Adobe Flash Professional lets you easily put video on a web page in a format that almost anyone can view. This guide provides an introduction to web video, including information on how to create and publish video on the web. Explore the sections below to dive into whatever topic interests you.
Overview of video for Flash – Start things off right with this overview of key concepts and terminology related to web video and video formats.
Progressive and streaming video for Flash – Examine the variety of options for delivering video to Flash Player.
Capturing and encoding video for Flash – Learn how prerecorded web video is encoded and how to get best results when capturing video.
Adding video to a web page – Learn the two general approaches to adding video to web pages: using Dreamweaver or Flash.
Synchronization and captions in video for Flash – Get an overview of the key concepts involved in content synchronization and captioning.
NTSC and PAL video standards – Understand key concepts related to the NTSC and PAL video standards.
The video learning guide for Flash Professional introduces core concepts of video on the web, and provides you with tools for developing your skills.
Check out all the new content just launched in the Adobe Developer Connection.
Also, be sure to visit the brand spanking new Adobe TV site. The new site is excellent. And while you’re there, check out the Adobe Developer Connection’s channel, The ADC Presents.
Now, on to the content:
Integrating Flash Builder 4 beta with other Adobe products: Learn how to use Flash Builder 4 beta with four other Adobe products.
Augmented reality using a webcam and Flash (republished from the Edge newsletter): This article takes a look at augmented reality, its current uses, and its future potential. Then you’ll dig in and see how to apply this exciting technology using Adobe Flash CS4 Professional, Adobe Flash Player 10, and a webcam.
Building a website with Web Premium CS4 – Part 11: Creating an interactive web form: In this part you complete the following tasks:
- Turn the home page into a data entry form that lets users select one or more data item (in this case, from a list of tours).
- Create a PHP page that uses the form request functionality to query and display data from a MySQL database on the server.
- Integrate a bit of intermediate PHP code to handle complex form requests.
Building a website with Web Premium CS4 – Part 12: Creating and presenting a Flash animation: In this part you’ll complete the following tasks:
- Create an interactive Flash animation that uses some of the new automated tweening features in Flash CS4 and a bit of ActionScript 3.0 code.
- Publish the Flash animation.
- Create a new web page that presents the Flash content.
Creating a WordPress theme with Dreamweaver – Part 3: Building a custom home page: Build a custom WordPress home page theme with featured posts.
Solving business needs with Adobe InContext Editing: Find out how InContext Editing can add value to your business.
Three demos of exporting CSS and images from Fireworks CS4: Watch these three video presentations to create and organize a website design in Fireworks for exporting to Dreamweaver.
Adding SMS, fax, e-mail, and voice notifications to LiveCycle ES processes: Use PGi components and LiveCycle ES to build communications-enabled business processes.
Dynamic bit rate switching is a pretty important concept to get right when your business hinges on delivering high-quality video to paying customers.
David Hassoun (plus his team at RealEyes Media) provides an overview of the concepts involved in dynamic stream switching of Flash video using Flash Media Server 3. Use this technique to take into account varying network conditions that your users may encounter while viewing streaming content.
Lisa Larson-Kelley has updated her very popular Flash video template of a dynamic video playlist that allows both streaming and progressive delivery of your video to a customizable player.
Why Popeye? Find out why. (Go Spinach Party, go!)
Adobe Media Player (“don’t call it AMP!”) was unleashed a couple days ago and — to support the product’s debut — we launched a developer center to facilitate the “behind the scenes” coding you can do with Adobe Media Player. It’s not exactly a developer tool, but Adobe Media Player runs on RSS feeds that you can play with. (Hey, it’s also an Adobe AIR application — that’s pretty cool.)
Check out the new Adobe Media Player Developer Center to learn about the new desktop media player and understand how it consumes Media RSS feeds. You can also download the Content Developer Kit. It’s a big PDF file now but we will be producing excerpts on the website over the coming days.
The Flash video templates have remained popular downloads in the Flash Developer Center. This “spokesperson presentation with synchronized graphics” template features video, labeled content keyframes that synchronize text and graphics to the video, and navigation buttons along the bottom. While the video plays, the keyframes appear at preset times and the navigation buttons highlight the relevant topic. When the user clicks one of the buttons, the video and content update themselves to that topic automatically.
Regulars of the Flash Developer Center will recognize this template from way back when it was first released with Macromedia Flash MX Professional 2004. (Note that the presentation example talks about “Macromedia On-Demand” — hey, anything to keep fans of Mike Downey happy.) Anyway, Dan Carr updated it a couple of years ago for Flash Professional 8 and now it’s all ready for Flash CS3 — and ActionScript 3.0. Enjoy!
Sometimes what’s important is not a matter of posting new material on the Adobe Developer Connection but simply (simply?) reorganizing what’s already there, so that people can find what they’re looking for. Such is the case with our video-related articles, which for the most part have lived in the Flash Developer Center. That made sense when Flash MX Professional 2004 supported video better than ever.
These days, however, video isn’t always about the Flash authoring tool, so we moved that material out of /devnet/flash/ and into its own site: The Video Technology Center. Check it out!
The Video Technology Center puts the ever-popular Flash Video Learning Guide at the center. Major topic areas branch off from there.
If you work with video on the web — whether planning a video project, encoding FLVs, delivering video, using audio, or whatever — what resources do you need most? Are you getting what you need from Adobe.com or do you go elsewhere for helpful information about web video?
Hi there – I manage the Edge newsletter, another product from the Adobe Developer Connection team. A couple days ago, we launched the February edition of the Edge and there’s lots of great content in there… For example, we published an article about Adobe Media Player (AMP) and how to structure RSS feeds to play within AMP. Zach Stepek contributed an excellent article about Blaze DS, another open source effort from Adobe. Brian Rinaldi penned an article in which he compares Flex and Ajax – very interesting. And of course, there’s the ever-so popular edge of Flash column that Rob Ford, of FWA fame, cranks out each issue. As usual, Rob’s column is the most
Robert Reinhardt, author of Adobe Flash CS3 Professional Video Studio Techniques, has created a cool online calculator that helps you determine the optimal bitrate for encoding FLV files that you either embed on a web page or stream with Flash Media Server. This application augments the FLV bitrate spreadsheet that accompanies his book on the enclosed DVD-ROM.
Whenever I look at traffic patterns in the Flash Video Developer Center, I see that video-related topics rank high in popularity. Robert’s FLV bitrate calculator should prove to be very useful as you encode your FLVs. It includes helpful presets to get you started. Even if you decide to deviate from the recommended values for “talking head” or “action trailer” movies, knowing at least where to begin will save you time down the road:
The “Grid Quality: Best” link in the Video section of the calculator is also worth checking out. It lists optimal frame dimensions for Flash video.