More Flash A GoGo

Flash Video has become an extremely popular format for delivering video on the Internet, it is starting to be added as a video output format by both consumer and professional video editing tools. Similar as MPEG-2 became the standard with the growth of DVD.

YouTube and other video posting sites are a huge hit, partially because of the way Flash Video makes them so easy to use, you just have to click on the video window, and the clip starts playing. There’s no complications, no separate player, no additional downloads, just the video playing right there in the browser.

It doesn’t hurt that the Flash Player is according to Adobe, “the world’s most pervasive software platform,” reaching 98.7% of Internet enabled computers worldwide.

Flash, like the MPEG formats, was originally designed as a delivery format, the final output to be played for the viewer, and not as a general purpose editing format like DV or AVI or even QuickTime that could be edited and saved for further use. Today, there are so many video tools that can easily crack open a DVD to extract the content, then edit MPEG-2 and even MPEG-4 files, and export clips with presets for the iPod, PSP, and others.

It is now the same situation with Flash Video, you can easily play it while browsing the Web, but there’s no easy way to download those clips (.flv and .swf), never mind playing them on the desktop or converting them to other formats. Adobe is addressing this developing need with the Adobe Media Player, a desktop media player, out now in beta form, which will provide the ability to download and play back locally stored FLV files. Adobe Media Player is gaining support throughout the industry.

What does Flash mean to you, the viewer or more importantly the video producer. As mentioned earlier 98.7% of internet connected computers are running a Flash Player, now up to version 9, which means that Flash videos embedded in your website are viryually guaranteed to be easily viewed around the world.

Flash File Formats

Flash files are typically packaged in two different file formats:

‘.swf’ files are complete packaged Flash animations, compiled and published as ‘Flash movies’, which also may contain embedded videos. These are typically downloaded from a website and played in the Flash player.

‘.flv’ files are compressed video clips, ready to play from Flash animations, or stand alone.

When you click a Flash video in a browser and have it play back, the content can actually be delivered in three different ways: progressive download, streaming and embedded. Streaming video is the term generally used but it is not technically correct. There are two options.

Progressive download: Can be accessed from websites hosted on normal servers using the same HTTP protocol used for web pages and normal file downloads. While the server is just basically downloading the file, the Flash Player is smart and can provide the ability to move backwards and forwards, to the currently downloaded point, within the video. In fact, Progressive Download actually downloads the file directly to the user’s Temp folder by nature, so you may be able to find it in the browser’s cache. This is the approach used by video syndication sites like YouTube.

Streaming video: The FLV files are hosted on a server running the Flash Media Server, which provides true real time streaming, including real time broadcasting as in a sports event or concert for instance. This uses Flash RTMP to communicate between the server and player, both of which are now customized for interactive playback. You will have to pay a lot more money to have you site hosted on this type of server and no real need to consider this option as a video producer for your website.

Embedded video: The video is actually included in the Flash SWF file and best only for very short clips.

To take advantage of Flash, as a producer, you have more than one option. If you have made your video and it is in .avi or .wmv format then you can use a video conversion tool such as Riva FLV Encoder to produce a .flv file for uploading to your server. Alternatively you can upload the file to a video sharing site and it will be converted for you, and you aquire the embed code to paste into your webpage or blog.

Pursuing this route gives you no control over your .flv video and will result in a third party, YouTube for instance, adding their banner to your work. There is another alternative and that is to use a paid web video service, read my post about it.