About Network Operations - MACROMEDIA DIRECTOR MX 2004-USING DIRECTOR Use Manual

When Director streams a movie over the Internet, it first downloads the Score data and other
nonmedia information such as scripts and the size of each cast member's bounding rectangle. This
data is usually quite small compared with the size of the movie's media—usually only a few
kilobytes. Before starting the movie, Director then downloads the internal and linked cast
members that are required for the first frame of the movie (or more frames if you have increased
the number in the Movie Playback dialog box). After the movie starts, Director continues to
download cast members (along with any associated linked media) in the background, in the order
the cast members appear in the Score.
If the movie jumps ahead in the Score or uses cast members that are referenced only by scripts, the
required cast member might not be available when necessary. If cast members are not available,
the movie either ignores them or displays a placeholder, depending on how you set the streaming
options in the Movie Playback Properties dialog box. In addition, if cast members are not fully
downloaded and present in memory, you might get script errors, especially if you are working
with 3D.
A challenge of authoring for Internet streaming is ensuring that all cast members have been
downloaded by the time the movie needs them. To avoid missing cast members, make sure that
all the cast members required for a particular scene have been downloaded before beginning
the scene. You can use the Director behaviors to wait for media in certain frames or for particular
cast members. For more information, see
on page 473. You can also write custom scripts to do this. See
are loaded with Lingo or JavaScript syntax" on page
Director movies stream automatically if the Streaming playback option is set to ON (its default
setting is OFF). In addition to turning streaming off and on, you can specify that the media
elements for a certain number of frames must finish downloading before the movie starts playing.
You control streaming movies by arranging sprites in the Score and controlling the movement of
the playhead either with the Director behaviors or with Lingo or JavaScript syntax. You can also
use these scripting methods to specify when externally linked files are downloaded.

About network operations

Director lets a network operation begin even if a previous network operation is not complete.
This capability, often referred to as background loading, lets Director perform multiple
operations while loading files. Because something else is happening while files are loading, the
user does not perceive the wait.
Note: Loading data from a network is different from loading cast members in Director. Loading from
a network loads data to the local disk. Loading cast members in Director means loading cast
members into memory.
It is a good idea to author Shockwave content so that it performs other tasks while data is loading
in the background. Because Internet operations require background loading, Lingo or JavaScript
intended to execute on the Internet behaves differently than script methods that run within one
movie. For more information, see
environments" on page
470 Chapter 24: Using Shockwave Player
"About streaming with the Score and behaviors"
"Using Lingo or JavaScript syntax in different Internet
477.
"Checking whether media elements
474.