, of all the flash conversion I have tried, this one really does a nice job, free too. I never could get squeeze to work at all, even got support to give some lame reason why, Super does allright, not as good as this one tho. Flix is too expensive for me

I'm a real novice here. Would you let me know what you mean by "nice job". Do you mean with regard to the quality of the picture or ease of use?
Also, does the Xvid4PSP program create all the additional files required for the web?

I guess also, I'm looking for a work-flow with Cineform going from tape capture to web. The one I mentioned above seems to be ok, but based on previous experience, you guys always have a better way for what I do.

Thanks in advance.
John Rich

the only way is to do what I have done in the past, experiment with every program you can demo, every format, avi, mpeg 2 and 4, avchd, interlaced, progressive, etc etc etc, ?I tried every flash conversion program I could demo, just go to download.com and start downloading, take one standard clip rendered in every format, and start testing, it takes time, alot of time,

There's a free encoding software called SUPER that works pretty good. Be careful on their page though because you have to hunt around for the right place to download it. There's a lot of other encoding softwares on their page for some reason.

SUPER seems to be popular, but in my tests, was unsatisfactory since it failed some Flash conversions, and its interface is cumbersome IMHO...

I've had some issues with conversions failing but one thing I'll say for SUPER is that it gives you a troubleshooting list to fix the failures. So far I've always been able to fix the failures.

run a test Xvid4PSP against Super, I uninstalled Super after using Xvid4PSP, and converted all my mpeg4 clips on my site to flash using Xvid4PSP. great program, wish I had found it earlier,

Was there a perceptible difference in image quality?

all the clips on my site now when you hit flash are redone with this program, they are big files though and still need time to load,

Hugh, where are you hosting your pet video site? The host appears to be super slow in loading both the front page, and videos.

Had to bail out before actually watching the video chosen.

So the delay is not so much because of your video size, but slow host, it appears.

cirtex, and they have server issues from time to time like all hosts, especially on video sharing. My site is getting larger with more activity and it always happens when you least expect it. I heard from them this morning and they said they had server spike and is now fixed. if the site gets big I will have to get more bandwidth, but it costs and I don't have any advertising yet, need more videos, members, viewers, etc. any way the flash videos are on hughmobley.co, but although they are good they don't play well, large files, so I am working on them now. godaddy has issues too