In the
first segment of this report I
briefly mentioned why I found the Big 3 online video alternatives unsatisfactory
(the Big 3 are Windows Media, Real Media, and Quicktime) for day-to-day online
video use. Essentially it boils down to this: too many versions, too many
variables, too much fragmentation of the "viewing audience". Encoding a simple
video for online streaming can involve creating up to 9 or 10 different versions.
In the process of looking around for an alternative I
stumbled onto Camtasia's implementation of Flash for encoding screen captures.
This produces beautiful low fps movies where there is little change from frame
to frame. But it is unsatisfactory for real video. And its audio controls — at
least as far as I can remember — were quite limited.
A
few weeks ago I started looking in earnest again for a "solution" to some
of these problems. This new found interest in the stalled world of online
media was brought on by a series of projects I took on for my son-in-law,
Scott, a relatively new real estate agent. We decided there were major
opportunities for generating real estate business online. More and more
people are looking to the web as their first source of real estate
information, and most real estate agents and brokers continue to be only
marginally literate in the ways of the web. In theory, at least, that
spells "opportunity".
We felt that online audio
and video should be a significant part of our efforts -- if nothing else
this would set Scott apart from the large mass of agents. We decided this
would involve two types of "programming": video-style "virtual tours", and
information presented in the form of "radio" programs -- what you might
call "talking articles".
Both of these required a
simple technique that could easily be embedded in web pages. Flash seemed
like the answer in both cases, but I didn't have the specifics figured out
for either.
First, I wanted to tackle the
video issue. Other than my own "talking articles" and online tutorials
(mentioned above), I had not seen many workable instances of flash-encoded
video. A quick Google search revealed that there were two companies
seriously developing tools for encoding video in Flash. The first product
is "Squeeze", from Sorenson, a major player in the video encoding
business. Squeeze has been endorsed by Macromedia, and has been integrated
into Macromedia's "Flash Video Kit". Since this seems to require
Dreamweaver (which I do not use), and gives the distinct impression of
pushing users towards the complete (expensive and difficult-to-use)
Macromedia suite of tools, this was not going to be my first choice.
The other product is Flix from a company called
Wildform. At first glance Flix
appeared to be my sort of product. Free-standing, no hidden
Macromedia-oriented agenda, apparently quite flexible, and lots of
built-in "player" designs that should hold off for quite a while the
desire to go into Flash MX and start designing new players.
Flix Pro is not real cheap -- $149 for a tool that encodes
flash video. But it will encode from almost any other format (including .wmv,
.avi, .mpeg, mp4, mov/qt, and audio formats .mp3, .wav, and .wma), and
then nicely wrap it up with one of several special built-in players. Add
on the "Power Players" ($29) and you'll have 135 players to choose from.
Flix Pro is a very nice product which quite
effectively solves my embedded video problem. Now I can throw together a
movie in Ulead MediaStudio Pro, output an all-purpose .avi, and have it
flash-encoded and "player-ized" in no time at all.
Here's an example. I expect
it to be the basis for a unique type of "virtual tour" product we are
working on.
File Converted from .wmv
Here is an example of a
video I recorded in the spring of 2001. It was originally encoded for Windows
Media at 320 x 240, 30 fps. The .wmv file was 16 mb. I crunched this through
Flix Pro, encoding it at 15 fps, and reducing the audio quality slightly. The
player was added by Flix Pro at the same time as the encoding was done. The .swf
file came out at just over 10 mb. There is no significant quality loss in the .swf
version, even with the reduction to 15 fps.
This is not "streaming". It is a "progressive download" which is similar to
streaming, but not quite as efficient.
Please excuse the camera work. I took this at a live concert standing in the
crowd just in front of the stage holding a little hand held video camera. The
audio is what was picked up by the onboard mic. Pretty amazing, I thought at the
time.
The group was called "Shadow Fax", four guys from 16 -18. The leader is my
nephew, Dan Rochester. Dan continues to work on his music along with his
brothers, Matt and Doh.
Convert to Vector Example
I took a portion of the same video as on the left and crunched it through
Flix Pro using its "convert to vector" function. This is pretty powerful, and
possibly useful from time to time. The settings could probably use a bit of
tweaking. There are many variables that can be set to modify the output.
