Another Flash Question
 

Flash is really just a file extension right? Can we not save movie clips as Flash and therefore avoid some of this whole "streaming technology patent" bullshit?

i just wanna know. is it not viable? does flash fuck up video quality? is it too big to download? i'm asking cause i don't know.

it's okay to tell me: titmowse, you're a fucking idiot. i won't be offended.


I WANT TO KNOW

only on this topic of course. all other idiot comments will be responded to with vehement force :winkwink:

personally i don't know. have u tried the help file? or google? maybe try #flash on efnet (although i already asked them and basically got flamed)

why not upload your foo.swf file or .fla file to a server somewhere....change the extention to whatever and then try to open it in a browser....?

or am i missing the question?

well, i dig that one can "save" a file as flash...the question is what will the quality of the video be like if it's served as a flash file?

why are you using flash?

like surfers care about bells and whistles...

be a fucking man and use Notepad for HTML.

:)

did you not read his first post?

first of all, i'm not a man.

second of all, this isn't about ease of use or surfers.

GODAMMIT! DON'T YOU FOOLS KNOW WHAT I'M TALKING ABOUT? I'M TALKING ABOUT TRYING TO FIND A SOLUTION TO THE ACACIA PROBLEM

the only way you can convert avi to swf, our developers said its compresses pretty good..

okay, okay. you're saying that it's a possiblity? we can all maybe use flash instead of avi, mpeg for video content?

I am not going to be any help with your question here but how about this

two flash games to rot your brain with and then figure it out

http://www.iwantanewgirlfriend.com/f...gettossing.php
http://www.iwantanewgirlfriend.com/flash/mini.php

midget tossing is the best - I did it and missed 4

cute. please don't piss me off

The only solution is to break their bogus patent.

i agree their patent is bogus, but virgin media has already bent over for them.

how would you suggest we break them? i'm asking about flash possiblities because flash is a plugin most surfers have....

another possibility quicktime, realvideo - my guess there not widely used as mpegs and avis

wow you sound just like my x-wife when you say that

- the answer to your rather obvious question is no you can't - you would think it would work but it won't -

Just because some big company thought it cheaper to pay than to fight doesn't mean the patent can't be overturned. With the right law firm and enough money, someone should be able to break them.

why won't it work? can you please explain for me?

in versions of flash, and for flash player versions below MX you can just import your video as a series of bitmaps and it will dislay like video for example : http://www.subnovastudios.com/lights...nternextpromo/

but it is a clunky solution as it literally just plays back a series of images, it doesn't use any of the filesize reducing algorithms that make streaming video so small, ie detecting moving areas and only refreshing those etc.

in flash MX though you can import video files straight in for more on this go here :

http://www.macromedia.com/desdev/tip/017.html

im not sure that this would solve your problem though as all you're really doing is switching from a wmv or whatever to a sorensen codec (the codec flash mx uses) with the codec in the swf.. kinda semantics when they're claiming they've got the patent for streaming video. The only hope would be that macromedia might see it as a huge threat as it makes up a fair amount of their business compared to microsoft and it goes further to using flash at all online. Probably not though.. like other companies they'd just let you sweat it out and see what happens. You'd really think that when it came to the most popular plugin on the net though that there would be some customer support or product validation.. maybe suing macromedia for providing an illegal platform or something stupid like that might make them sit up and take notice, even if it was just a nuisance suit to be dropped straight away as there would be no chance of winning.

ahhh. good. now we're getting somewhere...


keep it coming. i want more ...

I said this months ago, if we got together and sued apple,microsoft, realmedia because they are giving licenses to things they dont own or have the rights too. We wouldnt win but it would wake them up.

I was bored one day and started playing around with flash and video.

http://loadedgirls.com/flash/

The file sizes end up bigger.

Also, I would imagine syncing audio up with the picture would be problematic, since as the other guy mentioned, you end up with a series of sequential bitmaps. You'd have to import the audio as a separate file.

But I never messed with the audio so I don't know for sure.

Actually I never noticed what he said about importing into Flash MX. I used an older version of flash that still required you to import them as bitmaps.

Bhuto and ED are correct. You can import any video media type (with the exception of .wmv and .rm IIRC) into a Flash MX document. Bhutocracy mentions the Sorenson codec which, IMO, sucks. ED is also correct when he says the resulting Flash file (.swf) is bigger than the original video file. (This may not seem like a good trade off, i.e. bigger file, crappier quality). The only possible benefit of using a Flash format instead of any other type of video file is that you have complete control over the GUI that will be displayed to the surfer. Whereas an .mpg will play in Netscape one way and play in Internet Explorer another way, you could design the GUI that the surfers see with Flash.

Whether or not this is a way around the Acacia class action is something a lawyer would need to interpret.