About Using Video In Flash - MACROMEDIA FLASH 8-USING FLASH Use Manual

About using video in Flash

Macromedia Flash lets you incorporate video into your Flash movie in several different ways,
depending on the type of video content you are delivering and your intended application. The
following sections discuss different methods of incorporating video content into Flash:
"About progressively downloading video" on page 274
"About streaming video using Flash Communication Server" on page 275
"About embedding video in a SWF file" on page 276
"About Linked QuickTime video" on page 277
About progressively downloading video
Progressive downloading lets you use ActionScript to load external FLV files into a SWF file,
and play them back at runtime. More specifically, you can use the
objects to initiate playback of the FLV file, and to control the Play, Pause, and
netStream
Seek behaviors, as well as the buffer time and size for a given video file.
Because the video content is kept external to the other Flash content and the video playback
controls, it's relatively easy to update video content without republishing the SWF file.
Progressive downloading provides the following advantages over embedded video:
During authoring, you need to publish only the SWF interface for previewing or testing
part or all of your Flash content. This results in faster preview times and quicker
turnaround on iterative experimentation.
During delivery, video begins playing as soon as the first segment has been downloaded
and cached to the local computer's disk drive.
At runtime, video files are loaded from the computer's disk drive into the SWF file, with
no limitation on file size or duration. There are no audio synchronization issues or
memory restrictions.
The frame rate of the video file can be different from the frame rate of the SWF file,
allowing for greater flexibility in authoring a movie.
274 Working with Video
and
netConnection