Streaming Video Using Flash
 

I'm envious whenever I view a clip on somebodies site that is done in flash. It starts playing immediately and streams without interuption.

My hosting package came with Coffee Cup Flash Video streaming software. My grumble with this is the preview window is very small.

Anybody care to recommend the best way of putting videos up as flash?

Does anyone know if 1and1 host site is a 'streaming site'?
Anyone with proven experience of setting up streaming movies with 1and1 somehow? (I wasn't keen on linking to other sites like 'youtube' etc, as I'd really like my clips to play on my pages, and with good quality...)

They never got back to me when I emailed them...and the flash+wmv files I post don't stream.

Richard,

I haven't tried flash with 1&1 but I use them for streaming quicktime files all the time. We have one domain with them just for hosting samples for our clients. You can check out something we have on the server here- and it should stream-

http://www.smcouples.com/hodgkinson/credits.mov


Alastair,

We export all of our samples via a flash 7 plug-in that works with final cut pro. That offers a lot of flexibility in the encoding and sizing options. Other than that, I know there are some other free and cheap flash encoders for PC and Mac but they often have lower quality and take longer. You can see some some flash samples on our site at www.still-motion.ca if you would like. These were all done at 500hbps and 2 pass encoding.


Patrick

Patrick, which Flash exporter plug-in do you use?

Flash Player
 

Hi Patrick,

I've always considered you website and video demos among the best - all excellent work. While I think the resolution and performance of your flash files is tops, I've noticed the slider control is not active so the viewer cannot forward or backup the show as featured by other streaming players.

Regards, Michael

Due to the popularity of YouTube and the quality of the VP6 encoder, I've just added the option to view in Flash for all my samples. As far as I know, you don't need anything special on the server side. My method is a bit of a multi-step process - there's probably a better and easier way to do it.

I encode to .flv using Flash's media encoder. Then I import into a Flash project, create the settings for the buttons and sliders, size, etc. Hit the publish button, which creates an HTML file as well as an .swf file. I edit the HTML file to customize it to the way I want to look. Then upload everything to the server.

Both Flash and Quicktime starts playing as soon as the page loads (of course presuming you have a decent broadband connection). I have ditched Windows Media because quick-start doesn't seem to work that well at all.

I've just launched my company website with a new name - Vivid Motion. You can look at the gallery there.
http://www.vividmotion.net

Cheers,

This reply from 1and1:

"Unfortunately none of our shared hosting package support the media
streaming.
You can only upload your video or audio files to your webspace and
create hyperlinks to those files from your web pages and the users have
to download them before they can play them on their local pc.
IF you want the media streaming support, you have to go for the Windows
Server 3 package and it is the only package that support this."

DAMN!

but, then Patrick, you have said you have streaming quicktime files...is that definitely on a 1and1 site? are they streaming from the Apple site maybe? were they created with Quicktime Pro?

thanks in advance

Hi Richard

Do you actually need genuine streaming or is it just embedded video which starts playing fairly quickly - in which case you're fine with 1 and 1.

Ian

Hi Ian,

Well I'd rather have a video that starts within a second or two of the page loading...i have embedded(?) videos...

http://www.fxfilms.co.uk (all my demos take a while to load)

any advice greatly received...can i make quick-loading wmv, mov files that are just as good as streaming?

I thought I knew what envy was!
 

Damn you Patrick....I've just looked at your samples.....now I'm REALLY envious!

Thats a great site and some beautiful samples on both the photography and video side.

I've got my coffee cup one working now but......the preview window size is woefully small.

OK...whats a good flash video encoder that you can set preferences i.e. window size with? I'm using Vegas 7, so I'm just about to give encoding a Quicktime file a go. Any recommendations as to what settings work best?

Hi Richard

I see you're already doing what I though you might have wanted so sorry - can't help! I should have checked your website first :)

Nice site - and 3 Brits on the same page on dvinfo - the invasion starts here!

Ian

Steve,

I believe it is the flash media exporter that comes with flash 7. It lets me export directly from FCP. I haven't purchased anything other than flash, so it is something that came bundled with that.

Michael,

Thanks for the great compliment about the site and work, it really means a lot.

I too have noticed that I cannot scrub through the video clips once they have loaded. It is a template that I am uploading the clips to and so I don't have much control over that. The upside is that once the clip is exported, it is very easy to get it onto our site.

Richard,

I am definitely with 1&1 for our smcouples.com site which hosts all of the samples we send to couples. If you check out that link I posted above, you can see if it streams on your machine or not. It has when I have checked it but I have heard from some people that it won't stream ( I had just assumed that was due to their version of quicktime or something and not the server). Everything is exported with quicktime through FCP, make sure you have the hinted video option enabled when you export.

I know 1and1 in the USA and 1and1 in the UK are two different beasts. What we get in the UK bears no relation to what you get over in the USA. We are the poor relations over here! Thats why I went with lunarpages.

Ditto Patrick, nice site and good work.

dMb.

so, patrick, do you have a link to your flash plug-in? or at least a name?

Richard

I've been having a play with Flix Pro from On2. Not sure if this gives what you want but you can download the demo - it puts a pretty obvious watermark both visually and audibly.

Here is an example. No comments on the content please - it was an early one. This isn't streaming (I'm also with 1&1 UK) but it does play pretty much immediately on my 1mb ADSL connection.

Ian

If you could persuade viewers to view in Firefox, MOV files beging playing very quickly. Same file in IE? [tick] [tick] [tick]

Speaking of Firefox - could anybody help with this...

In Internet Explorer - if I click on a link to a .wmv file, Media Player opens immediately, the file starts buffering and when it gets to 100% buffered it starts playing while continuing to download the rest of the file.

But in Firefox all I can ever do is download the ENTIRE file and then open it afterwards. Is there a setting/plug-in I'm missing?

Thanx

Ian

No...it does the same on mine as well ......agree it's annoying.

I'm afraid there is nothing you can do about that on your end. There can be multiple reasons for why the video would download first before playing, but the basic reason is that the browser doesn't know it should hand it off to WMP first. There are various ways that Webmasters and/or content producers can solve this. See this thread for more information: Rendering to WMV progressive download format

The reason IE will hand of WMV videos to WMP immediately before downloading it is because they are both Microsoft products, so Microsoft purposely designed IE to handle WMV files in that manner. I can't blame Microsoft for designing IE this way, though the end result is that many Webmasters and content producers do not use proper techniques that will enable all browsers to properly hand off WMV files to WMP for progressive download.

Christopher

Thanx for the info. It really is a shame - spoils an otherwise great product.

Ian

That's correct in a technical sense. However, what they fail to tell you is that all HTTP servers can do progressive downloading. This isn't "true" streaming, which does require a special server, but for most people progressive download is sufficient. Hey, even Apple uses progressive download for all their trailers.

Patrick,

This is because the flash encoder does not put any metadata into the file. If you want to be able to scrub the file, you have to manually inject the metadata. If you're on a Mac, do a search for flvtool2. If using Windows, I think the program is called flvmdi (flv meta data injector)?


Richard,

I, too, am using 1and1 for my hosting. You don't need a true streaming media server. Flash supports progressive downloads, which emulates streaming.

I am also on 1and1 and use both WMVs, MOVs, and Flash on the sites I have hosted there all using progressive downloads which to most people act just like a streaming clip. As to making sure that the files are progressivly downloaded you can make a .htaccess file for your server if allowed which helps control such things for your viewers.

I can vouch for 1&1 Uk hosting - first class. Starts streaming within a few seconds.

The latest flash codec is so good. Less need nowadays to go doen the route of seperate wmv and mov files and complicate things for the average punter viewing our sites.

finally cracked it!! (and I use 1and1 uk by the way)

thanks to some advice, and help from Alastair, I've managed to get a decent movie clip using a Flash8 file (rendered from Premiere Pro2) being played using a web-Flash player, with very little in terms of extra html code:

http://www.fxfilms.co.uk/croatiaflash.htm

cheers everyone...
(now i've just gotta go and do my wedding demos too!)

check my site flash samples and I will explain::

http://videoideasproductions.com/video_demo.htm

http://videoideasproductions.com/social_events_demo.htm

hi william....ok, have checked them, v.good...now explain :)

did my test movie work ok for you??

cheers

Yes...I also demand an explanation!!!!!

Please;)

Ok Guys here is:::
Richard I saw your video, I think the window is too small, with that been said, just try Flash 8 Professional from Adobe Products.

1- output, make a document size of 320 x 248 (video will display on 320x213 the remaining of 248 will be 35 pixels this is used for video controls)
2- imported video can be a full screen 720x480
3- imported video can be @ 29.97 (30FPS)
4 - @ deployment stage use "progressive download from a web server"
5- in the encoding video settings use "400bps" Medium Quality"
6- in advenced options:: VIDEO CODEC: On2 VP6, Resize Video:: 320x213, Frame rate:: same as source, Audio data rate:: 128Kbps
7- pick any skin from selection (buttons etc)
8- Sit back and wait to render, depending of video TRT.
9- export video
10- go to html editor make page, link exported video to page
11- UPOLOAD TO WEB SERVER ! PRESTO.
in my case I use a Unix Web Server, I hate Windows Server, too many Holes.

IT WORKS,
William Osorio

thanks William, those were pretty much the flash8 settings i used in PremierePro2 anyway so there doesn't appear to be much point in buying Flash8Pro if i can do it all in the NLE

ur right though about the player being too small...i've made it a tad bigger now, cheers

sniff.......I'm feeling left out. I use Vegas.


I'll get me coat.

File Size of a Three Minute Flash File
 

Can someone please enlighten me on the file size of a typical action-packed three minute flash file uploaded for the web? Something similar in quality and picture size as the files William Osorio?

TIA
Neil

About 20-25MB sounds reasonable for something with 400-500 pixels across. It really depends on your chosen resolution. More pixels = more bits.

Thanks for that Eric.

Out of curiosity, how many pixels do you reckon William O has used here http://videoideasproductions.com/video_demo.htm

There are 320 pixels across on those videos in your link. I use 400x225 on my demo videos (16:9 widescreen). I find this a good size and target bitrate (100KB/s) for the videos to begin streaming immediately after the page loads up - for broadband users of course.

Cheers,